On a Thursday morning, I casually strolled into a cafe near the Dawn office for a cup of coffee. As I waited for my order, I couldn’t help but overhear two young men engaged in a heated debate around the upcoming elections.

“The 2024 elections are so predictably scripted; the festive excitement seems to be missing,” lamented one of the men, who appeared to be in his early 20s.

“Yeah, gone are the days when there was genuine competition among politicians, creating a sense of anticipation,” added the other.

Interrupting their conversation, an older gentleman seated at a table close to them piped in: “Every election has been like this — same players, same umpire, same teams. The only change is the shifting positions of the audience in the age boxes.”

As I slipped out of the coffee shop, I found myself pondering whether this cycle of predictability had persisted throughout history. Was there truly never any change?

Thus commenced an unexpected journey to untangle the threads of electoral history. The vast expanse of articles proved daunting, leading me to seek the perspectives of journalists — storytellers who had witnessed the political drama up close in newsrooms, on the roads and on screens.

I interviewed five journalists who were kind enough to share with me the nuances of the last eight general elections, unravelling a tapestry of political highs and lows in Pakistan.

When the seemingly never-ending dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq finally reached its conclusion, it seemed like democracy would at last return to Pakistan.

However, political parties elected in the subsequent elections found it hard to retain power long enough to complete the constitutionally mandated five-year term. Hence, over the next decade, Pakistan witnessed four elections.

In........

© Dawn Prism