Mercifully the controversial election process has had a smooth take off. As the ‘boycotters’ eventually deemed it expedient to jump on the polls bandwagon, the threat of agitation disrupting the polls process was marginalised. Although the lawyers are still holding fort for the rehabilitation of deposed judges, vowing to fight it out with the regime until the ‘pre-November 3’ judiciary was back on job, their boycott of courts and agitational rallies can go on as a ‘side show’ paralleled the election campaign without jeopardising the competitors bid to vie for winning over the electorate. Some major issues of discord between the government and the opposition have the potential to produce a ‘confrontationist’ situation, but they are most likely to figure as the election agenda. For instance, on the explosive question of deposed judges, Nawaz Sharif has vowed to lead a march to Islamabad to underscore his solidarity with the cause of their restoration rather than holding out an ultimatum to the regime, ‘if you don’t restore them we won’t let you hold the polls.’
Abandoned by its partners in the APDM, Jamaat-e-Islami is now the lone voices in political arena threatening to subvert the election exercise, which has the ability to make some trouble. Notwithstanding, President Musharraf’s firm resolve not to let anyone disrupt the polls, Qazi Hussein Ahmad, plus Imran Khan the extra-baggage the Jamaat has to carry along, will find it a Herculean job to divert public attention from electioneering to agitation, no matter how disturbed the lawyers, media persons and other sections of the civil society are. The handful of ‘boycotters’, or the ‘conscientious objectors’ now left in the field must realise that they have comprehensively been outmanoeuvred by the pragmatic politicians. It is futile to ‘beat the bush when the snake is gone’. And they must also give up the illusion of drawing long-term political dividends by sticking their neck out to support a ‘just cause’. Politics is a game of fluctuating fortunes and changing alignments. Who would have imagined in the 1980’s that the Jamaat-e-Islami which had wilfully condoned ZAB’s judicial murder’ on the behest of a military dictator would one day claim to be the champion of ‘free and independent judiciary’.
To call for free, fair and transparent polls is a legitimate demand under any circumstances. And no one would dispute that the onus of providing a level playing field to all contestants is on the regime. Small wonder that the apprehension of ‘rigging’ is so overbearing that rival contenders for power from the opposition have been every now and then warning against ‘foul play’ by one or other agency of the establishment. Opening her election campaign from Mardan, Benazir Bhutto said, “Some of the forces are preparing to rig the elections”. We would not tolerate it, she said, and launch a mass agitation against it. Nawaz Sharif has been even more aggressive on playing up the rigging factor, as he has accused the regime of keeping the master plan for rigging ready. Critics believe that there was nothing the government could do to entirely satisfy the opposition that it had no ulterior design to subvert fair elections. Rigging or no rigging, the party, which wins, will proclaim it free mandate of the people, and the party, which loses, would refuse to accept the election results as genuine.
Lack of trust in the fairness and impartiality of any institutionalised arrangement for holding elections is deeply rooted in the country’s political culture, marked by refusal to follow any rules of the power game. The ‘us, or them’ syndrome, which has been the ruin of positive approach to political contention, is an expression of political culture reared in the feudal ethos. “If I win -- I win, if you win I will not let you function” has been operative norm of political behaviour. The politicians, like most of us are not prone to accepting an election defeat as a genuine expression of rejection by the electorate. Therefore it becomes necessary for them to attribute their failure to foul play. No election in the country, barring the historic 1970 popular verdicts has been seen as fair and free. Neither Benazir, nor Nawaz Sharif were willing to accept that the people had rejected them when they were voted out of power, both raised cries of massive rigging by the establishment.
How could an exception to the general rule happen in 1970, political pundits have been curious to learn? The popular explanation for this ‘one-time break’ from rigging charges has been that Gen Yahya Khan, who oversaw the 1970 electoral exercise, was a genuine ‘neutral umpire’. When he seized power in the wake of a mass movement against Ayub regime, he had proclaimed at the very outset that he had no political ambition and his only job to hold free and fair elections and hand over power to the elected representative. He lived up to his promise to hold the historic election, since he had no partisan linkages and no favourites to promote.
Nevertheless, the ‘conspiracy theorists’, which are a little too many in the country, have not been willing to buy this mundane explanation. No military dictator would ever willingly quit power, they say, and subsequent events proved Yahya Khan had an intention of handing over power to whoever won the election. According to them, he was misled by the intelligence agencies who told him that no party was capable of securing majority in the election and in the wake of a hung parliament he would still have the leverage to play one against the other.
The intelligence agencies, in particular the ISI, have been under fire for being the establishment’s principal conduit for manipulating the electoral process. Gen Aslam Beg was reported to have placed huge sum of money at the disposal of the then ISI chief Assad Durrani for buying off political support against Benazir Bhutto when she fell from the establishment’s grace and was sent packing before the completion of her first five year term in office. Ironically, many critics hold the view that the ISI was behind the MMA’s landslide victory in the 2002 election in the NWFP. What appeared to be a massive pro-Mullah tilt among the Pukhtoon electorate, they say, was engineered by the ISI to promote its patronage of Taliban. Stop the intelligence agencies from meddling in the electoral process should have the vocal and unanimous demand of all the opposition parties. But this has not happened because the politicians, whether in power, or in the opposition, are quite prepared to play ball with the intelligence bosses if it serves their interest. No wonder Nawaz Sharif had picked up the then ISI chief Ziauddin Butt as a replacement for Gen Musharraf when he made an abortic bid to remove the Army Chief of Staff, and Benazir Bhutto has elevated the former FIA chief, Rehman Malik, to the status of her principal ‘trouble shooter’.
Most of the demands made by the opposition, the PPP in particular, to ensure that the elections would be fair and free, have already been conceded. The president has taken off his military uniform, the Emergency has been lifted, the PCO has been revoked, and local bodies are likely to be suspended. However, the question of an independent Election Commission and a neutral caretaker administration are yet to be sorted out but in all probability the opposition will have to come to terms with the existing arrangement. Ironically, the establishment has stopped telling Benazir Bhutto that she could not move around freely because of the security threat, and she along with Nawaz Sharif have been pursuing their election campaign in accordance with their respective plans of action.
While Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are now in the thick of the ‘vote catching’ drive, the ‘Chaudhrys of Gujarat who are supposed to lead the King’s party’s polls offensive appear to be banking on backdoor channels. In any case when out of office they are no match to the rhetoric of their rivals in the opposition who have been reared in the public speaking and mass mobilisation. However, QML was quick to follow the PPP lead in producing an election manifesto. The two documents appear similar in the approach to high priority for development, fighting terrorism and promotion of liberal values, while the QML has laid emphasis on devolution of powers, and the PPP on education and jobs creation. Nawaz Sharif has yet to catch up with the ‘written word’ initiative, but then he fancies himself as a ‘man of action’ (suggested by her party election symbol --- tiger) rather than a ‘theorist’, prone to relying on an intellectual jargon to prove his point.