Why are young contestants challenging Pakistan’s political elite?

Ammar Ali Jan and Jibran Nasir are among a handful of young Pakistanis who have decided to take on the political elite in the February 8 national elections.

For decades, Pakistan’s government has been a revolving door for established politicians connected to either the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) or the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Even former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party, which carved out a niche among younger voters, included several lawmakers who, at one point or another, were part of traditional political groups.

If the results of previous elections are any guide then it’s unlikely these young contestants can score a win as they lack the financial muscle and grassroots network to challenge mainstream parties.

But Jan says it’s worth a shot as a majority of the young people have lost hope and trust in the political elite who have ruled the country since its independence in 1947.

“Hopelessness is what we are fighting against. We cannot accept hopelessness as a permanent state,” says thirty-seven-year-old Jan, general secretary of the small leftwing Haqooq-e-Khalq Party.

What has alienated the masses is the capture of the country’s resources by a small elite segment and constant interference of the military in the election process, he tells TRT World.

Another problem that Pakistan faces and which politicians have not tried to address is the influence, that the US exerts on Pakistan’s domestic affairs, says Jan, who is contesting for the Punjab provincial assembly’s PP160 seat from Lahore.

“We have this consistent problem due to US interference, with regards to military dictatorships and our economic policies.”

Pakistan has around 127 million registered voters, as per the data released by the country’s election body in September last year, and of them, about 57.1 million are aged between 18 and 35 — the largest voting group.

Former prime minister Imran Khan has been disqualified from taking part in the elections and jailed for corruption charges, which his party says are politically motivated.

PTI has also been stripped off of its electoral symbol — a bat.

In a country like Pakistan with a low literacy rate, people associate political groups with their election symbols. Stopping PTI from using its symbol makes it difficult for its contestants to garner votes.

But Khan remains widely popular among young voters who have rallied behind his call for bringing much-needed change in Pakistan, which ranks at the bottom of human development index, at 161 out of 191 countries, with war-stricken countries like Sudan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

In the absence of Khan, PML-N’s three-time prime minister Sharif remains the strongest contender to secure a fourth term in office, various surveys show.

“The entire system, the constitution, the law, basic rights, have all been dismantled to make one man the prime minister. That of course is generating a lot of hopelessness across Pakistan, and especially among the young people,” says Jan.

In Pakistan’s tribal and clan-based political system, getting elected has become a family affair where an assembly seat in a constituency is passed down generations without much consideration given to the well-being of the country as a whole.

And this is where Pakistani voters should take a cue from the Palestinians, says Jan.

“What Palestinians are doing in Gaza is politics. That’s politics which is very different from the politics of career politicians. It is the politics of principles, of truth, of resistance. And this is the kind of politics that should inspire us.”

In Pakistan’s economic hub of Karachi, activist-lawyer Jibran Nasir is waging a struggle of his own.

Karachi, a crucial battleground both at national and provincial levels, is part of Pakistan’s Sindh province, where for decades the turf has belonged to the PPP.

Nasir, 36, who is vying for a national and a provincial assembly seat as an independent candidate, too, finds “hopelessness” as the pervasive sentiment among the voters.

“When my campaign volunteers reach out to people in the constituency, they report back the sense of confusion and uncertainty,” he says. “People do not think the election will bring about anything good for them.”

Uphill task

Both Jan and Nasir have not found it easy to stand their ground against mainstream political groups.

Jan’s nomination papers were earlier rejected by the election body, only for the courts to allow him to contest later.

Nasir, on the other hand, was abducted by law enforcement agencies last year for trying to represent Khan’s supporters who are facing sedition charges.

In a political landscape such as that of Pakistan, challenges for third-party candidates are plentiful.

“You first have to be taken seriously by the people, which means that you have to work harder. You will be drowned out by money, you will be drowned out by their publicity because the mainstream parties have deep roots,” says Jan.

“By that, I mean, they will have political people on the ground that have been canvassing for them for the past 30-40 years, at least. You have to create that infrastructure for the first time. So that’s something different.”

Nasir, too, says that mainstream political parties have an advantage when it comes to wooing voters in the run-up to the election. But he says voters should base their choice on what these parties have offered to them in the past.

“After having a budget of billions and billions of rupees at its disposal and yet a mainstream political party brags about inaugurating a model police station in a village or a hospital during its entire tenure then I think people do need to ask if this is what they deserve for their vote,” says Nasir.

But the performance of mainstream political parties alone is not why Nasir refuses to join or be a part of one.

“I prefer not to be a part of any political party not because of my ideas per se, but because of the compromises political parties have to make,” Nasir tells TRT World.

“If being a part of a political party will prevent me from taking a stand on what I believe in, then it will make me an ineffective political force.”

Nasir says he has been speaking out against rights abuses, enforced disappearances, gender-based discrimination and violence against minorities for over a decade and this is something he cannot backtrack on.

Haqooq-e-Khalq Party’s Jan is a left-leaning politician, which in Pakistan comes with a host of challenges in itself.

“We confront some of the taboos, some of the norms of the status quo, including extremism and the stranglehold of the establishment,” Jan tells TRT World. “So we have been targeted, our movement has been targeted. Our students have been targeted. I have been targeted.”

Jan was fired from a leading university in Lahore for his activism, which includes calling for more rights for the people of the restive Balochistan province.

“I am still facing a sedition case. So this is that, that is the other hurdle,” he says, adding, “But I am quite happy with the response that people have given despite these hurdles and I am pretty confident for the election results on February 8.”

Despite facing numerous hurdles, Jan insists that people exercise their democratic right to vote.

“We will rise again. And to make it happen, it’s important that people take part in the democratic process, they cast their vote.”