Election season in Pakistan is like Christmas, where the Politicians play Santa Claus, doling out presents under the guilt of being absent for most part of the year and to give enough reason to be loved and wanted till their next visit.
The people, too, know how badly Santa wants them to love him at this time of the year and are thus not forgiving in any way. The question, however, is whether they should be.
“You can knock on the door of democracy and its champions all you want, the door will not open for giving but only when it has to take – the legitimacy of another term of power”, said Qasim, resident of Begum Pura, the underdeveloped outskirts of Lahore.
Spending-spikes in elections is not a phenomenon exclusive to Pakistan or even the third world. President-elect Barack Obama, the first major-party nominee to reject federal funding for the general election, spent $740.6 million. That eclipsed the combined $646.7 million that Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry had spent four years earlier.
The economics of electoral politics are simple and yet complex at the same time. The simplest of research would show how ridiculously impractical the recent bar of Rs1 million for provincial assembly candidates and Rs1.5 million for those of the National Assembly sounds in comparison with the last election’s spending. Only the election days’ expenditure in some constituencies overstep these limits.
A total of 1,070 seats will be contested in the 2013 elections. Out of these, 342 are of the National Assembly, while 728 of the provincial assemblies. Even the most conservative estimates of the total money spent by candidates during the polls amount to gargantuan figures. The National Assembly alone involves at least Rs41 billion spent and it does not just end there.
The aforementioned figure is extrapolated from averaging out what the politicians claim they spend and research. Almost every candidate your correspondent spoke to said that they hate spending such amounts and almost unanimously called for abiding by the bar set by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and yet expressed utter helplessness at the hands of tradition and practice.
Those major heads of expenditure in electioneering that are ‘visible to the naked eye’ are advertising/publicity, cost of public meetings, political soup-kitchens, security, hired transport and fuel. But it all starts way before that.
Meetings with party big-shots, expensive gifts and favors extended to squeeze out a party ticket are the first teller the candidate swipes his credit cards at. The cost of this varies with the level of desperation of the candidate and the political dynamics of a particular seat and can sometimes even touch the billion mark.
Once that is achieved, the next stop are corner meetings, lavishly buffeted, with the notables of the constituencies. An NA constituency has around 220—240 polling stations and almost as much of these characters who pose as if they own the people of their vicinity.
This networking soon leads to the establishment of campaign-offices in every neighborhood, the establishment cost of which is paid by the candidate. These offices, with their rent, furnishing, everyday food, drinks and the petty-cash given to the youth that operate these offices, costs Rs2 to 2.5 million on the whole for an NA constituency.
The posters and stickers that decorate these offices are a part of another major expenditure head : printing. The printing cost of 15 X 20 feet flex-print, the size usually used on billboards, is Rs7000 and the display Rs40,000, while a 20 X 30 feet billboard costs Rs70,000.
Cost of other such media, such as stickers of 10 X 15 inches, ranges between Rs3,000 to Rs4000 per 100 pieces. An average candidate gets around 20,000 such stickers printed while the figure can spike up to 50,000. A banner costs Rs500 to 700 getting 5,000 to 10,000 banners printed is a normal practice.
With the advent of cable television, publicity through advertisement on cable channels is another expenditure, which costs around Rs25,000 per day or Rs100,000 per week. Adding the cost of the thousands of posters printed, the total amounts to over
Rs15 million, which is ten times the limit set by the ECP.
The candidates conduct and address public meetings in almost all major neighborhoods of their constituencies. These involve hiring transportation for the participants, hiring chairs and catering for the food that is served. The rent for a chair ranges from Rs20 to Rs40 per piece and, assuming all public meetings use around 50,000 chairs, this costs around Rs2 million. The food at one public meeting costs from Rs70,000 to Rs150,000 and if the candidate conducts 20 of such meetings, it sums up to another Rs2 million. Adding the cost of security, transport and fuel to this, the figure once again promises to touch Rs5 million.
The cost of hired transport and fuel has spiked exponentially since the last elections and the normal wagon that used to cost Rs1200 per day is now up for Rs3000-4000. Similarly, the cost of fuel, too, has almost doubled. During a conversation with an MNA, he said that only the election-day cost of vehicles and fuel crosses Rs7 million, let alone the cost during electioneering. Candidates have to book hundreds of these vehicles two to three days before the election day to block them so that they are not outbooked by their rivals. This means that total cost of transport and fuel for a candidate from electioneering to election is close to
Rs20 million.
Like discussed earlier, the people, too, are aware of the fact that any demand they pitch up to the aspiring candidates will not be rejected and therefore, they too have a long wish-list for Santa to deliver. These demands are diverse in nature and can range from the construction of whole or part of a mosque, street, sewerage to the establishment of a sports facility for the youth. With the development funds locked down, the candidates spend from their pockets for these projects to please the people. Each one of these individual projects can range from Rs0.3 million to Rs1 million. The average cost of such projects in one NA constituency ranges from Rs2 to 3 million.
The economics of the election night are another dimension altogether. That’s when the bulk sale of votes mostly takes place. Heads of communities, baradaris, neighborhoods and slums negotiate the rate per NIC and they are sold by the hundreds. The going rate in the last election per NIC ranged from Rs500 to Rs800 in some constituencies, which is likely to rise to Rs1000, courtesy inflation.
With other overheads, such as obliging hundreds of people everyday at the home and office of the candidate, these entire expenditures amount close to Rs70million and that is the expenditure done by just one candidate. Considering that there are two to three major contenders for a constituency where some are less privileged than the others, the total expenditure per constituency is Rs120 million for a National Assembly seat. There are urban constituencies, however, where this amount is almost double this but that fact balances out the factor of relatively lower expenditure in rural constituencies.
Although many candidates spend more than this amount by themselves in certain constituencies of Karachi and Lahore and one would easily be tempted to project the minimum spent in a constituency as close to Rs170 million, yet a safer bet would be the earlier Rs120 million, which, when multiplied with the 342 NA seats, justifies the estimate of over Rs41 billion,
The 728 Provincial Assembly (PA) seats are no less fiercely contested for and the total amount spent in each constituency ranges between Rs50 to 70 million.
One thing to take into account is joint expenditure. PA and NA candidates jointly spend on resources instead of running parallel campaigns. A number of PA candidates share burden of NA candidates and in many cases are the sole spenders.
Some influential NA candidates who are known to have the final say in the PA ticket decision will give ticket to the candidate with financial muscle who can spend for the NA candidate’s campaign too e.g. a NA candidate from Sialkot is known for always having a local businessman as MPA while the leading political party in Karachi would have its traders’ wing take the PA slot and with it the major brunt of the cost.
The economics of PA seats have spiked in rural Punjab particularly after the boost in real-estate in the late 2010s. Regardless of how unpalatable it may sound, it would still be undeniable that the last local-bodies election were nothing short of an open auction. And for the Nazim elections in many districts, candidates with highest offer to bid got the vote. The one who didn’t commit till the last minute got highest payments, and the ones who chose an early settlement in desperation got ripped off.
Although the expenditures with respect to provinces are not all that different, the rural constituencies in Balochistan have much higher transportation and fuel costs as due to the low population density; single constituencies can spread over hundreds of miles and the whole of the provinces only divided into 13 constituencies. Amount spent on security in KPK are higher in addition to the fact that the money spent on cultural and traditional heads is more with the candidates funding marriages, providing clothing for large number of people and funding of religious institutions.
The dynamics of the economics of rural constituencies are considerably different. These can clearly be divided into three major types. The ones where spiritual ancestral system of ‘Pirs’ and Mureeds prevails, those where ‘Wadera Shahi’ is the order of affairs and the ones where Chaudhries rule through control of the Police system.
The rural areas where spirituality and age-old traditions of the faithful following their spiritual leaders prevail, the order of affairs is relatively simple if Pir Saheb were to contest the elections himself. The followers religiously cast votes for the leader and the expenditure in this regard is almost half that of rural election seats, although the political-soup kitchens in these areas are way more elaborate than those in the cities.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult to compete elections on spiritual following. With every passing term, the people now demand more monetary and participatory support. For instance, we never were obliged to attend every wedding and funeral but now we have to. Maybe this has to do with media or its just a consequence of urbanization”, said a current member of NA from a known Pir Family.
The scenario is altogether different if the Pir decides not to contest. The ones who want to contest then need to negotiate with the Pir Sahab regarding how much can he offer for how much.
“It is advisable not to go in an expensive car or wearing an expensive watch, when you plan to visit the Pirs that control voting trends in an area, because those are the first things they shamelessly mooch directly off you, and that doesn’t even count as part of the deal”, said one of the politicians from south-western Punjab.
In internal Sindh, where ‘Wadera Shahi’ rules, the game is not too different. A religious sect-based cult following is paired with element of ancestral faithfulness in this scenario which acts as the prime mover. The voters would always follow the direction pointed by their Wadera, yet the candidate has to be from the same sect in most cases. The money matters, however, are similar in terms of bidding and negotiation.
The electoral politics in rural areas of Punjab are mostly controlled by the landlords, popularly known as the Jageerdars and Chaudhries in certain cases, in collaboration with the police. The latter merits mention. A large variation between election spending also depends on how much is spent on the police. “The one who controls the most police stations wins the polling stations in the jurisdiction of those police stations, its as simple as that”, shared a successful politician during my casual conversation with him. ”I know it sounds really ugly, but that’s how it has been and there is no foreseeable reason why it would change in the coming elections. The police is the same, the candidates more or less too, so it’s the same tango”, he added.
Unlike most of the democratic term, where its more like Halloween, with the politicians dealing in tricks rather than treats, during the election season both Santa and those waiting in the aisles for him to treat them appear happy and willing, but for the rather feeble effort of the ECP to play its role as the Grinch.
Although the motive behind ECP regulating this seemingly obvious free-for-all is very noble, yet the framework and measures taken to enforce, or even monitor and document it purposefully, is all but lacking.
The amount spent of ‘ticketeering’ before electioneering, underhand dealings and fixing of clan-heads, bribes and gifts might be acceptably a little too covert for ECP to spot and penalize.
The problem, however, is that the mechanism to regulate spending even on heads as obvious as publicity is flawed.
The candidate can easily pin the violation of publicity overspending on his opponent, pleading that it was done to malign his campaign and elections. In fact, he wouldn’t even need to do that as he can get 80 percent of his publicity done in the name of token of support extended by the people of a particular area and the infamous tag line “Ehl-e-Ilaqa Ki Janib Se” would come to the rescue inevitably.
So like it or not, the 2013 elections are most likely going to be another ‘Jingle All The Way’, as extravagantly as they have been in the past, maybe even more with the big bucks rolling up close to the Rs100 billion mark.
The writer is a journalist based in Lahore.
