Asia Society Poll: Imran Khan - Asia’s Person of the Year**
LAHORE: Imran Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, swept the online Asia’s Person of the Year 2012 reader poll conducted by the Asia Society.
According to the final results, Imran Khan whizzed past everyone else by securing 87.78% of the online votes, Pakistani child activist Malala Yousafzai secured 3.29%, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi 1.98% and the Indian film actor Aamir Khan 1.81%.
The final tally revealed that Imran had more than 11,000 votes, 88 per cent of the total. According to a press release, the Asia Society is a nonpartisan, non-profit institution with its headquarters in New York. It was founded in 1956 by John D Rockefeller III.
It is the leading educational organisation dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among people, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States.
It is safe to say that Imran Khan will perhaps always excel in any online poll, as he has a huge youth following, who are net savvy, and very well aware of not just the present times, but also historical politics, and know all too well the havoc our status quo parties have played in the country in the past 30-40 years.
Here is Awab Alvis interview regarding this survey
Do the poll results come as a surprise to you? Why or why not?
I am delighted to have such overwhelming support for Imran Khan. The poll results don’t come as a surprise as this is the passion of our supporters. These are individual people who are empowered to do their bit for the cause and feel this is their contribution toward Pakistan. Do you know of any specific efforts to get the vote out for Imran Khan for the Asia Society poll?
I was not personally aware of who made the push for this poll, and to be honest I don’t recall seeing it or voting on it, or even having our main social media team put any attention into it. It was done by passionate volunteers out to work for the cause and they do this as their own initiative to keep their audience busy. Hence, this is the true power we have — hundreds of volunteers working for Imran Khan. We were overwhelmed by comments and votes for Imran Khan. Why are his supporters so passionate about him?
Why are the supporters passionate? Let me share why am I passionate. This might better reflect their sentiment. Pakistan is in a total collapsed state and I blame *all *our present leaders for having brought us to this stage. Each leader has blatantly looted to his heart’s desire and unabashedly will stand in front of the electorate and ask them to vote for him again. For me, Imran Khan is my only hope. I truly do not see anyone in the field who can be a better choice to try to fix the affairs of Pakistan. Hence, if he is my best choice I will put my heart out to help him win.
For the past two years, I have devoted hundreds, if not thousands of hours working for this cause. I am a 100 percent volunteer, and a passionate volunteer. Nothing can sway me away from the cause I believe in: A better Pakistan. To achieve that, my conduit is to have Imran Khan elected with a majority so his team can deliver my dream of a better Pakistan. This is probably why we have so many passionate supporters — it’s a patriotic cause. To them, they see Imran Khan as the only person truly committed to fulfilling this dream. Who are his followers? What are the demographics? Who is his average supporter?
The demographics taken from Imran Khan’s official Facebook page provide an example. The page, which has 570,000 likes, has 65 percent males and about 75 percent in the age bracket of 18-34. Generally, I think a similar popular base exists in real life as well. How important are the internet and social media in spreading Imran Khan’s message? And in what ways do you use it?
PTI is using social media as a marketing campaign. It is an arena we control and does not require massive investments from our end. To be honest, zero funds have been used for social media. Not a penny has gone into any form of social media advertisement to generate fans or likes for anything whatsoever. On election day it is a different story. What we hope is that via social media we can generate enough hype that our grassroots movement springs into action.
Each supporter makes his own effort to bring out the voters in his region. It’s not difficult but we need to channel the energy so that they are motivated on election day. The figurative “tsunami” expression that Imran Khan uses truly unroots the status quo to bring about a positive change for Pakistan. How does Khan’s use of the internet and social media differ from other Pakistani politicians?
Khan symbolizes a message of hope for Pakistan, not only in real life but also in his actions and deeds. Khan and his supporters have been using this medium as a core tool from the beginning. For other politicians it is an afterthought. They need to hire social media workers to fabricate and then push their message. It is an artificially created social media environment, truly hanging by a twig. Their constantly swaying policies or blunders require a strategy to distract, and then the message is drummed up so that the mistakes are forgotten.
The problem with us is that we are volunteers. We can also be the voice of dissent as well as an uncontrolled movement that can highlight an issue on its own and possibly compel the leadership to listen. A prime example is the social media hype surrounding the Shahzeb Khan case in Karachi. It was social media pressure that pushed at least the PTI leadership to take notice and stand up for the cause. Imran Khan tweeted about it, and I believe it instantly got serious media attention to become an important example of how social media can raise important issues to our leadership. Can online popularity lead to political prosperity in Pakistan?
Online popularity does not mean you win elections. It is to be treated as a marketing tool along with electronic media which will consequently motivate voters to come out to vote. We know that and we are preparing for a massive get-out-the-vote movement on election day.
He is also representing Pakistan at world economic forum these days and is well liked by most people overseas and gladly some in Pakistan as well.
I can't understand how people can oppose such a personality especially at a time when we have shortage of REAL leaders. I could understand the opposition if we had Jinnah leading one party, Iqbal another or even Bhutto as his opponent but i can NEVER understand people's reluctance to support him when his opponents are Zardari, Sharifs, Shujaat, Altaf, Asfandyar etc
And then we saw something on Facebook that caught our attention. One of the many Facebook pages dedicated to Khan created a post urging its readers to go to our site and vote. It was shared 170 times.** It seemed Khan was the only poll candidate with a grassroots online get-out-the-vote campaign, and the results (and comments on the post) reflected that.Over time, the rate of voting for Khan slowed, but not enough for any other candidate to overcome his huge early lead. At final tally, Khan had more than 11,000 votes, 88 percent of the total.
The kids in Pakistan don’t involve themselves in politics. But it has changed, now you see 15-20 year old kids urging their families to vote on election day. A majority of people who are aware of the political situation in Pakistan do not vote and have not done it in years and years. Which makes it worse because politicians are able to take advantage of the uneducated. But if our young generation can motivate these people it will be all worth it even if it doesn’t win Imran Khan anything. We need to make sure everyone who is able to vote goes out and vote on the election day. And our young generation is doing a great job. :k: Just my 2 cents.
He is also representing Pakistan at world economic forum these days and is well liked by most people overseas and gladly some in Pakistan as well.
I can't understand how people can oppose such a personality especially at a time when we have shortage of REAL leaders.** I could understand the opposition if we had Jinnah leading one party, Iqbal another or even Bhutto as his opponent but i can NEVER understand people's reluctance to support him when his opponents are Zardari, Sharifs, Shujaat, Altaf, Asfandyar etc**
Apparently 37 million bogus voters (from the last election) have been removed by the Election Commission and about 40 million new voters (most of them young people) have been registered since the last election in Feb 2008
50% of the Pak population is aged < 25
Let’s see if the above can actually materialize (in Imran’s favour) in the coming election
he may be a great guy but person of the year in Asia? ridiculous! What has he done other than holding rallies? rallies in Asia are dime a dozen. If Rajnikant so much as sneezes with his left nostril we'll have a rally bigger than all of Imran's put together!
he may be a great guy but person of the year in Asia? ridiculous! What has he done other than holding rallies? rallies in Asia are dime a dozen. If Rajnikant so much as sneezes with his left nostril we'll have a rally bigger than all of Imran's put together!
OK!! Good for India, Rajni is so talented he can sneeze with his left nostril too!! WOW!
Imran has ONLY built a hospital which offers free treatment for cancer patients, very bad Imran very bad, Imran should now learn to sneeze with his right nostril so he can compete with Rajni!
he may be a great guy but person of the year in Asia? ridiculous! What has he done other than holding rallies? rallies in Asia are dime a dozen. If Rajnikant so much as sneezes with his left nostril we'll have a rally bigger than all of Imran's put together!
I think more than rallies, maybe it's his cancer hospital that provides free treatment to thousands who may not have been able to afford even 1% of the cost of treatment. Maybe IKF relief work in KPK, Balochistan also helped and so did Imran's efforts to provide world class education in remote village? Another cancer in Peshawar has already started and one in Karachi will also start soon, all this when he has not come to power as yet.
he may be a great guy but person of the year in Asia? ridiculous! What has he done other than holding rallies? rallies in Asia are dime a dozen. If Rajnikant so much as sneezes with his left nostril we'll have a rally bigger than all of Imran's put together!
Lol Rajni can go and sneeze with his nostrils all his life thats all he can do
awesome!
