Pakistani Elections: Uncertainty and Insecurity

By Abdullah M. Adnan

ccun.org, February 11, 2008

 
General elections in Pakistan are at hand – scheduled for 18 Feb – but political parties have yet to start election campaign in the earnest. Some of them are even boycotting these elections. This is the General’s election and not the much-awaited general elections, they impress upon the voter.

There are reasons for this lack of political activity, which should have been at its peak otherwise. First and foremost is that these are seen as ‘post-emergency, sans-judiciary’ elections being held, over and above other considerations, to give legitimacy to the presidency of Pervez Musharraf, who got himself elected anyway ‘while still in military uniform’ from the outgoing assembly. Objections that he should have stepped down first and sought re-election from the next assembly were simply brushed aside.

When the matter of his election came before the Supreme Court, the General imposed emergency rule, dissolved the entire bench hearing the case, and amended the Constitution. Doing this all as the army chief, he authorised the President (i.e. himself) to lift emergency whenever he deemed fit. The ‘new’ President lifted emergency on 16 Dec 2007 and announced elections for 8 Jan 2008, which were then postponed till 18 Feb in the aftermath of the Peoples Party leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

In such a situation, all except the rulers suspect that election results have already been ‘fixed,’ that this would produce a hung parliament to the benefit of the ‘establishment’ (i.e. civil and military bureaucracy) rather than the democratic process in the country.

While there was already a great deal of debate on the utility of participation in ‘sham and fraud’ elections, Benazir’s killing made the situation even bleak.

She and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman, leader of JUI (Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a component of the six-party religious alliance MMA) were the only two leaders of major parties that were advocating participation in elections in order “not to leave the ground open for the General and his yesmen.” While Fazl is contesting in the polls, another important component of the MMA Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is canvassing for boycott along with Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf (TI) and Mahmud Achakzai’s Pakhtunkhuwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).

Another mainstream politician Nawaz Sharif, leader of his own faction of the Muslim League (PML-N), remained ambivalent first, tried to persuade Benazir for boycott but then felt compelled to jump onto the bandwagon of elections after she convinced him of the ‘possibilities’ that their participation in elections would present them.

But, Benazir got killed while her election campaign had only gathered steam. Expressing his solidarity with the PPP workers and to the people of Sindh, home province of the slain leader and a stronghold of her party, Nawaz Sharif announced to boycott elections “in protest against the murder of Benazir Bhutto.” He was again brought around, now by Benazir’s husband and co-chairman of the PPP Asif Zardari. Mr. Zardari requested him to “honour the decision of the slain leader.” He did, but his ambivalence persisted.

Only recently he said that BB had good mind for boycott of elections, that an agreed-upon boycott was the better option, and if political parties could unanimously decide in favour of boycott then Pervez Musharraf might have gone by now. His ambivalence has a meaning. He is seeing that elections would be ‘engineered’ or even postponed. Afraid of his party’s poor performance, he wants to give up altogether. But there is no going back; he is dragging along only half-heartedly.

So, Pervez Musharraf’s ruthlessness for keeping himself in power, Benazir’s murder, and Nawaz Sharif’s ambivalence are all contributing to the uncertainty of elections.

The President’s camp feels that postponement of elections would give him some more time to rule single-handedly. The PPP, expecting to get sympathy votes in large numbers, is crying hoarse that such an attempt would not be acceptable to it. While Asif Zardari wants elections to be held according to the schedule, Nawaz Sharif sees no harm in postponing them a little for forming a ‘national government’ for an interim period to replace the existing caretaker government, which he sees as a mere extension of his rival and hitherto ruling PML-Q.

The ‘establishment’ is, thus, playing on divisions and differences among political parties on the one hand and on the sensitivities of the West on the other. The four-nation European tour of Pervez Musharraf explains this. While he attempts to placate ‘misplaced’ Western apprehensions about the fairness and transparency of the forthcoming elections, the way he targets his domestic opponents, Pakistan’s Chief Justice he deposed and dismissed twice and the media, leaves no doubts in the minds of his audience that he is to stay.

By “the message in Brussels that given the importance of Pakistan in the fight against global terrorism, it is not in the interest of Europe and Nato to isolate Mr. Musharraf,” (Dawn, 22 January, p 3), he must feel emboldened and ask his perplexed European hosts whom else they could trust for ‘enlightened moderation’ and ‘war on terror’ especially after the elimination of Benazir Bhutto from the political scene.

Then, “after the murder of Benazir, America is in search of a suitable Prime Minister for Pakistan,” according to a senior leader of a major political party. Substantiating his assertion by referring to the ‘import’ of Shaukat Aziz from America and his going back to “where he belongs,” he said elections would not be held as long as America did not find a suitable candidate for the slot.

Only an end to direct or indirect military rule and its hobnobbing with the West can remove suspicions and uncertainty about elections and their transparency.

Abdullah M. Adnan is an Islamabad-based researcher and political analyst.abdullahmadnan@hotmail.com