Posted on Chowrangi.com on February 17, 2008
I have not voted in the past two elections, because I know that nothing will change in Pakistan as long as the candidates are crooks. This time too the candidates in my locality are not the kind who can be called honest. I will not name them, but the reason I don’t want to vote for them is because they belong to parties which have a very poor record. One is the party which has reformed itself a bit by changing the face of Karachi, but the members of this party are unfortunately well-known for their unnatural subservience to its chief. Both the other parties are well-known for being corrupt. The founder of one of the parties played a leading role in the break-up of Pakistan in 1971. This party had three stints in power, but unfortunately its leaders chose to enrich themselves rather than serve the country. The remaining party is also known to have very corrupt leaders who chose to spend eight years in the comfort of a palace in Saudi Arabia rather than face the rigors of jail in Pakistan. If they had chosen to remain in the country, international pressure would have forced the government to release them and they would have turned into heroes. But then, the leader of this party wanted to impose sharia in the country, not because he loves Islam, but to make fools of the people. (In fact, sometimes I think having sharia would be a good idea, if it leads to punishing these corrupt leaders who have ruined Pakistan).
So I think it would be better to stay at home rather than cast my vote for people who will only loot the country and make it much poorer than it already is.
