Analysis of Stunning Gains by Religious Parties in Pakistan’s Elections

Romair

Your post was unfortunate. Nawab Sahib being opportunist? opportunist to do what - earn plots? import/export liscences? unpaid loans? I think Nawab sahib is the only MAN alive in Paksitan today who has always stood tall against any adversity, be it the dictatorship in uniform or fascism in the clothing of ganji jamhooriat or jiali jawani jamhooriat. He has always challenged the forces who have ever violated the constitution of Paksitan. How can he be opportunist? His character assasination cannot reduce his stature. But then people assasinate the characters of prophets too. This 80 year old, bony skeleton of a young man will always be remebered in the annals of history of Paksitan as the rebel with the noblest of the causes. May God protect him and give him long life. Amen.

sadna #15: Yeah, it will be nice to have a regional distribution of winning parties in Pakistan although for Pakistanis it is straight forward win in Pushtu speaking areas that stretch from northern tip to well into Balochistan on the western side. Most of the MMA leadership comes from this area as well.
Aside from that the victory at one or two Karachi seats is also in largelt Pushtu speaking areas. In Lahore, three seats to JI are definitely assisted by PML(N) support. Islamabad always had a sizeable JI support among Mohajirs and most Mohajirs did not switch to MQM like in Karachi. Additionally arrival of large number of Afghans has produced support for Fazloo and the winning candidate had strong ties to shopkeeper community in Islamabad. Reducing of each constituency size in this election (by increasing the number of seats from 200 to 272) also increased the influence of Afghans in certain constituencies in Karachi and in Islamabad. Until this election, Islamabad did not have enough population to have a full seat. Neighboring villages were part of Islamabad constituency where local caste/ baradri/ tribal affiliation as well as local sufis group were strong and tipped the balance in one of their candidates. This time, Islamabad city had one full seat and neighboring villages another. The Islamabad-I seat went to MMA and Islamabad-II went to PPP with backing from local sufis/ pir group.
PPP won in rural sindh and southern Punjab whereas Sarkari parties won mostly in rest of Punjab (excluding Lahore) and few in Sindh and Balochistan.
If fair and free elections are held again soon, MMA will lose at least half of their gains because PPP, ANP and other parties will put up joint candidates against them in NWFP, the MQM will work on better voter turnout and PML (N) will not make alliance with MMA in Lahore. The Sarkari party will lose almost two third due to PML (N) and PPP alliance n Punjab. A new mandate is terrible scenario from Musharraf`s point of view.

Urstruly: I hope you are not serious about Nawabazada being the conscsoius of Pakistan. I certainly don`t consider that guy the the conscious of anything. All he does is show up when someone needs to confront the govt., gets his five minutes of fame, and then leaves. Has he done anything productive, in any capacity, other than that? Please read Journey to Disallousinemnt by Mazari, which describes Nawabzada`s opportunism in detail.

Ferozkek: I agree with your comments.

I think people`s assesment of the, ``mainstream`` parties being deliberately sidelined by Musharraf in the areas where the religious parties won is incorrect. The mainstream parties like PPP and current members of PML(N) never win in areas where MMA has won (NWFP, Baluchistan, urban Sindh). The political parties with influence in NWFP were ANP, NAP, PML(Q). In Bhutto`s original big win in West Pakistan, in early 70s, PPP got one NA seat combined in NWFP and Baluchistan. The only influential PPP family in NWFP are Sherpaos, and they have split away and joined Musharraf`s camp in this elections. The powerful PML folks in NWFP are Gohar Ayubs, Saifullahs and Mir Afzals types. All of them were part of the Q league in this elections. ANP generally supported Musharraf. Asfandyar Wali was Musharraf`s envoy to Afghanistan. NAP`s Ajmal Khattak supports Musharraf.

So the MMA defeated purely pro-Musharraf parties in NWFP, i.e. the parteis he was supporting, not the ones he was sidelining. They defeated Saleem Saifullah (Q president of NWFP branch), and Mir Afzal`s nephew Abbas Sarfraz (minister in Musharraf`s govt.), Gohar was sidelined due to Bachelors degree condition (his son ended up winning. Asghar Khan/Omer Asghar Khan is also very popular in Hazara area. And he is a strong supporter of Musharraf (Omer was a minister in Musharraf`s cabinet).

In Baluchistan, the parties in power have always been ethnic Baluchi sardar parties/independents with some PML(Q) power. Not the mainstream PPP and PML(N) parties. All the PML leaders again migrated to PML(Q) in this area. The Baluchi sardars were neither pro nor anti-Musharraf.

In Karachi, (where MMA won also), they defeated MQM, another strong Musharraf supporter.

So the MMA actually defeated all pro-Musharraf parties. If Musharraf rigged the elections in the areas where MMA won, he did a very poor job, since his own supporting parties lost.

Anyone supporting democracy, has to tolerate the MMA, even if he/she hates them. They were voted in by their constituents. Pakistan is not a maulvi country. MMA was voted in (rightly or wrongly) to improve living conditions by the poor, not to make Pakistan more religious (otherwise MMA would have won every election). One cannot blame the poor folk for voting for them. After all rural NWFP and all of Baluchistan is literally the most backwards areas in the world. What the hell have non-religious parties ever done for them?

I think the MMA will end up moderating itself far more than it will religionise Pakistan. After all, it isn`t easy running a province. If they banish co-education, where are they going to find the money to put up separate schools? If they end interest lending, what are they going to do about the loans taken out by NWFP govt? And where will they get new loans for development? How are they going to get foreign investment into NWFP, if they completely try to alter Pakistan`s foreign policy?

People also need to keep in mind that MMA leaders are politicians first and maulvis second. They cannot agree on each other`s interpretations of Islam, yet they have agree on political expediency. Are Qazi and Fazl great Islamic scholars? No. But they are powerful politicians. They are using religion to get into power, just like Army uses guns, businessmen use money, feudals use land, MQM uses the Punjabi bogey, sardars use ancient tribal traditions. Now that they have power, they are not going to sacrifice it by taking a confrontationalist stance with the central govt. They are shrewd enough to send their kids to USA for studies, while simultaneously saying they will end co-education because they feel it may get them more votes. The moment they realize it will lessen their vote bank, they will change directions, like all politicians.

All said and done, MMA is a bad option. But a better option than the status quo feudal parties (which are still in power through the PPP and PML(Q), but their power has been diluted by the MMA), which had completely destroyed Pakistan.

The minorities and well-off men and specially wel-off women will however be adversely effected by the MMA. This is the group all of us Chowk Pakistanis belong to.

But all the doom scenario conspiracy theorists need to be asked one question: Do you really think things could get any worse than they have already gotten under the status quo leaderships of Pakistan?????? Any kind of a change in Pakistan can only be for the better.

The conscience of Paksitan, Nawab Zada Nasurallah Khan is alive and well.

Any party who compromises on Legal Framwork Order and Constitutional Amendments done by this despot, are unacceptable - whether they are Mullahs or non-Mullahs. This is the true test of sincerity of any party.

Sameer #6
It would be interesting to see a map somewhere of regional distribution of party-wise wins of seats. I guess chowk can now put up such a map if they wanted.

It might clarify the effect of voter apathy also to tally up the winning margins of MMA candidates, which may be a few thousands or few tens of thousands each, and which will likely all sum up to an even less number than 900,000.

btw, didn`t one of these religious party leaders claim his organisation had a million members. If so the tally of only 2.9 million votes shows his supporters were either pretty apathetic too or his organisation did the best it ever will.

Hope the folks writing in Pakistani newspapers will take a pause from breastbeating long enough to take a look at what the numbers really say. They may just find that God is in these details and not with Mr FazlUr Rehman as claimed :).

Feroze,

Do you think ANY party can make that much of a difference in the direction Pakistan is going?..either in their domestic or foreign policy?

It seems to me, regardless what the parliament wants, the REAL power is in the hands of the army....& the buck stops with Mushy. If the army is moderate in their views vis a vis religion...thats where the country will go...if the army supports Bush`s policy on Al-Qeeda..thats what Pakistan will do..no ifs, ands or buts... I think thats the bottom line...

From an Indian standpoint; Mushy has taken an adverserial confrontative attitude with India. The dominant discourse in India is that India should fight Pakistani adverserial confrontation with adverserial confrontation...doesnt matter who is right or wrong, whether that attitude is justified or not....so the future relationship between the two countries is in the toilet; no matter what....

My personal opinion...if 2 countries are locking horns...refusing compromise...& if the rest of the world has made it VERY CLEAR that it wont take sides...might BECOMES right...

Re: ZafarA # 11

Most religious parties moderate their stance once they attain power.

As to your question, I think that it is a combination of both; they do not have enough power without forming a coalition and they do not wish to lose the power they already have by not compromising. In case of MMA and Pakistan, the leaders of MMA will have to adopt a more moderate position or risk seeing their influence decline. Pakistan, in the post election 2002 scenrio, is facing the prospects of a minority government and the only way a government can be formed is through compromises and coalition building. If MMA enters the government through a coalition, its relative power/influence will be directly proportional to its parliamentary strenght and in order to stay in the government, it will have to ``play ball``. The present parliament is fractured into myriad political parties to the extent that a coalition government does not have to include MMA, as there are other choices and parties willing to comprmise in order to form a government. MMA might end up in the opposition, but if it does end up as a part of the coalition forming the government, it will have to tailor its policies to fit the parameters of the coalition`s politics.

The ``name of the game`` of the 2002 parliament is compromise and unless MMA learns to comprmise on some of its positions, it will find itself becoming increasingly isolated in the affairs of the parliament and it will revert to its original intention, which would be that of a nusiance party ``spoiling the broth`` for the other political parties in parliament.

Hence, there is no reason to fret over the election results, because in a Mitternichean sense, if the religious parties in Pakistan want to be a part of the balance of power, they will have to play by the rules and the rules of politics in Pakistan favor status quo - establishment. The question is, are the leaders of MMA prudent enough to realize the limits of their power and act accordingly?

Ciao

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Reply ferozk #10

Ferozk Sahab - there are examples of religious parties moderating once they achieve power (Turkey`s municipal elections, Iran`s ridiculously slow movement towards sanity, even the BJP`s general tendency after coming to power in the Centre) - but also examples of how even relatively small segments` refusal to moderate can derail this process and result in a lot of trouble - looking at Iran`s conservatives essentially holding the country back from where the majority of the population clearly wants to go, and of course our own beej`s inability to maintain its Raj Dharm in the face of right wing opposition. My question: what allows some to move towards becoming Christian Democrat equivalents and what stops others? Is having TOO much power, and hence not having to compromise, what does the process in? Or not having enough power to have something substantial to lose, and hence having no motivation to compromise and moderate?

Regards

There seems to be a lot of doom and gloom about the success of the religious parties in the 2002 elections. Some analysts have determined that this was the expected reaction to Musharraf`s pro United States policy and some argue that it was Musharraf`s hounding of the mainstream political parties, which created the vacuum that was filled by the religious parties.

The unsaid reality of the election result was that it was a protest against the Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum politics of Pakistan, where the political parties had nothing to offer the electorate other than being either pro or anti establishment. People of Pakistan are simply disgusted by the apathy shown by the political classes towards their plight and in voting for the religious candidates, the people of Pakistan were using their vote as a protest vote against the norms of the Pakistani polity, which has failed them.

The arrival pro forma of the religious parties in the mainstream of Pakistani politics is a healthy sign, because they are no longer politically marginalized and will have to confront, for the first time, the tangible limits of their religious rhetoric. By being in the mainstream, the religious parties will have to realize that cannot retain their political power only on the basis of their promises. They now have to perform or stand discredited in the eyes of the Pakistani electorate as being nothing different from the cotrie of the usual political aspirants in Pakistan. People of Pakistan want jobs, clean drinking water, security and economic opportunties and that why they voted for the religious parties.

However if the religious parties think that they have been elected to abolish Sunday as a holiday and move it to Friday or ban cable and TV or end co-education, they are mistaken. Such a religious extermism may be pliable in the NWFP or Baluchistan, which over the last twenty years have demographically changed and have been influenced by the Afghan presence, but it will not work in the rest of Pakistan. Banning women from the workplace is a lot easier to say than implement. Most women work, not because they have to, but because they must since a single income family cannot exist in the harsh economic conditions of Pakistan.

Do the religious parties have an answer as to how the income shortfall of the familes will be bridged, when their women stop working? Does the government of Pakistan, under the religious parties, has the money to pay all the idle women in Pakistan? Do they have the resources to create alternative educational facilities for women if they ban co-education in Pakistan. How are they going to seperate the work force of Pakistan, which has both women and men and women are presently working as doctors, nurses, bank tellers, teachers...

Will this logic of sexual segregation apply to the village, where the women do the majority of the work in the fields, while men sit around and smoke their ``hookhas`` and dicuss politics?

The ideas of the religious parties of dragging Pakistan back to the Dark Ages is impractical and if they force their views, then they do not represent Islam and are just using their religion to justify their political ambitions. In other case, the arrival of the religious bodes well for the development of the Pakistani polity, because now that they are in the arena of reality, they will discover that the implementation of their ideals is much more difficult than the phraseology of their rhetoric!

Ciao

sameerjb

...... i agree with you that the army`s manipulation of the elections contributed to the horrifying success of the god-crazy fundamentalists and talibanists, but there is also a more dangerous phenomenon at play - the insidious spread of resurgent political islam and wahabism that has slowly poisoned pakistani society over the past two decades ..........the results of any election can be reversed the next time around, but it might be difficult if the voters are overcome by this horrible disease ............there is only one way to fight it - rock n` roll .................there are over seventy rock bands in beijing that protect the chinese from god and goblins ..........

Ref Field Marshal #3

[Had the non-religious parties of Pakistan turned Pakistan into Singapore (or even Malyasia), rest assured, no one would have moved away from them, regardless of how much the US bombed any country.]

Just look at Malaysia where the Islamic party PAS is making strong electoral gains.

No matter what we all want to believe, the fact remains that you can Muslims out of poverty but you can`t take them away from the mullahs.

Otherwise, countries so much better off than Pakistan such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Iran would not be battling the mullahs. Nor would they have caved in like Saudi Arabia.

sadna: Out of 900,000 thousand you quoted from Najam Sethi, a big chunk came from NS supporters in Lahore, helping MMA to win 3 seats in Lahore as PML (N) and MMA alliance candidates. Additionally in Karachi and Islamabad, MMA vote bank went up due to many Afghan refugees getting ID cards and voting for MMA.
The support for US has made many Pakistanis unhappy but not stupid to change their vote from PPP or PML to MMA. The MMA gains are primarily of two reasons I outlined in post #1.

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Romair writes:

``Had the non-religious parties of Pakistan turned Pakistan into Singapore (or even Malyasia), rest assured, no one would have moved away from them, regardless of how much the US bombed any country.``

Come now,

When you have the feudals and the army grabbing a huge chunk of the national wealth pie for essentially unproductive purposes and having the means to enforce their writ, even God couldn`t turn Pakistan into Singapore. So why blame the non-religious parties?

The religious parties got their ``spectacular`` success simply because of the managed election where anyone with an iota of popularity was manipulated out of the elections. Why is anyone surprised? And the results must have been music to Mushy`s ears: on the one hand there is no concerted opposition to him due to a hung parliament and on the other he can point to the beards and tell the West that he is the only savior that Pakistan has.

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/front.htm

Najam Sethi says the MMA got 2.9 million votes this time in 2002, while in 1993 religious parties got 1.4 million votes, an increase of 1.5 million votes from 1993 to 2002.

He says out of this increase of 1.5 million, 600,000 is the natural increase due to population growth and decrease in voting age from 21 to 18.

The rest, 900,000 in number are the voters who changed their voter preference resulting in huge increase in seats from 9 out of 207 in 1993 to 45 out of 272 in 2002.

So he says only one million voters out of 72 million electorate caused this `stunning gain` for MMA.