Sameer October 11, 2002

Tags: Law , Policy , Elections , Freedom , Terrorism , Government , Military , Democracy , Kashmir , Pakistan , Bhutto

href="/tag/Afghanistan">Afghanistan and Kashmir that gave bad name to Pakistan in international community and created rifts along many religious and social lines in addition to law and order situation. The results of October 10, 2002 elections provide another source of excellent empirical data to analyze the myopic vision of current authoritarian regime in Pakistan. Whatever transpired military takeover on October 12, 1999 is history. What followed since then clearly suggests the desire to maintain grip on power and establishing a permanent role for military in politics. After the first two years, the strategy to implement the designs had to be abruptly reversed following 9/11/2001 events. If not for 9/11 events, the original plan to cobble together an alliance of religious parties, Imran Khan, Farooq Leghari and breakaway faction of PML of Nawaz Sharif would have won enough seats in election to justify and fulfill every plan of the current regime. However, after 9/11, the relationship with the religious parties broke down and regime had to rely on everybody except religious parties, PPP of Benazir Bhutto and PML of Nawaz Sharif. This led to the formation of a series of King parties such as PML (Q), SDA, NA, GDA and Crescent group.

The election results reveal the overwhelming strength of anti-PPP vote in Punjab and NWFP, giving credence to Nawaz Sharif’s landslide victory in 1997. Most of the seats PPP(P) has won came from rural Sindh and southern Punjab; the combined vote for PML (Q) and PML (N) is much greater than PPP(P). This fact was established during the 1997 election when a united PML under Nawaz Sharif resoundingly defeated PPP. However, regime failed to lure enough PML power and Nawaz Sharif supporters to King’s parties due to the negative effect of Musharraf’s unpopularity. First came the realization on part of the regime of its inability to win through fair means. A planned approach of pre-poll rigging was initiated making more and more difficult for PPP(P) and PML(N) to compete. Their leadership was barred, influential members were forced to switch parties and the use of public funds and government machinery in the service of turncoats. A thorough search was carried out to find the most suitable candidate followed by luring and often forcing him to join one of the King’s parties. The first line of defense was an outright victory of King’s parties. As it became more and more obvious that this strategy might not produce desired outcome, a second line of defense was followed. It required a hung parliament in such a way that dismissing it anytime in near future should not raise many eyebrows among majority Pakistanis and more importantly patrons abroad. It also required keeping the noose tight against mainstream political parties while allowing free hand to religious parties to use bully pulpits across Pakistan for politicking.

Since 9/11, religious parties had all the freedom of association, demonstration and public meeting while mainstream political parties were barred from politicking in public. It decreased the enthusiasm to active participation and vote whereas the events of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s support for war against terrorism made religious supporters more enthusiastic to vote for their candidates. In an interview with Nation daily on telephone, Benazir Bhutto has rightly put the blame of religious parties’ showings on pre-poll rigging and demoralizing the mainstream voters. In the end voter apathy, demoralization and enthusiasm of religious parties’ supporters in the form of higher turn out ratio won the day for them. The consequences of dividing the public choice from two to several parties under different artificial names should have been known to Musharraf, if it was not done intentionally. Pakistan was heading towards a two party democracy thanks to the democratic governments of the nineties. A two party dominating democratic system was the best insurance to ward off extremists of all kinds from gaining strength due to fluke or unpopular environments like that of supporting US war against terrorism. The surge in fundamentalists support is directly proportional to widespread resentment with sudden shift in policy regarding Taliban.

The fundamentalists’ surge at polls might be a surprise for average Pakistani, but this is exactly according to the strategy for second line of defense. The US government would not like to see Taliban government moving to NWFP with new faces as well as pushing their agendas at the center like that of Sharia bill. The US government would be pleased to see the annulment of election results sooner than later and that is exactly second line of defense for Musharraf’s regime. Please USA while prolonging his stay in power - killing two birds with one stone. It also shows the limitless hunger for power even it leads to destabilization of political climate. It will take many years of unbroken democratic rule to get rid of turbidity caused by myopic vision, malevolent intent and megalomaniac mindset.

Musharraf knows that PPP (P) and PML (N) would not like to join hands with MMA because it displeases USA. For Musharraf, PML (N) is much worse than PPP (N) for personal reasons. Moreover, Nawaz Sharif or PML(N) supporters are much less likely to follow agitation path than PPP(P), who are more likely to respond forcefully. As the results for national assembly started pouring in, it appeared than PPP (P) will win 73-75 seats, PML (Q) about 62-65 and PML (N) about 40-42 seats, based on earlier results. As it became obvious that an alliance of PPP (P) and PML (N) might not need unwanted MMA for forming a government at center, the machinery came in full action to stop this from happening. Given the softness of PML(N) supporters toward wrongdoing, they faced the axe right in the middle of the counting and more than 15 previously winning PML(N) candidates at around 50 percent of the vote count ended up losing leading to PML(N) total of around 25 seats while PPP (P) and PML(Q) numbers remained roughly constant. If PML (N) were allowed to win 40 seats, many of the PML (Q) winners would have jumped back to PML (N) so as to be part of the ruling coalition.

Now Musharraf has put PPP (P) on the spot. An urgent message is sent to Benazir Bhutto to consider joining hand with PML (Q), a proposition favorable to Musharraf as well as USA. No matter what transpires in the next few days, the results of October 10, 2002 elections will soon be annulled followed by another 3-5 years lease on Musharraf’s stay in power with the promise of devolution, accountability and fresh and fair elections in 2005.