ISLAMABAD: Hamza Ali Haroon left a corporate job in the United States and came back to Pakistan in 2020 with the desire to make a difference for his home country, plagued for decades by political and economic crises and currently the eighth nation in the world most vulnerable to long-term climate risk. 

Over the next three years, the 33-year-old Harvard Kennedy School of Government graduate became more and more convinced that bringing change required him to be at the helm of political affairs in the country.

Next week, Haroon will be among 5,121 candidates looking to win seats in parliament when the South Asian nation of 241 million people goes to the vote in general elections on Feb. 8. It is a big gamble for a young man in a country where the political landscape is dominated by well-established families and the parties they founded — mainly the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan People’s Party — and where most candidates come from well-entrenched political backgrounds and are armed with big money and vote banks.

“The political party culture in Pakistan is a travesty because they do not encourage youth,” Haroon, the father of a five-month-old son and running for the NA-46 seat in Islamabad, told Arab News in an interview this week. 

“In our political culture, unfortunately, the youth is being used only for slogans and giving the [political] parties votes and that’s about it. They do not use their [young people’s] minds to have them build policy, implement policy or to have them come and get elected to go into the parliament and make laws.”

He said he rejected all major political parties in Pakistan and was running as an independent candidate.

“They’re not selecting their candidates on merit, they’re only selecting candidates on the loyalties they have toward their party leaders which I think is a great problem in our political culture and this is the reason why I’ve decided to stand [as an] independent,” said Haroon, who before joining politics served as a special adviser to the minister of science and technology and as a director of strategic initiatives at the information ministry. 

And though Haroon understands how difficult it is to make a dent in Pakistan’s dynastic and patronage-based politics, taking on a challenge is something he has never shied away from.

Just seven months before the National Junior Golf Championship of Pakistan, Haroon, then a 17-year-old, was told he would not be able to play golf again because of a knee injury.

But the defiant teenager not only went on to play in the series, he also won it and was selected to represent Pakistan at the World Junior Golf Championships held in San Diego. 

“At a very young age, I had learned that impossible was not a word in my dictionary, and if I could imagine it, I could achieve it,” Haroon’s Linkedin page read.

So leaving a well-paying job in the US and coming back to Pakistan to join politics was a no-brainer. 

“I realized that my passion in life was always to come back home and serve my people, my city,” he said.

Outlining his political vision, he said he wanted to “give back Islamabad to the youth of this city.”

“This city is being run by a bureaucracy, which is not accountable, which is not transparent, which is not fair,” he said. 

“The second thing we want to do is build an economy that is sustainable, that is inclusive and works for everyone, not just the rich. And the third thing we want to do is have protection of life, health and climate. These are the three pillars that form my vision.”

Along the way, Haroon hopes to inspire young people in a country where out of 128.58 million total registered voters, 23.51 million are between the ages of 18 and 25 and 33.34 million between 26 and 35 years old. 

“I’m seeing this in the campaign as well, that a lot of young people are getting inspired from this campaign because we’re actually talking the truth. We’re telling people the way things are and we’re telling them, ‘Listen, now is the time to change’.”

“OLD PAKISTAN”

Experts say former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has played a critical role in mobilizing young people in Pakistan.

Over the years, Khan has utilized social media to build up a vast following of young people who approve of his drive against corruption and ambitious promises to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, and see him as the face of “Naya [new] Pakistan” and a change from the old dynasties who have ruled Pakistan for decades. 

“There is a huge change and then 45 percent of our electoral list consists of young people who want to play their role,” Sarwar Bari, National Coordinator at the not-for profit Pattan Development Organization, told Arab News.

“They [youth] do not want to see the old Pakistan anymore and they wanted to have a better system in Pakistan because they do not like dynasties,” he said. “If polling [on Feb. 8] is transparent, free, and fair, then there is a likelihood that most of the so-called electables [established politicians] can lose to the young candidates.”

“I think Pakistan has changed a lot and the old dynasties have not realized that, and this election is going to tell us that not only the young people, but the rising middle class in Pakistan, whose youth is now very articulate and very active, they have this urge and the energy to change Pakistan,” Bari added.

“And that’s why we see young candidates as well as the young voters on Pakistan’s electoral list.”