Commodore Sadeed Anwar Malik (retd) stressed to form a national government comprising all big political parties for supreme national interests. He said only joint efforts can solve the complicated and big problems country facing.
Speaking at Shura Hamdard on the theme: "Coming general elections, peoples' expectations, code of conduct and voters' responsibilities", he said "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 centre, which is the need of the hour."
He said whenever elections held in the country, social polarizing always increased and that's what happening now, but it was not a matter of worry 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 can 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.
Managing Director and CEO, Hamdard Laboratories (Waqf) Pakistan, Usama Qureshi said democracy was the destiny of Pakistan as the 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 has been observed that a mass marketing campaign of paid contents was going on TV channels which could put negative impacts on public opinion, so it must be controlled and election commission should look into the matter, he asserted.
'In the age of modern technology, our country is following the old ballot paper system for general elections, as NADRA has complete computerized data of all people of the country, this old system can be shifted to bio-metric system which would pave the way of free, fair and transparent elections, Qureshi said.
Pervez Sadiq said we should go forward with long and short term planning to solve the country's problems. Al-though our people are illiterate but they have sense of good and bad, he added. General Sikandar Hayat (retd) said the success of democracy depended on politicians and our politicians are untrained, so they have failed in nation building.
Prof Muhammad Rafi said when votes of a professor and an illiterate are equal how can nation building is possible in the country. Zafar Iqbal lamented that this important theme should have been discussed two months back in order to educate the voters adequately.
Tenure of National Assembly should be reduced to three years and nobody be allowed to contest election more than two times, he suggested. Prof Dr Malahat Sherwani said that voters' sense to choose right candidate played an important role in the success of democracy. A big number of young voters were taking part in coming general elections, so the survival of democracy would be in the hands of youths, she added.
Hamdard University VC Prof Shabibul Hasan was of the view that people, including voters were in dire need of a thorough training since they didn't have good understanding to distinguish between right and wrong. If a success is made in creating good human beings in our society the Islamic system of values would naturally take place in the country, he maintained.
Dr Abubakar sheikh, Huma Baig and Anwar Aziz Jakartawalla also spoke. Shura in a unanimous resolution condoled the deaths of humorist Mushtaq Ahmed Yousafi; former Pakistani Ambassador Mahdi Masud and husband of Shura Lahore's speaker Bushra Rehman, Mian Abdul Rehman who died recently.