KARACHI: Many voters turned up in large numbers on Wednesday expecting a ‘real’ change that around 46 million of the country’s young generation was assured of by every contesting political party.

The analysis of the final results will show as to what extent the young voter — between the age of 18 and 35 as described by the Election Commission of Pakistan — played a role in the national polls.

However, the young voters usually called ‘social media generation’ interviewed by Dawn in various localities of the country’s largest city appeared in high spirits and optimistic that at least this time around the new government they were electing with their votes would resolve the problems the country was facing.

Undeterred by purported security threats many young girls and boys queued up outside polling stations anxiously waiting to exercise their right to franchise for the first time.

They were taking selfies, constantly posting them on the social networking sites and closely monitoring the trends on Twitter appearing with the hashtags of their respective parties’ leaders.

“This is the first time I’m casting my vote. I waited for two hours in the queue,” Sheerin Fatima, a student, told Dawn, as she along with another first-time female voter came out of the polling station set up in NA-247 constituency in Zamzama, DHA.

“The issues are corruption, strengthening of institutions, education, stability and security in the country,” Ms Fatima added, expecting the new government to be formed as a result of her vote would address the issues in the next five years.

Aspiring voters demanded whosoever became the country’s next prime minister should come up to the promises made to them in the electioneering campaigns, particularly to root out corruption, control growing extremism and terrorism.

According to age-wise data collated and exclusively published by Dawn two months before the nation went to the polls, there are 17.44m voters between the age of 18 and 25; the number of voters between the age of 26 and 35 years is 28.99m; while there are 22.48m voters between the age of 36 and 45 years.

Like Fatima, many other first-timers believed that their vote would help elect “sincere” and “competent” leaders to represent them in the national and provincial parliaments.

“Uninterrupted provision of basic amenities and sustainable law and order situation should be the focus,” Mohammad Qasim, a 22-year-old middle class garments’ factory worker and supporter of a nationalist party, demanded after casting his vote in NA-256.

He felt content to have voted for the PML-N in the 2013 general elections, saying “it was worth his vote”.

In the next camp, Fahad Ghouri, a 26-year-old voter supporting a religious-political party and particularly focusing on the youth in his comments, named unemployment as the major challenge for the upcoming government to be tackled on a priority basis.

“Eight out of 10 young people prefer to go abroad just because we don’t have good job opportunities and we don’t have merit in Pakistan,” complained the commerce graduate.

“Whosoever will become the next prime minister tomorrow, I expect (him/her) to ensure even-handed accountability similar to that faced by ousted PM Nawaz Sharif in corruption cases instead of merely conducting a media trial. Others, including PPP, PTI, ANP and even JI should also be treated on equal footing,” he said as he also shouted “end to terrorism”.

Muzzamil Ghafoor, a 20-year-old computer science graduate, who cast his vote for the first time in NA-245 Azizabad, sounded more concerned with the weakening of the national economy and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) placing Pakistan in the grey list over the alleged terror financing.

He said the new government should strengthen financial institutions to curb corruption and terror financing.

Standing in a queue outside an Essa Nagri polling station, Ms Amal, a first-time Christian voter, expected that the next government would attend to their problems after the general elections and help remove the ‘stamp’ put on their neighbourhood as being “a non-Muslims area” faced with lack of basic amenities and drug trafficking.

Mohammad Rabi, a 20-year-old bangle factory worker, who polled his first vote for an emerging religious party, like many other fellow party supporters, demanded that the upcoming parliament strive for the safeguarding of Khatm-i-Nubuwat, construct dams, root out corruption and repatriate Pakistani neuroscientist Afia Siddiqui languishing in the US.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2018