Investor Presentaiton
Pakistan Social Sciences Review (PSSR)
April-June, 2022 Volume 6, Issue 2
dependence on local land-owning elites were different as compared to Mughal and
Sikh era due to their modern bureaucratic and governance transformation in the sub-
continent but eventually they relied on land-holders and appointed them as revenue
collectors which reflect the relationship between local influencers and the British in
the sub-continent. The economic and social status of the landed elite in Punjab always
has a powerful position in the local, provincial, and the general elections. Most of the
candidates who have a proportionate level of land holdings and local influence
dominate the electoral politics. This trend of influencer land-holders and their
dominant role in politics continued in Punjab even after the independence of
Pakistan. For instance, when Ayub Khan enacted the system of Basic democracies and
banned the political parties, it was the landed class that contributed to providing
legitimacy to the authoritarian regime. This trend remained vital in the electoral
politics of Punjab later on as well. Furthermore, the writer has endorsed the fact that
Birdarism is one of the main mobilization forces in the politics of rural Punjab (Javid,
2012, pp. 2-32).
Moreover, Dr. Mughees Ahmed has explained the voting trends of rural and
urban Punjab in which local political culture dominates the voting behavior. In this
context, biradaries and caste clusters are vital sources for the candidates to get
support. The writer has provided a detailed description that how the notion of
cultivators vs non-cultivators and later rural and urban division have colonial roots.
Under the Punjab Alienation Land Act of 1901, the non-cultivators (Kammi) were
proscribed from buying any cultivated land. In addition, under British Raj, the
agriculturist and landowners based on Biradari and clans were more empowered in
terms of government jobs and socio-political status. For this reason, this trend
remained dominant in the politics of Punjab even after independence. The writer has
further explained the political dynamics of constituencies in Faisalabad which
provides an insight into the politics of central Punjab. The Biradari factor dominated
the voting in the general elections from 1977-2002 in the rural areas as compared to
urban areas signifying that the landowner Biradari remained popular within their
constituencies as 74 percent of the people voted on the basis of Biradari factor. Main
stream political parties also gave tickets to the candidates based on Biradari and clan
elements.
Besides this, Andrew R. Wilder has analyzed the main electoral trends in
Punjab by comparing the political patterns in the 1993 and 1998 general elections.
Wilder took the data of polling stations to identify the main trends that include
difference of male and female population voting behavior, class difference, the voting
behavior of government employees, regional difference, and urban-rural divide. It
was being observed that the women vote bank of PPP was higher as compared to
PML-N mainly due to the leadership factor of Benazir Bhutto. In addition, women
were not independent in deciding to choose among candidates rather it was a family
decision and mainly the instructions of the male members that influence the casting
of the female vote. Furthermore, it is being explained that the popular perception that
PPP had more support within the poor and rural strata of society and PML-N have
been more popular in the middle and upper class persisted in the analysis of Wilder
on general elections as results from the constituencies of Lahore, Faisalabad, and
Gujranwala endorse that PPP got more support from poor strata in the urban areas
as well and PML-N from the middle and upper class(Wilder, 1995, pp. 337-393).
Another very interesting observation was the voting pattern of civilian and military
government employees who cast the vote through postal ballot. The result shows that
147View entire presentation