What is at stake?

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What is at stake? ​

Analysis by Rasul Bakhsh Rais

These elections are just the first phase of the Pakistani people’s struggle to reclaim their country and hold responsible those who are to blame for the country’s miserable social and economic conditions. Let us hope they succeed through the ballot and are spared the bullets

Everything about the future of Pakistan — stability, peace, progress, and normal social and political life — hinges greatly on the outcome of the elections.

Elections are a normal political activity in societies where the practice is institutionalised. There, electorates have the periodic opportunity to hold the contenders, incumbents and challengers accountable by scrutinising their past performance, ideologies and proposed solutions for social and economic issues. Our elections, however, particularly the ones just concluded, are very, very different.

Let us look at President Pervez Musharraf’s legacy and the kind of political climate that he has created in the country. Pakistan has seen suffered two impositions of martial law, two suspensions of the constitution, two ‘emergencies’ and a series of elections that everyone, except the King’s Party, considered fraudulent and widely rigged in favour of the general and his supporters.

Furthermore, political events, particularly from March 9, 2007 onwards, have plunged the country into a state of confusion, uncertainty and hopelessness. This should be understandable, because no former military or civilian leader in our troubled political history has resorted to the kind of blatantly unconstitutional measures employed by the current regime just to stay in power.

These elections, then, have been held in the backdrop of a displaced superior judiciary that had earned the respect and trust of the Pakistani public, and was broadly seen as attempting to be free and fair.

Also, the 1973 Constitution that represents a national consensus and a social compact among all federating units stood mutilated by personalised amendments, its fundamental character corrupted.

Among all the factors that have tainted the electoral process, one that particularly stands out is the public’s and opposition parties’ lack of confidence in the Election Commission and the interim governments. They have completely failed to convince anyone in the country that they are neutral, fair and impartial. This popular impression is not just owing to the cynical and distrustful attitude that is part of our political culture, but because of ground realities that testify to their partisan behaviour.

It is widely known that the outgoing government carefully placed its allies in key positions in the bureaucracy to assist, in whatever ways possible, candidates of the Q-League. It is sad how our once revered civil services have been reduced to mindless proxies.

Why, then, did the two major political parties — the PPP and the PMLN — and the ANP, go to the polls, knowing well what they were up against?

The answer is: they considered it the last chance for a peaceful, democratic change in the country. While registering their protest against measures that amounted to pre-poll, procedural rigging, they decided to participate nevertheless in the larger interest f political stability.

Perhaps, for the Q-League and its chief patron, the elections are about reconfirming legitimacy and the public’s approval for the ‘good’ they have done for the country.

But from the point of view of the opposition parties, the public and the objective national and foreign observers, the elections have a larger objective: to settle some fundamental, structural problems that the Pakistani state faces today.

Chief among these critical national issues is the health of the federation. The authoritarian rule of the general has alienated federating units by pushing them to the margins of political power.

In essence, any authoritarian order, civilian or military, is anti-federation because the authoritarian ruler does not accept autonomy, empowerment or genuine representation of peoples from different regions. More than that, the personalised nature of rule during the past eight years has violated the social compact among the federating units. Needless to say, it will take a lot of time to repair this breach of trust between the centre and the provinces.

The Baloch and Pashtun regional parties from Balochistan have boycotted the elections. Time and again, they have demonstrated that they don’t trust the present regime. Some of them have taken up arms against the state, which revives old fears about greater conflagration reminiscent of earlier bloody clashes.

It will be one of the most difficult tasks of the elected government to bring these disillusioned elements back into the political system. Perhaps the transfer of the concurrent list to the provinces can be a starting point of reconciliation and harmony between the centre and the federating units.

The restoration of an independent judiciary is an equally important challenge that the nation faces today. The superior judiciary was removed through the PCO because it was suspected that it might not give a ruling in favour of Musharraf on the question of his eligibility to run for president. This has been one of the gravest setbacks to Pakistan’s evolution into a free democracy.

No democracy, even the procedural one like ours, can function without an independent judiciary. In the coming weeks and months, the new governments will face enormous pressure from civil society, the lawyers’ community and most opposition political parties in this regard.

The elections were considered an opportunity to resolve these complex issues, which are mired in deep political and constitutional controversies. Failure to do so may produce political confrontation that is already shaping up with some of the parties having boycotted the elections. These parties have vowed to continue their struggle until the pre-November 3-judiciary is restored, no matter which party or parties form the government.

Pakistan is passing through a critical historical phase at time when its geopolitical environment and internal social order have changed for the worse. There is a war next door in Afghanistan that has spread into our borderlands, and from there it threatens to engulf major towns and cities in the heartland.

We thought Musharraf and his political allies could accept responsibility for the mess they have landed the country in and bow out of power gracefully and honourably. That has not happened.

These elections are just the first phase of the Pakistani people’s struggle to reclaim their country and hold responsible those who are to blame for the country’s miserable social and economic conditions. Let us hope they succeed through the ballot and are spared the bullets.

By the time you read this, it will be clear whether or not the two major opposition parties have accepted the results.

If so, we may move on to the next stage of our political struggle — establishing supremacy of the constitution, parliament and the people of Pakistan.

The author is a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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