Just came back from a brief visit to make, election campaigns are in full flow. Ultimately, in every meeting with friends, relatives, politics cam up. There are some interesting observations in these elections, that i wanted to share.
Electables and PTI:
There is no doubt that electables do have their importance in elections specially at local political level. These people have maintained their contacts with local people and people do vote for them, and they have some level of confidence. PTI has not found many electables in its ranks, but, it seems they need not hunt for them. The voter of PTI is youth, these youth are either new registered voters or those who in previous elections had not bothered to vote. They have had little interaction with old generation politicians aka electables. Therefore, i felt that not having old gaurd among its ranks is not going to make much difference to PTI since its vote bank is different.
**
Vote Split Between PML-N and PTI**
It is not going to be as significant as i had previously thought. As i wrote b4, the older generation is still going to vote for PML-N and Tsunami has not had that much effect on them. So i think, in the end it depend upon which party can mobilise its voters on polling day, as the traditional PML-N vote bank still stands.
Biradari Vote
Had heard a lot about it, but only this time realized its power. My grandfather and grandmother have voted in every election held in Pakistan. Our family had tradiotnally been voting for PML, except in 1971, when they voted for Bhutto. However, i was amazed to know that my grandparents in national assembly elections had always voted for PPP and in provincial assembly elections for PML-N, which was a surprise to me as they did not like PPP. But it seems they voted due to biradri alliances.
Future is for PTI
I am not sure how much seats will Imran get in this election, but overwhelming majority of young people, 18-35 range is voting for PTI. They may or may not sway the election results this time, but they definitely will in future. What i don’t know is if Imran is in it for the long haul or will he loose interest if he does not get lot of votes in the current elections.