ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan—Some self styled analysts want democracy in a country that has war on its soil. They expect business-as-usual, including democracy. That’s near impossible. Worse, the atmosphere has been vitiated with discontent, suspicion and untrustworthiness by loser politicians who have been crying rigging and pre-rigging to cover failure.
People’s minds have already been pre-rigged about rigging and that is that. Add to this the ‘witch’s brew’: deceit, disloyalty and downright untruthfulness and you get the picture. As soon as elections are over the losers will raise the bogey of post-election rigging.
Every party is seen in regional and/or ethnic hues – the PPP as Sindhi, the MQM as Muhajir from urban Sindh; the Pakistan Muslim League as well as its Nawaz faction as Punjabi, the MMA as Pashtoon and so forth. The Baloch parties are all parochial as are smaller Sindhi parties. No party is truly national.
When elections are held, fear of violence will still keep voters away on election day. The turnout may be so embarrassingly low that elections may be farcical. Violence on election day is something that is always done by candidates at the constituency level, given our history. Musharraf’s opponents have suggested that the government will deliberately create violence, so negative have we become.
Those making accusations of pre-rigging are right in two senses. One, their unrelenting vitriolic propaganda has been lapped up by a national and international media waiting for the ‘big story’ of President Pervez Musharraf’s fall.
It is this that has pre-rigged elections by pre-forming people’s perceptions and convincing them before the event that elections will be rigged. This is strategic communications and perception management at its best. They have totally vitiated the atmosphere, with everyone suspecting everyone else and our educated-illiterates falling for every word uttered or written by the western media, forgetting that on foreign policy the western media works in tandem with its governments and bases its opinions on the boozy drawing room chatter of our westernized elite in liberal garb.
The stage is set for rioting, death and destruction in case elections don’t favor those who fear defeat.
Two, the American pipedream of forming our next government in its mould and openly saying so is pre-rigging. Any notion that a party is openly being backed by America creates a perception either in favor of or against it, depending where the onlooker is coming from. Isn’t that pre-rigging?
For nationalists in the native mould that is anathema. For nationalists in the foreign mould who would have Pakistan become ‘Little America’ it is music. America forced Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan (Nawaz Sharif’s return was then inevitable) on the assumption that she was ‘moderate’ and ‘secular’.
It changed the picture dramatically and totally destabilized the political process. That is pre-rigging on a very grand scale, which only the Americans are capable of.
To be fair, the Americans are not famous for their wisdom when it comes to dealing with the world, so Benazir’s return could also be the usual American cock up on a grand scale as well. Nawaz Sharif’s return destabilized Pakistan even more. Benazir’s killing completely stood it upon its head.
Any country that claims democracy as its high ground like America would never allow people with such disgraceful track records to ever hold public office again, leave alone contest elections. Neither would any self-respecting people. Nor would other politicians suddenly change tune from calling them corrupt to being ready for a political marriage with them.
There is a societal bar on them, more powerful than any law, like not eating swine is on Muslims. It doesn’t need a law. But this is Pakistan, which likes to practice democracy without understanding it, whose educated-illiterates want nothing more than a western electoral pantomime and corrupt and inept governments that they can manipulate, seduce and bribe to their benefit. Any wonder that this time around no election excitement has built up? There is no election fever. How can you blame people when all they are getting is old wine in old bottles, and wine gone-off at that?
If elections do go ahead with no more violence than usual and there is a ‘normal’ turnout – historically between 25 to 30 percent – what then?
We tend to forget that 70 percent of our constituencies are rural. In rural Punjab we have constituency politics where, regardless of how good or bad a leader or party is, he who has the most ‘winning’ candidates wins. Punjab’s majority is so huge that whoever wins Punjab, wins Pakistan. The PML has the most winning candidates in rural Punjab. This is true of rural Sindh too, where the PPP has the most winning candidates, but that is not enough to win Pakistan. Look at the history of the PPP: it formed the federal government only when it won the Punjab; it couldn’t when it didn’t, regardless of how many seats it had in Sindh or anywhere else.
All three parties stand damaged. The PML cannot shake off the image of “King’s Party”. It lost credibility with the acute flour, electricity and gas shortages, which are ongoing. Worst of all, its vote bank was deliberately divided with the return of Sharif, to help the PPP win.
Benazir Bhutto lost support when she was seen to be pushing America’s agenda. The PPP was damaged even more after Benazir’s ‘deal’ with Musharraf and her agreement to be ‘forgiven’ under the NRO instead of insisting on clearing her name in the courts as a not-guilty person normally would.
How much her assassination has mitigated these setbacks only elections will tell. Zardari becoming co-chairman of the PPP days after Benazir’s death shocked many party leaders – “hijacking” is what they are privately calling it.
No one outside the inner circle believed that she had left behind a will, much less would have nominated her husband to lead the party. With the will finally being made public, they are saddened that she really did nominate him. That is wrong, for any other alternative would have split the party almost immediately. She said in her will that Zardari should lead the PPP until he and the party decide who is to head it. That is exactly what they did by naming Bilawal as chairman, with father Zardari as regent. That is exactly what happens in dynastic politics.
Zardari has shown flashes of good behavior, but his foot-in-the-mouth statements are dominating. His recent contention that he could be prime minister because all other PPP leaders are nobodies has raised many hackles. It shows utter contempt for his colleagues and is a foretaste of the divisions to come.
Zardari is not contesting these elections, but he could later be elected to the National Assembly in a by-election. But what will he do for a graduate degree? Then, his stated intention to shift to Lahore has not made the Sindh PPP nor the Lahorites happy. They look upon his migration with trepidation.
Nawaz Sharif denied for years that he had done any deal or signed any document to get out of prison and go into voluntary exile to Saudi Arabia. At the time his party felt abandoned, especially those languishing in prison. His stature diminished when it transpired that he had indeed done a deal and signed a document. His insistence that his deal was with the Saudis and not with Musharraf and was for five, not ten years looked facetious. This damaged him no end. He returned only one day before the filing of nomination papers was to end and he and his brother were disqualified. They did not get enough time to reorganize the party, galvanize their workers and plan their election strategy. This will tell. That is why one finds only the Muslim League’s campaign in full swing. The other two are still wanting.
People forget that both Zardari and the Sharifs have Damocles’ swords hanging over their heads. The NRO lapsed on February 5 and all cases against Zardari are alive again. If he goes too far – wham!
Some say that the NRO cannot lapse as the November 3 emergency sanctified every law and ordinance preceding it. But the emergency is gone and the constitution is back in force under which every ordinance has a time limit; after that it either has to be renewed or the legislature has to pass it into law. The president hasn’t renewed it and there is no legislature yet to pass it. No legislature worth its salt would. The case against the NRO is still pending in the Supreme Court. It is highly unlikely that it will approve an ordinance in which people are not equal before the law.
Nawaz Sharif’s pardon was conditional. There are other cases against him and his brother and both could be rearrested. They know that. We have seen that Nawaz cannot abide prison for long.
Musharraf has the ability to bend them all if needed, depending on whether they have won enough seats to matter.
Pakistan likes to practice democracy without understanding it. Our ‘educated-illiterates’ want nothing more than a western electoral pantomime and corrupt and inept governments that they can manipulate, seduce and bribe to their benefit. Any wonder that this time around no election excitement has built up among ordinary Pakistanis? There is no election fever. How can you blame people when all they are getting is old wine in old bottles, and wine gone-off at that?
This is an edited version of a column by Mr. Gauhar appearing in The Nation.
