The Ritual of Elections in Pakistan (1970–2018): A Process Without a Product

Writing on the eve of Pakistan’s twelfth general election scheduled for February 2024, the author narrates, analyzes and reflects on all the eleven general elections which have preceded it. The narrative is an easy-flowing blend of history and empirical data. The book provides user-friendly access to the Gallup & Gilani Index of Electoral Record, which is a carefully crafted data set consisting of the voting history of the nearly three hundred million Pakistanis who have ever turned up to vote since 1970. In addition, the book provides access to a Gallup Gilani compiled census of Pakistan’s political class. The census lists and informs on the size of the vote banks and the party affiliations of more than 8,000 members of this class who contested elections to the National Assembly since 2002. Going beyond objective data and historical facts, the author reflects on why elections alone do not deliver democracy and good government. He proposes restructuring Pakistan’s electoral geography by creating 40 sub-provinces as new platforms of political power and authority. The author’s prognosis is that the unmet power-sharing aspirations of a new political class have sparked Pakistan’s current political crisis. He believes they deserve to be listened to and provided with new and numerous platforms of political authority as the existing ones are too few and already overcrowded by the deserving and the undeserving.

About the Author

Ijaz Shafi Gilani received his PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. Thereafter, from 1977 to 1987, he taught in the Department of International Relations at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and served as Chairman of the department. He has also served as Professor and Dean of the Faculties of Social Sciences and Management Sciences at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI). Dr Gilani is the founder chairman of Gallup Pakistan, which specialises in opinion and social science research. For over a decade, he served as the global Vice President of Gallup International and headed its worldwide Group of Experts on Opinion and Social Research. Throughout his academic research, he has taken a keen interest in the field of electoral research.

Binding: Paperback · Pages: 290 · Published: 2024 · Publisher: Lightstone Publishers

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