LAHORE: Suppression of free-will of voters through various coercive methods and buying of vote takes place in almost all elections in Pakistan but “the level and scale of vote-buying that we are witnessing in our areas is unmatched” said a large majority of participants of the survey research conducted by PATTAN-FAFEN during the last few days in NA133 constituency.
According to the preliminary findings of the study the contesting candidates of two major political parties reportedly have been paying between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 to every voter who was willing to take oath on holy books and is registered in the constituency as a vote.
Few participants of the study even confessed of receiving Rs. 3,000.
A significant number of participants also noted that the standard rate of one vote was Rs. 2,000 but many distributors of money were involved in ‘corruption’.
Some respondents of the study also mentioned that they were being offered carts and food ration.
Reportedly the vote-buying started soon after the announcement of the election schedule but it “has touched the skies in the last few days,” said a respondent.
Most respondents of the study attributed Covid pandemic and price-hike to widespread scale vote-buying.
Some participants of a minority community reported that when they refused to take oath on their holy book the vote-buyers asked them to return the money. On further probing many participants of the research said that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was far more active in vote buying than the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
And major role in vote-buying business is being played by local influential and party supporter of both parties. Since Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate was not in the race, some of PTI office bearers were also found involved in assisting voters of PTI to receive money from other parties.
For instance, a former PTI activist from Akbar Shaheed Chock area told our team that PPP had promised her ticket against women quota seat if she mobilized women in favour of PPP candidate on the polling day.
In response to our probing why did the Pakistan People’s Party blatantly involve at such a large- scale vote-buying, most people we talked to said PPP wanted to “establish that its vote-bank in Lahore had surged. It would also help the party to boost its image and chances to win next election in Lahore”.
The purpose of this study was to assess the scale of vote-buying and suppression of the freewill of voters. We also wanted to investigate underlying factors of vote-buying/selling as well as the methods.
For the purpose PATTAN-FAFEN conducted six Focus Group Discussions with men and women residing in working class areas and slums.
Our trained teams also visited various areas of the constituency, observed minutely the electioneering environment.
During the visits they also talked with men and women of the area. The survey was conducted between 30th November and 3rd December.
It is worth noting here that most election observation groups mainly focus on fairness of election. PATTAN-FAFEN has decided to focus primarily to measure the freeness of elections which reflects free will of voters.
An election in which voters’ will is suppressed can’t be considered free nor fair.
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