Political pundits are now saying that look at the election results the Pakistani masses are not religious fanatics and religious terrorists. They have voted for liberal candidates and have rejected they candidates of the religious parties.
How far is it true ?
If that is true then why do we see riots from time to time between Muslim religious sects and violance against non muslim minorities.
When these kinds of riots occur you can see hordes and hordes of people taking part in these riots and taking part in killing , burning , looting how can that be explained.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
any link to those riots, Mirch?
Far as I know there hasnt been much religiousity induced rioting in Pakistan, barring the cartoon (which was jahalat more than religious inclination)
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
any link to those riots, Mirch?
Far as I know there hasnt been much religiousity induced rioting in Pakistan, barring the cartoon (which was jahalat more than religious inclination)
Yes the last one happened in 2006. But does it mean that we have uprooted the religious sectarian hatred from our midst.
The cartoons were published in the West , the Christian churches were burned and christians were killed in Pakistan . Yes that is jahalat ?
That is what I am trying to understand why still there is this kind of jahalat ,if a huge majority of Pakistan is religiously tolerant and liberal ?
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
^Do you think there have been no voters for JUI and MMA? They build the minority supporting such sectarian hatred. FOr now results of the election prove, that there is only a miniority left over. Since majority of those voters have finally realized every suicide bomber can hurt their owns too.
It always takes one or two bloodsheds of their own people to realize you have been supporting the wrong side over the years.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
JI didn't participate, thats one big block in MMA. So to say Pakistani masses have rejected religious parties will not be correct, Fazlu has been reelected as well.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Yaar compare both election 2002 and 2008 do you see no difference?
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Supporters of MQM always hated jehadis and Islamic parties in this forum. But in Karachi, MQM supported Maulana Fazal party the JUI against PPP candidate, and lost that seat. How surprising.
http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/20/local6.htm
KARACHI: PPP wins key NA seat despite Muttahida-JUI poll alliance
By Our Reporter
http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/20/images/local04.jpg
KARACHI, Feb 19: Unofficial progressive results gathered through different sources reflect gains for the Pakistan People’s Party in the city whereas one of its major frontline leaders lost in Shikarpur and another in Thatta.
According to PPP sources, the party won three national and seven provincial assembly seats in Karachi.
The PPP now commands NA-239, NA-248, and NA-258 constituencies, which comprise Keamari, Orangi, Lyari, Malir, Bin Qasim, and Gadap areas. The PPP also surprised its opponents by winning PS-80, PS-90, PS-92, PS-108, PS-109, PS-129 and PS-130 in Karachi.
NA-239 (Keamari) has been won by Abdul Qadir Patel of the PPP with around 57,000 votes in a bitter fight despite the anti-PPP election-specific alliance made by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement with the Jamiat Ulema Islam, and vote spoiling efforts by a disgruntled former PPP candidate in the constituency.
In the 2002 general election, this seat was won by MMA’s Qari Gul Rehman who got 22,164 votes against PPP’s Iftikhar Hussain, who secured 21,461 votes, and MQM’s Ashiq Hussain Qureshi, who obtained 11,199 votes.
This time just hours before polling day, the MQM and the JUI entered into a seat adjustment accord against the PPP’s Abdul Qadir Patel. Under the deal, the MQM had announced withdrawal of its candidate Dr K.S. Mujahid Khan Baloch in favour of JUI-led MMA’s candidate Qari Mohammad Usman. However, there were more votes polled for MQM’s contestant instead of the JUI’s candidate, exposing credibility of the commitment. The runner-up obtained over 24,000 votes according to the results collected so far.
Also in the run for the NA-239 seat were Captain Haleem Siddiqui (independent), Amanullah Khan Paracha of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Zar Bali Syed of the Awami National Party and eight other candidates.
NA-248 (Lyari) and NA-258 (Malir, Bin Qasim and Gadap) were retained by PPP’s Nabeel Gabol and Sher Mohammad Baloch, respectively. Mr Gabol obtained 96,000 votes against MQM’s Wasiullah Lakho who could only secure 4,200 with the support of the JUI under the seat adjustment agreement. In the previous election, MMA’s candidate Dr Qari Naseerudin Sawati remained the runner-up with 14,700 votes. Sher Mohammad Baloch obtained over 133,962 votes against independent candidate Abubakar Memon who got 11,505 votes.The PPP also put up a strong show on NA-240 through Abdullah Baloch, who lost the constituency, though he obtained about 60,628 votes against MQM’s Khawaja Sohail Mansoor who secured 67,807.
In the 1993 general election, which was boycotted by the MQM, the PPP had won six national assembly seats in Karachi.
The PPP also won seven provincial assembly seats in Karachi. PPP’s Akhtar Jadoon won the election in PS-80, Nadeem Bhutto in PS-90, Shabbir Qureshi in PS-92, Dr Salim Hingoro in PS-108, Rafiq Engineer in PS-109, Muzaffar Shujra in PS-129 and Sajid Jokhio in PS-130. With the PPP’s support the ANP won two provincial assembly seats for the first time.
But Arbab Wazir Memon, who is also the Thatta district president of the PPP, lost the seat to Shirazi group’s PML-Q candidate in NA-238. Besides, the PPP also lost two provincial assembly seats in Thatta.
Unofficial progressive results of the general election show that the Pakistan People’s Party claimed a comfortable lead in upper and lower Sindh, and southern Punjab knocking out all the bigwigs. But it lost ground in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Faisalabad and Lahore. According to the progressive results provided by the PPP data centre here, the party claimed two national assembly constituencies in the NWFP and results from Balochistan are still in the formative phase.
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Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Yaar compare both election 2002 and 2008 do you see no difference?
Go Ahead AR compare them for us. We are trying to make some sense out of these election results. Let us see them from this angle too.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Yaar compare both election 2002 and 2008 do you see no difference?
Elections 2002 were farce, they were used to show "if you don't support me, elements like these will take over Pakistan".
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Go Ahead AR compare them for us. We are trying to make some sense out of these election results. Let us see them from this angle too.
Elections 2002 were farce, they were used to show "if you don't support me, elements like these will take over Pakistan".
I'm very lazy....but I think ehtasab has summed It up pretty nicely. Without facts and figures.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Pride, they had no alternatives. EIther they would have voted for PPP, PML-N, ANP, Ind, MMA or they would have voted for JUI, MQM. Therefore they voted for last two!
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
When the results started coming out and ANP won seats in NWFP that was my first thought, however now I am not so sure if Pakistanis rejected religious parties.
The voter turnout in NWFP and Baluchistan was 12%. This means that the far right (religious voters) did not come out to vote. I may be wrong but it seems that the seats ANP and PPP won were mainly due to that reason. The number of votes they got was about the same they got in 2002.
Here is a complete map of 2008 elections. You can go to the dawn site where they show the 2002 map as well and you will see what happened.
This map also shows how PML-N is just a punjab party, just like MQM is only in Karachi and hyderabad, what else do you expect when Nawaz sharif’s slogan was wake up Punjabi.
PPP is the only true national party and surprise surprise the other national party on the map is PML-Q
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
interesting observation ashtray. its remarkable how regional PML-N is.
some of PML(Q)'s national support comes from regional powers like Pir Pagara and PML Functional though. Their showing in Balochistan and NWFP is good though
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
PPP is the only party with reasonable support in all parts of the country. Q leagers are just bunch of people who have come together for kursi. Consider them as "independants" under a name.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
And don't forget that major Baloch parties boycotted the election otherwise Q wud not have won in Balochistan.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Lockjaw see page 3 of dawn’s e-paper. it shows both 2002 and 2008 maps for comparison.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
I think with the suicide bombings, the general tone of "religious fervor" in Pakistan has toned down a bit, and I'm hearing more moderates get vocal over religious extremism.
Religious extremists really shot themselves in the foot when they went into SWAT daringly tearing down Pakistani flags. News of that was all over Pakistan, and people began to realize the real dangers of these fanatics. Even NWFP tribals and some FATA tribals are sick of them and ready to switch sides.
However, I don't know whether you can really say this was exhibited in an election, where most of the country didn't come out to vote because of fear or because they were blocked - a number of villages announced on their masjid speakers the night before elections that women were not to come out of their homes to vote on the 18th - dar ke maaray sab behti hui theen ghar mein.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
Seems like that. Take Lal Masjid's incident for instance... whatever terrorist activities it may be associated with.. A war at mosque... mass bloodshed of our religion sakes, when it could in any case be avoided, couldnot bring masses out on the roads.. or the fate of Mush's could have been decided long earlier. Good for our Roshan khayal and Aitadal Pasand emperor, our religious and national fervor has been slow poisoned to the level of death. I agree with suisidal bombs also playing a role in lessening our religious attachments.. even that is maybe a conspiracy to keep people away from religious activites and kill their religious sentiments.
Re: Did Pakistani Masses reject Religious parties ?
I think with the suicide bombings, the general tone of "religious fervor" in Pakistan has toned down a bit, and I'm hearing more moderates get vocal over religious extremism.
Religious extremists really shot themselves in the foot when they went into SWAT daringly tearing down Pakistani flags. News of that was all over Pakistan, and people began to realize the real dangers of these fanatics. Even NWFP tribals and some FATA tribals are sick of them and ready to switch sides.
However, I don't know whether you can really say this was exhibited in an election, where most of the country didn't come out to vote because of fear or because they were blocked - a number of villages announced on their masjid speakers the night before elections that women were not to come out of their homes to vote on the 18th - dar ke maaray sab behti hui theen ghar mein.
Fortunately subh dar ke maaray naih bethi howi thi. Isliye we say some changes in the election stats. But yes there have been places where Mullahs have warned women going for votes. A shame!