Before the February 18 elections there were debates on a number of issues and people went to the polls in the hope of getting relief from their sufferings and had not much to do with other issues alien to them.
The situation after twelve days of elections is without any glimmer of hope and the political parties are not being seen talking about the problems faced by the common man of Pakistan. People from different walks of life have expressed their views how they look at the prevailing political situation.
Shopkeeper Shaukat Ali has a small general store. He sells wheat flour of different grades, rice, sugar, and edible oil besides a number of other daily-use articles.
He has been facing angry customers all these days and explaining them reasons for the daily increase in prices of daily use articles. He has had tough times all these days explaining them the price increase phenomenon and telling them February 18 elections would bring change.
He says only after four days of the announcement of result he realised that the majority parties in the national assembly had forgotten their stand on price hike and had concentrated of trivialities.
In his view the future of the president and the restoration of judiciary has no link with the problems of the ordinary man. They want affordable daily use articles. "If nothing else, at least the fodder for the animal should be made affordable for a pen owner so that price of milk and meat could be managed."
Ali Bux who comes from Rahim Yar Khan, a southern Punjab city, sells vegetable in Nazimabad area. He owns a donkey cart, to which he loads with vegetable of all kind, roams in the narrow lanes and shouts about the vegetable he carries.
He said earlier he used to shout the price of vegetable but now he has changed his tactics. He would only name the vegetable he has for sale and avoid disclosing price of goods.
He says vegetable has become costly after elections. Only cucumber is quoted as Rs 90 per kg, tori Rs 80 per kg, and beans Rs 75 per kg. Prices of Other vegetables have also gone up.
He says he seas no hope of prices coming down. Milk is essential for children, if not for others. Its price has gone up by two rupees per liter and its quality has become more questionable.
The usual answer that a buyer gets from the milk seller is that the prices of fodder of different kinds have gone up. In his opinion the price of fodder and animal feed has gone up. It will go up further, he says.
Animal feed, among other ingredients, has rice husk wheat waste and cottonseed cake. The prices of these three important ingredients would go up as the support price of these three important sources of animal feed register increase. In the milk-sellers opinion prices would not come down. They want people to wait and see it going up. "Elections or no elections, life is not going to be comfortable at the hands of these politicians."
Prices of medicines, especially life saving drugs, have gone up immediately after the election results were announced. Costly medicines imported from abroad have no price check and doctors are in the habit of prescribing them on the argument of their (drugs) efficacy.
Still the prices of petrol, electricity and natural gas have to go up. Furnace oil has already been made expensive. It is only a matter of days. Let the elected people form the government and look at the imperatives of the management of economy.
Humaira Bano, single mother, employed as a mid-level manager in a multinational company says that she is in the salary bracket of Rs 50,000-65,000. Her four children are in school, she has a rented house and a car purchased on lease. She lives in a middle income posh locality. Only a year ago she lost one of her kidneys.
She says she is not the only one with problems but there are many others. Their problems are of different nature, but what is common in all these cases is financial worries and increasing prices of daily-use articles.
In her opinion there may be reason for the increase in prices of those commodities Pakistan imports and provides to people but what about the commodity Pakistan produces. She asks rationale of the sugar prices, rice prices and wheat flour prices. Who manipulates the prices of essential commodities and puts people under pressure.
She asks whether there is group of people who manipulate the prices or there is an individual who is responsible for putting people under distress.
She says she has no answer to these and many more questions people may ask, but a satisfactory explanation from the elected people willing to serve people seems necessary.
Bano says in Pakistan the minimum wage has been officially fixed by the government at Rs 4600 per month. Could it be possible to live within this amount even if you are single, she asks.
The political parties that have won the election, irrespective of the number of seats they have in the provincial or national assembly, their focus is not the common man and his problem. They want President Musharraf to quit and the ousted Judiciary to come back. People who have voted them ask, would it bring relief to them, and what is next?
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