Lahore; November 27, PILDAT held a Forum today on Pakistan, Youth and Democracy in Pakistan to create awareness among the youth about challenges to democracy in Pakistan and to discuss the role the youth of Pakistan can play in strengthening democracy and democratic institutions. Young Parliamentarians, students of different universities and colleges, members of youth wings of political parties and former members of Youth Parliament Pakistan participated in the Forum.

PILDAT�s report on Assessment of the Quality of Democracy in Pakistan in first 100 Days of National and Provincial Governments was shared with the participants.

H.E. Mr. Jesper Moller Sorensen, Ambassador of Denmark to Pakistan, was the guest of Honour while Mr. Javed Jabbar, former Senator and Federal Minister and Mr. Ghazi Salahuddin, Senior Analyst, were the keynote speakers at the Forum. Mr. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President PILDAT, presented an overview of the assessment of Quality of Democracy in First 100 days of National and Provincial Governments in Pakistan.

Addressing the young audience, Danish Ambassador Sorensen highlighted that a democratic society equals to a civil society, where the youth plays an important role in creating a culture attuned to democracy, liberty and freedom. "This is exactly the process that Denmark wants to support, because we want to make sure that Pakistan continues to move in a positive direction, where the democratic voices are outspoken, heard and mainstreamed in society," said the Ambassador. He also acknowledged the successful partnership with PILDAT, which aims to promote democratic values among the younger generation in Pakistan. "I am extremely proud that Denmark is involved in activities like today and that we are supporting processes which are so important for the future of Pakistan. Our partnership with PILDAT also provided the opportunity to remain active in electoral reforms - reforms which contributed to the elections this May. I am confident that through the great work of the civil society and the commitment of the youth in Pakistan, Pakistan will be going in the right direction - striving towards democracy and peace."

Youth is not determined by one's physical age but by one's dreams and visions, said Mr. Javed Jabbar. He said that Pakistan is a unique country. Democracy allows citizens to participate in decisions that affect their lives. He said that democratic system is not necessarily Parliamentary system and we should not be afraid to explore if a Presidential form of Government, the one through which President is directly-elected, is more suitable to Pakistan. Mr. Jabbar said that his favourite reform is to make voting compulsory in Pakistan as in other 35 countries of the World. For youth to prosper and for democracy to be sustainable, youth must employ reasoned dialogue, based on understanding of issues, respecting other people's opinions and exercise tolerance.

Youth of Pakistan do not read books which is the biggest crisis facing this young country, said Mr. Ghazi Salahuddin. Make a personal exploration of your country; get to know it so that you can represent it and relate it to the rest of the World. Understand the value of ideas. Democracy is an idea that has changed the World, he said to the youth participants. In order to treat others as equals, youth must understand the concept of equality and human rights, regardless of gender, colour, caste or creed. What defined Malala as a brave girl was that she read books. Imagination is the key to creating ideas. Our future depends on libraries, reading and day-dreaming, said Mr. Salahuddin.

Presenting results of PILDAT's Democracy Assessment exercise of first 100 days of National and Provincial Governments, Mr. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President PILDAT, said that PILDAT's Democracy Assessment Group - DAG has scored the strengthening of the democratic process in the first 100 days at 44.5%. In comparison, this was scored at 44.2% in 2012. The Performance of Democracy, getting a relatively weaker score of 25.6% is still higher as compared to the score of 20.9% awarded to performance of democracy - or governance in other words - in 2012 by the Democracy Assessment Group. At the conclusion of first 100 days of National and Provincial Governments in September 2013, the aggregate score of quality of democracy stands at 54%, which shows a marked improvement over the score received by the same - at 45% - in 2012. Pakistan's 10th General Election, though not without its flaws, was relatively better and unlike the previous nine elections, subject to the rule of law. The independence of the Election Commission of Pakistan has been assessed at 58.8% - a relatively weaker score than 63.4% in 2012. In concluding his presentation, Mr. Mehboob said that challenges to democracy are weak governance, perception of prevailing corruption, insurgency and its ideological moorings, weak political parties and weak parliamentary oversight of the Government and State institutions. While democracy is stronger than ever before in Pakistan, in the assessment of the Group, unless all citizens, especially youth, get involved in deepening and strengthening democracy, the cause for establishing a viable and sustainable democratic system would not be well-served.

The reports on Assessment of the Quality of Democracy in First 100 days of National and Provincial Government can be assessed at the following link:
http://www.pildat.org/publications/publication/DemocracyAndLegStr/Assessment
oftheQualityofDemocracyinFirst100daysofNationalandProvincial
Governments_Sep2013.pdf

The Forum was organised by PILDAT under the project titled Supporting Monitoring of Democracy, Electoral Reforms and Development of Youth in Pakistan, which is supported by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Government of Denmark.