The voter mobilization campaign by political parties for the Feb 8 elections is now in full gear. The momentum is building up with party flags displayed in mohallas and markets, party slogans sung at public meetings and candidates repeatedly visiting their constituencies to woo voters. There is also a plethora of colourful and aggressive advertising campaigns both in the conventional and social media.

Political parties are concurrently engaged in a war of manifestos, with most of them promising moon to the gullible voters. Strangely, the three leading parties —PML-N, PPP and PTI— took too long to release their election manifestos. A detailed scrutiny of various party manifestos shows that there is very little to differentiate between them ideologically. Given the peculiar circumstances in which the elections are being held, the parties have focused more on solving the problem of bread and butter for the common man. The manifestos are mostly slogan based and provide no clue as to how the basic economic issues facing the country will be tackled. Rather, the emphasis is on buzzwords and mantras that have the potential to go viral on social media.

The leaders of all contending parties are claiming that if elected they will revolutionize the lives of the common people who have suffered badly under 16 months of the PDM government which made a mess of the national economy, raising prices and electricity and gas charges to astronomical heights. In the face of massive food inflation and unbearable utility bills which have made the lives of the common man miserable, all political parties have promised to bring down prices and provide free electricity  units to consumers.

For instance, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto has been talking of providing free electricity up to 300 units through solar power, doubling the income of the common man and providing free education to the youth.A similar promise of home solar panels for low-income households has been made in the PML-N manifesto as well, and higher wages for the labour force.

Addressing a public gathering in Sialkot a few days ago, PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif highlighted the problems faced by the youth, asserting that the PML-N would create job opportunities and provide educational tools to them. He also referred to the drastic increase in petrol prices, saying they had surged from Rs65 per litre to over Rs260 since he left office. Speaking at the same rally, ex-premier Shehbaz Sharif lauded Nawaz’s role in making the country a nuclear power and asked voters to vote for the PML-N. He also pledged to establish an IT city in Sialkot, emphasising the party’s commitment to providing skills training to the youth. On her part, PML-N Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz assured that every commitment made by Nawaz to the public would be honored. Encouraging the public to exercise their right to vote carefully, she said, “Your future lies in securing respectable employment, not in petrol bombs.”

The PPP is not far behind in making rosy promises to the voters. In his speeches, ex-president Asif Zardari has been emphasizing the point that only genuine political forces, meaning the PPP, knew how to address the issues the country was facing. Following in the footsteps of Zardari, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has repeatedly affirmed that the party alone could rid the country of the economic, democratic, and social crises it was enmeshed in. Highlighting that the PPP manifesto was based on the principles of fighting poverty and unemployment, he said PPP was the only political party that could take all stakeholders forward.

The PTI, although deprived of its iconic symbol “bat”, is leaving no stone unturned to mobilise its voters. PTI’s Barrister Gohar Khan has unveiled the party’s election manifesto which promises social and constitutional reforms. He said that his party smanifesto focused on modelling the country after ‘Riyasat-i-Madina’ (State of Madina), a phrase popularized by the party founder Imran Khan. He also talked about the implementation of solar energy projects on a large scale and said the party would also introduce a universal health card.

In the opinion of most political analysts, the Feb 8 election is going to be a hotly contested one, as an unprecedented number of candidates – over 18,000 – are vying for 1,125 seats in the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies. As per data released by the Election Commission of Pakistan, about 19 candidates on an average are contesting for a single NA seat. In 1970 only five candidates competed for one NA seat, while in the 2013 general election, 17 candidates competed for each NA seat. This means that the average number of candidates per seat in the national legislature has gone up by 280 per cent since 1970.

A distinctive feature of the coming election is the extraordinarily high percentage of independent candidates in the run. The reason is that PTI supporters, after losing a common election symbol, are running as independent candidates. The PTI claims to have fielded 236 candidates for the NA, who are contesting under various election symbols. Although the PTI as a party may not win a majority of seats in NA and provincial assemblies, the independents with umbilical links to it, will play a decisive role in making and unmaking of the ruling coalition that will be cobbled together to form the new government.