Electorates, Electioneering and Electoral Politics in Pakistan: A Study into Bhutto-Zia Antagonism (1970-1988)

Abstract

There is a direct connection and relationship between elections and electorates. Even All the voting patterns rightly emerge from the election-electorate binary eventually determine the fate of electoral process which both results and inculcates into the government-making with all modes of decision-making and functioning, law-making and smooth functioning of all the organs of the state including executive or administration, policy making and judiciary, etc. However; it marks ideal approach which seems quite different from ground realities. The political epoch of 1970-1988 tells the different stories revolving around three variables i. e. Electorates, Electioneering and Electoral Politics as dependent variables under one big independent variable—Bhutto-Zia Antagonism which proved watershed to the forthcoming history of the nation which can be taken as hypothesis. This study is a fresh look into the then political arena based on the functioning and results of the aforementioned variables. As the historical record of Pakistani Elections manifests, they had been held on the need-based intervals due to the weak democratic institutions, complexity of the power-play and political instability which have been categorically discussed by the election experts worldwide. For instance; the results of 1970 General Elections were not accepted by the political and other stakeholders that led to rifts and dichotomies and ultimately claimed the integrity of the country on gloomy note. Similarly; the 1977 General Elections were the worst example of ‘electioneering’ and mistreatment of the expectations of electorates which invited General Zia to marshal the circumstances. Here, in the research in hand, an effort has been made to highlight the role of electorates, albeit the dominance of electioneering and gradual decline of the response of the electorates in forthcoming series of elections in summative as well analytical manner and this will help in establishing as well as developing an overall understanding of the phenomenon, especially in Pakistani perspective.