By Fazal Muhammad Khan: A recent graduate from Government College  University, Lahore, he was the Editor of the university’s annual scientific magazine, The Scientific Ravi, for the session 2011.

Last week, I posted on my Facebook status a very interesting question, wherein I asked whether to opt for “voting on party basis” irrespective of whosoever and howsoever the ticket-holder of the particular political party is, or to vote for an individual irrespective of his political affiliation.

One thing is for sure that, viewed from the broader prospective, it would be the “voting on party basis”, and not the “the voting on individual personality basis”, that would benefit the individual voters in the parliament house(s). That being said, the legal wordings in the constitution of Pakistan allow only the party policies, and not the individual ideologies, to predominate in legislation.

In such a situation, the voters (read it “every Tom, Dick and Harry”) find themselves at sixes and seven whether to vote for a particular person irrespective of his political affiliation, or for (the manifesto or ideology of) a political party. Said in another way, should it be meant as voting for a “lota”, or morally-banged individual, or criminal, or tax-evader, or loan-defaulter, or fake-degree holder, or Badmash, or winning-horse if he parts in elections on the ticket of a political party whose political manifesto is in consonance with the voter’s tune?

To my question, Rafiullah Khan Kakar, who is this year’s Rhodes Scholar from Pakistan, replied that voting in such a case required that the voter should be realistic in his approach, and that he must take into consideration all other factors inclusive of all the goods that a particular candidate (irrespective of his party’s political manifesto or ideology) could confer upon his constituency, community and the voters even though his personality may be objectionable. An idealist, he thought, may not vote for such a candidate.

Hazrat Wali Kakar, who is Youth Minister for Interior, Kashmir Affairs, Gilgit-Baltistan and FATA at Youth Parliament Pakistan, commented that the political culture of the country favored only personality-based candidates at large, and not the particular party-affiliated-ones. According to him, the country’s political parties depend upon their candidates, and not upon their political manifestos, to win the election seat(s), and that the voters take into consideration the development projects, and not the party’s ideology, which a particular candidate may have carried out in the past in his constituency.

Mateeullah Tareen, a member of the Youth parliament Pakistan, is of the view that the candidates, whose personality is objectionable, can be voted for if the party’s manifesto has been framed in the best interest of the general public, and that its past track record is somewhat commendable in a particular constituency.

His views are endorsed by Ahsen Raza, the highest university award (Roll of Honor) holder from Government College University Lahore, who thinks that the democratic culture in Pakistan requires that the voting must be party based, not individual based, as in the latter case the political ideology of one political party would have different and mixed representation in the parliament house(s) by the members of the same political parties. This may result into political blackmailing of a particular political party by an individual or group of individuals, hence, hampering the legislation severely. Such was also the view of Asmat Khan, a student in Government College University Lahore from Balochistan.

Tailpiece: The socio-ideological bifurcation of the country into liberal (secular) and extremist classes, and the socio-ethnic divide (based on biradarism, tribalism, feudalism, etc.) within the country have always hampered the country’s journey towards prosperity. Both the monsters can only be defeated when one votes on the party basis or for the political ideology/manifesto of a particular political party, and not on individual basis (on the basis of biradarism, tribalism. etc.). That said in another way, the voters need to be highly educated so as to make them understand that it would be “the voting on party basis” that would, in the long run, prosper them, and so as to orient their attitude towards strengthening of political parties, not the individuals.

But the confusion still remains whether to vote for a controversial candidate who may be the ticket holder of a political party, whose manifesto is in sync with the voter’s tone or not? At present one may not have any satisfactory answers/remedies to this question, but in the long run, legislation concerning the scrutiny process (article 61 and 62) of the candidates needs to be thoroughly discussed in the parliament and, hence, amended to be improved so that all such debatable candidates should be stopped from parting in elections.