Pakistani youth may be the most pessimistic demographic in the world

Ahead of Pakistan’s May 11 general election — the first time in the country’s history that an elected government is expected to (peacefully) hand over power to another elected government — the British Council has conducted a survey of Pakistani youth between the ages of 18 and 29 — a demographic that makes up 30 percent of the electorate and will play an important role in the upcoming election.

The May election is expected to test Pakistan’s democracy, but the survey results do not bode well for the country’s democratic future: Only 29 percent of those surveyed think that democracy is the right political system for Pakistan, while 38 percent favor Islamic sharia law and 32 percent prefer military rule.

But while most news sources have been focusing on this marked aversion to democracy, perhaps more striking is the demographic’s overwhelming pessimism:

A whopping 94 percent of those surveyed think that Pakistan is heading in the wrong direction.

This is a dramatic change from 2007, when 50 percent of young people in the country were similarly bearish. For some context, in the United States last week, 57 percent of those surveyed by Rasmussen think that the country is heading in the wrong direction.

This doesn’t mean, however, that Pakistani 18- to 29-year-olds are going to throw up their hands in resignation. According to the report, "A substantial majority of the youth still believe that they will have a role in changing the country for the better." The question is, will democracy have a place in that "better future"?