Political rallies: Mammoth attendance doesn't reflect voters' support: analysts

Mammoth attendance at political rallies of major political parties does not reflect voter support in any constituency, background interviews with political analysts revealed. National as well as regional parties appear to be in the election mode including the three major parties - Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
All parties are managing to pull huge crowds, but analysts maintain that if attendance at political rallies was the yardstick to gauge the vote bank of a party, PTI would have won the 2013 general elections.
The incumbency factor, they further pointed out, can play a major role in gathering crowds as the party in power (in the center and the provinces) often uses government resources to gather large crowds by providing transportation, meals, announcing development projects as well as other incentives to attract people to a rally.
Rasool Bakhsh Raees, a senior political analyst, while talking to Business Recorder said that the contenders and hopeful candidates of any political party, through using influence or by using resources, can gather huge crowds and create an impression of his/her popularity against their rival candidates. Attending a public rally of a political party does not guarantee his/her vote in favour of that particular party, he argued.
"Public rallies are aimed at conveying a message or election manifesto of a particular party to the voters of that particular constituency and the size of the crowd cannot be the ultimate determinant of the voters' response in favour of the candidate of that party," he argued.
Hassan Askari Rizvi, another senior political analyst, said that Biradari system and influence of a candidate over the people of a constituency plays a role in elections.
He concurred with Rasool Bakhsh Raees and said the size of any political public meeting cannot determine the popularity of the candidate of that political party in a specific constituency, as people from other constituencies also attend rallies. "Only an activist would cast his/her vote on the basis of loyalty, others vote on the basis of their affiliations, family relations, caste and even sub-sectarianism," he opined.