Youth with cams give tough time to leaders
islamabad — The crowd of young Pakistanis, many armed with smartphones, surround the politician’s car and begin streaming live footage of something extraordinary: angry voters asking their elected representatives what they have done for them lately.
A titanic 46 million people below the age of 35 are registered to vote in nationwide elections on July 25 — many of them savvy social media users who are posting videos calling out the powerful.
In one clip, influential politician, landowner and tribal chief Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan is filmed in his car in Multan surrounded by young men chanting “thief ” and “turncoat”.
“Where were you during the last five years?” they ask Bosan, complaining over the poor state of roads in the area. An aide can be heard pleading that the leader is feeling unwell.
To be held accountable in such a public manner is virtually unheard of for Pakistani politicians, especially in rural areas where many of the videos
have been filmed. There landowners, village elders and religious leaders have for decades been elected unopposed. Many are known to use their power over residents to bend them to their will.
But videos like the one of Bosan have gone viral in the weeks leading up to the polls, shared thousands of times in a country of some 207 million people, of whom roughly a quarter use 3G and 4G internet, according to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority.
They have also made their way on to television channels, ensuring they are also broadcast to audiences without access to social media.
Analysts are watching closely to see whether these rare moments of
accountability might disrupt the way the major political parties have long relied on rural politicians and their huge vote banks as a shortcut to power.
The videos’ popularity is a sign of simmering resentment against corrupt politicians among Pakistan’s youth, says Sarwar Bari, an analyst at the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), a democratic watchdog.
Historically apathetic, young Pakistanis first emerged as a political force in the 2013 elections, when a generation who grew up idolising cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan voted for his Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf in droves.
“Social media has emerged as a democracy strengthening tool,” says Shahzad Ahmed, director of Bytes for All, a digital rights group.
Bari, who predicts election turnout will be “massive”, says if even half of the young voters who have seen and shared such videos go to the polls “it will strengthen the trust of the people in the democratic system”.
But who they will vote for is hard to predict, with vast socioeconomic, religious and ideological differences between this huge population — though jobs and education are among their most unifying demands.
Polls still broadly indicate youth support for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Imran Khan’s populist, reformist agenda. —
17m
Or more people in the 18-25 age group are set to cast their ballot for the first time in the July 25 elections