KARACHI: ‘The national issues can only be resolved by collective efforts; therefore it is of utmost importance to have a national government. In the technological advance era, old system of ballot paper causes corruption.
It is necessary to transform the system and educate voter. Democracy can be strengthened by spreading literacy.’ These views were expressed by intellectuals at Shura Hamdard Karachi meeting, says a Press release.
The meeting was held yesterday on the theme: “Coming general elections, peoples’ expectations, code of conduct and Voters’ responsibilities”, presided over by Justice (Retd) Haziqul Khairi at a local club.
Speaking on the occasion, Commodore (Retd) Sadeed Anwar Malik said that the problems of the country were so complicated and huge that they could be solved only through joint efforts by forming a national government involving all big political parties, provided they set aside their party interests and gave preference to supreme national interests.
‘It is just possible that a ‘hung parliament’ would be emerged as a result of general elections on 25th July and in such case it would be easy to form a national government at the center, which is the need of the hour’, he said adding that whenever elections held in the country social polarizing always increased and that’s what happening now, but it was not a matter of worry for if democracy is continued everything would come on its right track, he maintained.
He said it was imperative that elections should be held fair, free and transparent on appointed hour and if someone cried for ‘dhandli’ (rigging) after the elections, he must be dealt with iron hands, so that people could work peacefully for the development of the country. Weak representative government was better than the strong un-representative government, when Pakistan was dismembered in 1971 an unrepresentative government was at the helm of the country’s affairs, he added.
Usama Qureshi, Managing Director and CEO, Hamdard Laboratories (Waqf) Pakistan said that democracy was the destiny of Pakistan as the Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah answering to a question while he was giving an interview to an Australian newspaper, just after the creation of Pakistan, what would be the system of government in Pakistan?, said: “There will be democracy and the democratic system of government in Pakistan”. ‘Therefore, democracy is inevitable for the country and it should be strengthened through the promotion of education as most of our voters are illiterate and the standard of literacy is that who can write his name only is considered to be literate,’ he added.
‘It is ironic that the voter right of a literate and illiterate are equal, having same weightage and this is a challenging situation especially when the literacy rate is coming down day by day in the country,’ he said, adding: ‘A tremendous flow of information is seen in the country and everyone has easy access to information, however concocted and misleading information is also there which is creating confusion and in such case it becomes our duty to provide necessary guidance to the voters,’ he contended and advised the voters to ask about the previous promises, made by the candidates in last elections when they approach them for votes, as it happened somewhere in the country.