The May 30 local government elections proved that the priorities of voters are fast changing and ideological politics is gradually diminishing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, raising new challenges for the candidates belonging to various political parties to win over the hearts of people in future elections.

The non-party elections further strengthened the politics of ‘priorities’ based on personal interests, clan system, regionalism, local issues and malpractice as well. The demands for solution to local problems like, provision of clean drinking water, construction of pavements, roads, supply of natural gas or electricity also matter to great extent.

In such a situation where people, especially the educated youth, are suffering owing to unemployment, lack of financial resources and increasing social problems, the politicians are unable to satisfy the masses on the basis of their ‘hollow’ ideological slogans.

It seems that in future the people belonging to middle class would be unable to become members of the National or provincial assemblies and only the wealthy candidates or those belonging to influential families would be able to win the elections.

“It is not a new thing because the ‘politics of ideologies’ was destroyed when former Soviet Union was disintegrated in the tussle with the United States. The ideologies are alive but weakening with passing of time,” said ANP central general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain, when asked about the new phenomenon.

He said that it was bad fortune of the country that politics of personal interests was getting strength. The non-party elections were main reason of the changing scenario, he added. “The political parties are always in support of the party-based elections to strengthen the ideological politics because it is in the best interests of the country,” he said.

The ANP leader said that not only the dictators but the politicians also played role in weakening ideological politics. The recently held local government elections in the province were also held on non-party basis and later the successful candidates were asked to join political parties within three days, he added.

Mr Hussain said it was astonishing that the candidates were not allowed to contest the polls on the symbols of their respective political parties and after the elections they were directed to show their association with the parties within three days. He said that it was a preplanned strategy of the government to attract maximum number of independent elected representatives to form governments at the districts, tehsils and town levels.

Basic thing, the ANP leader said, was character and those, who lost it, could adopt any method for success in the elections. Now people have a materialistic approach and prefer to get personal gains instead of giving sacrifices in the name of ideology.

“ANP is not a political party but it is an ideological movement since its inception and its workers still follow the philosophy of our great leaders Bacha Khan and Abdul Wali Khan but we admit that ideological politics is becoming weak as compared to materialistic politics,” said Mr Hussain.

In the prevailing circumstances, the political workers attach great expectations to their leaders. They believe that government is a money making machine, so they become least bothered to stick to the ideology with empty hands.

The ANP leader said that another thing was change in their values because now the corrupt and rich people were given more respect in the society. In such a situation, the ideological politics could not flourish, he added. “In the past, the people had the courage to hate the corrupt elements, looters and plunderers but now groups of educated youth can be seen around such personalities,” he added.

Mr Hussain said that the trend of weakening ideological politics was a bad omen for the society and it was need of the hour to take effective steps for character building of the new generation, creation of awareness against corruption, against the illegal practice of selling of votes and compromise on principles.

He said that it was corruption that increased the incidents of terrorism in the country because the incidents of kidnapping for ransom, targeted killing, bomb blasts and streets crimes were taking place just for the sake of money.

Jamaat-i-Islami provincial information secretary Advocate Israrullah Khan said that in the past people supported ideological parties but the dictators during their tenures introduced non-party politics, distributed cash and uplift schemes among the leaders which changed direction of ideological politics.

“Now the parties will have to change their manifestoes, bring attraction in policies to focus on solution to the problems pertaining to health, education, economy, security, foreign and internal policies for welfare of the common people otherwise the politics of personal interests will be further strengthened,” he said.

Mr Khan said that there was only one ideology of Islam and it was need of the hour to implement the 1973 Constitution in real sense to overcome the unfair means and money game for ever.

Similarly, JUI-F provincial information secretary Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan said that his party was still getting votes on the basis of Islamic ideology as voters supported the people belonging to a religious party.

The entire mess has been created by the dictators and capitalists, who are in the habit to pay money for purchasing votes and changing loyalties. The non-party elections were one of the main reasons but the opposition parties could not do anything in formation of the policies, he said.

Mr Jan said that the workers of different political parties had become corrupt as they had nothing to do with ideology and their only purpose was to accumulate a lot of wealth.

PPP former provincial president Rahim Dad Khan also agreed that in the past the workers used to be very loyal to their parties due to the ideologies but with passing of time they also changed their priorities. He said that the slogans of communism and socialism were popular among people in the past but now the situation had totally changed.

PML-N provincial secretary Rehmat Salam Khattak said that in the prevailing situation political workers only expected work and service and the votes were also polled on the basis of services. He said that people believed in personal interests and that’s why a limited number of people would be there to remember the ideology.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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