The system is indeed broken...but I disagree with u in the way it is broken. While the politicians, generals, bureaucrats...all are responsible...u can't say that the ppl are not.
If anything I put a heavy blame on the ppl themselves...bcuz they easily just scapegoat and point at the looters...while bearing no responsibility for their own stupidity. If I leave my money out sitting on a bench in a public park...and blame passerbys for stealing it...surely my stupidity had a big part to play in it.
I grew up in Lahore...and I got to see up close...the pattern along which the ppl vote(in big cities/urban areas).
- The vote was given either bcuz that local politician(or thanks to the that particular political party) this person landed some cushy government job...and now his vote and his whole family's votes were earmarked for this political party election after election.
- Some politician(running for elections)...spent some money to plz the local ppl...solving some problems like building roads, fixing the sewage system of some town, telephone lines(back when it was landlines mainly), and other such minor problems...at some small scale. This was just a temporary thing during campaign...to please the ppl enough to get their votes...nevermind the fact that afterwards he/she looted much more than spent.
- Last but not least...was voting along ethnic lines.
Now coming to rural areas...I personally didn't live in rural areas...but here in the US...I met a lot of international Pakistani students(a lot of them my very close friends)...who come from various backgrounds...all are from families that u would call the "elites"...some are relatives of politicians, some are relatives of high ranking bureaucrats, some are relatives of "waderas", etc...think Aitchison O level graduates...whose families could obviously afford to earn in rupees and spend in dollars enough to be able to afford expensive US universities(especially expensive for international students) for several years. It's no easy feat btw.
Now to get to the point of voting patterns in rural areas...some of these international students I'm mentioning come from rural areas(their family owns massive amounts of land in rural areas).
- Basically...the ppl in rural areas vote for whoever their village's "Chaudhary" tells them to vote for.
- Another factor here as well is voting along ethnic lines.
^ this above only applies to rural areas of Punjab btw...I don't know much about rural areas of KPK, Balochistan, and Sindh...I assume clans would also play a part in those areas.
To make the long story short...ppl of Pakistan vote for either momentary self gain(their road being repaired or having some government job) while not caring how this person is going to loot the country at large...
...or they vote along ethnic lines...showing more loyalty to their own tribe, ethnicity, etc. rather than showing loyalty to the country.
Either they vote for these corrupt a**holes...knowing full well they are damaging the country for some short term self gain...
Or they vote in ignorance not paying attention to the actions of the ppl they elected(and therefore not knowing of their corruption/incompetence)...
...and I'm not sure which is worse.
P.S. I've tried mentioning these issues before at another forum...and basically got labelled as a "foreigner"...and ppl got offended saying that "who am I to call the Pakistani ppl stupid"...and that "it's easy for me to pass judgement while living comfortably in a western country"...
...and so that discussion was dead on arrival...not much of a discussion basically bcuz how dare I question the topic of uninformed
(or purposely uninformed for some personal benefit) voter. Let's all conveniently ignore the fact that the state of democracy reflects heavily the ppl of that democracy(on average) just bcuz I'm an outsider. I wouldn't be surprised if ppl started using that same reasoning here as well.
@Khafee