Not so dumb, after all!
Shahid Afandi
May 11, 2013 was a momentous day of Pakistan’s history. On this day the people of Pakistan exercised their voting right and chose their representatives and leaders. The electoral process ended free and fairly with a few exceptions in particular areas. The results were, by and large, according to the expectations except for the province Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK).
KPK is the third most populated province of Pakistan. People of KPK, mainly the Khans, are wrongly considered naive, simple and light headed, if not dumb and stupid! Lots of jokes are associated with them to degrade them, which is surely a wrong perception. KPK has proven to be politically wiser than the other provinces of Pakistan.
During Musharraf’s era the condition in KPK became very critical after Pakistan joined hands with America in the war against terror. KPK came under the direct attack of extremists and resultantly thousands of people lost their precious lives.
Then came 2008 elections, people of KPK voted in favor of Awami National Party (ANP), hoping for stability and safety. However, during the five years ANP failed to deliver and condition in KPK remained the same, or deteriorated further in many cases.
This time KPK gave its support to Pakistan Tahrek-e-Insaf (PTI) and ANP was even not able to make it to double figures in terms of seats in national and provincial assemblies.
In contrast if we look at other provinces like Sindh and Punjab we can see that they have chosen the same parties that is Pakistan people’s party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim Leaque Nawaz (PMLN) as they have been doing for the last twenty years, beside their poor governance.
People of KPK seem more mature in terms of political awareness among other provinces. KPK is voting on basis of governance. This is not a new trend in context of KPK. If we look at the polling results of last 20 years KPK voted for four different parties. 1993 it was PPP, in 1997 PMLN, 2002 MMA,2008 ANP and now in 2013 its PTI. Democracy is the best revenge suits perfectly on KPK. If you won’t deliver you won’t get a second chance here.
The contributor is a student at UET Taxila. He hails from Gilgit.
Oh, dear where did you get this thing written, I hope you live in Pakistan.
“Then came 2008 elections, people of KPK voted in favor of Awami National Party (ANP), hoping for stability and safety. However, during the five years ANP failed to deliver and condition in KPK remained the same, or deteriorated further in many cases.
This time KPK gave its support to Pakistan Tahrek-e-Insaf (PTI) and ANP was even not able to make it to double figures in terms of seats in national and provincial assemblies.”
Who crushed Taliban in Swat? Situation was worse when they formed the government but to your kind information it was ANP who made the army conduct an operation against the militants in swat, Where did you think approximately 90 thousand refuges come to Peshawar from in april 2009 ?
It’s called Operation Black Thunderstorm which was an aggressive military operation that commenced on April 26, 2009 conducted by the Pakistan Army, with the aim of retaking Buner, Lower Dir, Swat and Shangla districts from the Taliban after the militants took control of them since the start of the year. In which 128 army soldiers were martyred and 1500 kafir talibaan were killed.