Inspired by the Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal, two new parties have come up in Pakistan with similar ideologies of giving the power of governance back into the hands of people. These two parties are Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Arsalan ul Mulk and Aam Aadmi Party Pakistan (AAPP) led by Adnan Randhawa.
In this article we will just focus on Aam Aadmi Party Pakistan as there are a lot of things which are in common between Arvind Kejriwal and Adnan Randhawa. Like Kejriwal, Randhawa was also a government civil servant, who had quit his job to appeal to the educated middle-class to take the center stage and end the corruption of the ruling elite.He also believes that all the problems of the country can be solved by thinking out of the box and by poverty alleviation.
Lets see what are the strategies that AAPP can learn from AAP:-
1) Touch the problems of the common man – The success of AAP is because it is able to channelize the anger of the common man facing the real problems against the government. AAP focused on alleviation of basic problems like corruption, water, electricity, inflation, etc and the method used is of people referendum which made every citizen feel that they are a part of the decision making process.
2) Make an emotional connect – The method used by AAP is based on Gandhian principal of non-violence which directly made an emotional connect to the struggles of the per-independence era. Their protests are based on hunger strikes and peaceful demonstrations in from of government offices. The youth of the nation had always read about such demonstrations in their history classes and now it is for the first time that they were getting a chance to be a part of something which can change the course of the nation.
3) Do not over-commit – In the manifesto, the party should set realistic goals. Eradication of 100% corruption, providing free water or electricity, etc are some of the promises which no matter how hard they try, can never be fulfilled.
4) Fulfill the commitments – Commitments like non acceptance of government flats, security cover, government vehicles,etc should be honored at every cost. Before the election if the party is portraying itself to be a congregation of Aam Aadmi, then after winning they should maintain their stand. If after coming to power the head of the party takes up these amenities, then obviously party will be perceived as power hunger and all the emotional connection made during the campaigning goes down the drain.
5) Gain some experience – The biggest blunder by AAP was that they formed the government at Delhi with the support of Congress. It was the 1st year of their political career and they were immature in the political arena. Ideally they should have played the role of the opposition party and for the next 5 years, should have learnt the nuances of governance, understand the problems of people at the grassroot level and figure out the ways and means to solve them.
6) Just don’t point,but solve the problems – Just pointing out the problems and the failures of the government will not help anyone in anyway, rather charter out a plan to solve them. The automatic reply AAP gets when they point the failures of other parties is that what they had done when they were in power in Delhi for 49 days? Dharna, Dharna and Dharna??
A non-corrupt, progressive and stable government in Pakistan will be very beneficial for India in the economic front, cultural exchange and solving the Kashmir issue and the formation of the AAP and the AAPP parties is just the first step. Hopefully they will be able to take the center stage in the future elections and be able to promote economic stability and peace in the South Asia region.