In a democratic set up, prolonged confrontation to gain power, result into polarization and making a state weak. A political worker just follow party line and does not understand the deeper intent of its party leadership, thus forms opinion on slogans, statements and media debates. When society is polarized, hatred against opposition becomes personal issue of every follower. Thus, political parties keep toeing the same line till they bring their voters to a point of no return. But when they leave the party workers wondering due to actual moves on ground, the whole thinking process of voters is destroyed which leads him or her to frustration. Politics is all about making things possible for good for the country and people. The present unrest in the country will immediately dissipate if political moves synch with political communication. The coming elections is a big challenge for all political parties. It is hard to predict the voter’s mood at this point in time. Social media is constantly influencing the opinion and unfortunately this all is happening on various digital platforms through lies, deceit and propaganda on couple of petty issues. It is hard to predict what type of political environment is going to emerge after elections? A stable political environment will be foremost requirement to handle serious economic crisis country faces today.
Governance in Pakistan has never been an easy task. Economic down fall and political gimmicks by all stake holders has been a constant feature of country’s political history in last many decades.
Immediately after the end of cold war, Afghanistan, in the back yard of Pakistan, turned into a battle ground for war against terrorism. The war extended up to Libya, Syria, Iraq. All four countries, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq have been turned into ashes, killing thousand of people and making much more homeless. Destruction and law and order never remain confined to an area, rather its spreads like a pandemic in whole region. The NATO forces never got going in Afghanistan due to their own faulty policies and Pakistan was made scape goat for western governments’ failures. Western media was harsh and unfair with Pakistan. Inter-media agenda, third level agenda setting, resulted into same critique in domestic press. Any criticism on Pakistan by Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Khalilzad was prominently displayed in print and electronic media but situation on ground was never verified. The orchestrated portrayal of Pakistan in western media has resulted into serious blow back on foreign policy front for the country. A country’s image transform into its political strength at global level. The image
of a peaceful country attract investors. This however, was denied to Pakistan by India through Indian Chronicles and supported by western media.
When first democratic government was formed, after eight years of military rule in 2008, country was facing not only leadership crisis but serious governance issues including energy shortfall, inefficient institutions, terrorism, law and order situation in Karachi, external intervention in Balochistan.
A common thing among political governments in last fifteen years has been ‘confrontational approach’ . Public agenda has been put on back burner.
Since, 2008, country is facing longest war in history, fighting terrorism. It is time when country need political stability most since its creation in 1947 but it has witnessed opposite. Two days ago the terrorist attacks in Mastung and Hangu reveals that threat is yet not over.
It is hard to differentiate whether external forces fueled and exploited internal political unrest or internal forces are cause of intervention of external forces. Both destabilizing forces, however, have joined hands at the moment and country is still locked in uncertainty. Social media is adding more to the troubled environment and those behind troll farms are not ready to understand the harm they are doing to the country.
