EDITORIAL: What might happen tomorrow
Shadows keep falling on the elections even in the last hours before the polling begins. The attorney general is allegedly caught on tape telling someone that the government is going to rig the elections. Ten terrorists linked to the Taliban are caught in Karachi ready to blow up several polling stations with massive amounts of explosive material. A thousand people, all Afghans, are arrested in Peshawar and accused of “trouble-making”. Eighty thousand troops are deployed to protect the polling stations, one-third of which have been declared dangerous.
This is going to be a very different election from past ones. It is happening mostly on TV. It is mired in rumours of dhaandli or rigging whose evidence keeps popping up here and there. The political parties, scared of being short-changed, are threatening rejection of polls and violent agitation, but with a clear subtext that it might hurt their interests. Every party is claiming exaggerated gains at the polls since any modest assessment might make the voters turn away. The incumbent PMLQ began by harclaiming 150 seats in the National Assembly together with its allies, to come down to 110 on the eve of polls, till some unnamed PMLQ leaders are being quoted in the press as ready to accept the PPP and the PMLN government after the polls. The real threat to the 2008 elections remains a low voters’ turnout.
The PPP has a sympathy wave welling up for it. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that it will sweep in rural Sindh, thus sharing the province with urban MQM. It is estimated to win 35-40 out of 61 National Assembly seats in Sindh. One analyst says it will also win 40-50 out of the 148 seats in Punjab, 10-15 of NWFP’s 35, 3 of Balochistan’s 19, to make up a total of 100-108. This is possible because the PPP is the only national party with votes in all the four provinces. With this kind of total it will certainly be the front-runner for putting together the government at the centre. Significantly, the party’s mood is suitably conciliatory and it threatens no one, not even President Pervez Musharraf.
The PMLN is the comeback party in Punjab. If the PMLQ suffers it will do so because of the ability of the PMLN to bounce back, although to write off the incumbent PMLQ would be unwise since it is fielding some very strong candidates despite defections and its own policy to undercut some of its candidates — after giving them tickets — through independents. The 53 seats in South Punjab are under threat from the PMLN which is also set to win handsomely in Lahore and Faisalabad, the second and third largest cities in the country. One feels that Mr Nawaz Sharif is reconciled to letting the PPP rule in Islamabad and handle President Musharraf while he gets Punjab on the basis of all the tools he will have handy in the National Assembly to play the kingmaker.
The rise of the ANP in the NWFP is bound to fill the vacuum left behind by a bickering MMA. Out of all the parties, it is the ANP which is campaigning bravely after being fatally targeted twice by the terrorists. If the voters come out the party is sure to increase its presence in the provincial assembly as well as have enough numbers in the National Assembly to form meaningful alliances. The PPP doesn’t have a good past record with the ANP, but the new orientation in both parties is to disembarrass themselves of their old identity markers and seek reconciliation. Just as the PPP began making overtures to the MQM in Sindh right after the arrival of Ms Bhutto from exile, the big party is bound to ride together with the ANP and allow it to form the government in the NWFP.
The PPP was in the process of discussing power-sharing with the PMLN on Friday. Mr Nawaz Sharif has stiffened his rhetoric on the presumed basis of negotiations, but this could be mere electoral pyrotechnics to win votes. He wants President Musharraf ousted and he wants the dismissed judges restored. (His wife has promised a gathering that her party would replace President Musharraf with Dr AQ Khan.) No doubt the parties will have to develop the requisite measure of flexibility after the elections to work in double harness at the centre and in Punjab. There is evidence that they don’t want to revert to the cloak-and-dagger days of the 1988 assemblies when Punjab spies called Midnight Jackals had tried to topple the PPP at the centre.
At no time in the past have local and foreign observers been forced to keep their fingers crossed as now. There are far too many elements for comfort today who would wish to see the elections go wrong. Nor is the world too reassured of Pakistan’s real intentions after it returns to democracy. *
SECOND EDITORIAL:Naval exercises with India
A symposium held by the naval chiefs of Indian Ocean states heard the India naval chief saying his country would welcome naval exercises with the Pakistan navy. There were 27 naval chiefs present at the symposium but the Pakistani chief was not there. Many environmental issues were discussed. A UAE security representative present at the meeting asked for protection of the under-sea communications cables laid on the ocean floor at the cost of billions of dollars.
India has done naval and military exercises with the US and China recently. Pakistan and India too should agree to cooperate at sea where their fishermen tend to violate presumed territorial waters. Agreed that the Sir Creek dispute has complicated the matter of the maritime boundary, but Indo-Pak disputes have tended to be perennial and must be ignored now till they disappear gradually through bilateral normalisation. Not attending the symposium means isolating yourself especially in relation to the Gulf where Pakistan’s security interests are involved. Pakistan’s India policy has become snagged with Islamabad’s obsession with a quid pro quo, whereas national interest should be supreme, especially when it demands pacification of the eastern border to face up to the trouble coming across the Durand Line.
This is going to be a very different election from past ones. It is happening mostly on TV. It is mired in rumours of dhaandli or rigging whose evidence keeps popping up here and there. The political parties, scared of being short-changed, are threatening rejection of polls and violent agitation, but with a clear subtext that it might hurt their interests. Every party is claiming exaggerated gains at the polls since any modest assessment might make the voters turn away. The incumbent PMLQ began by harclaiming 150 seats in the National Assembly together with its allies, to come down to 110 on the eve of polls, till some unnamed PMLQ leaders are being quoted in the press as ready to accept the PPP and the PMLN government after the polls. The real threat to the 2008 elections remains a low voters’ turnout.
The PPP has a sympathy wave welling up for it. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that it will sweep in rural Sindh, thus sharing the province with urban MQM. It is estimated to win 35-40 out of 61 National Assembly seats in Sindh. One analyst says it will also win 40-50 out of the 148 seats in Punjab, 10-15 of NWFP’s 35, 3 of Balochistan’s 19, to make up a total of 100-108. This is possible because the PPP is the only national party with votes in all the four provinces. With this kind of total it will certainly be the front-runner for putting together the government at the centre. Significantly, the party’s mood is suitably conciliatory and it threatens no one, not even President Pervez Musharraf.
The PMLN is the comeback party in Punjab. If the PMLQ suffers it will do so because of the ability of the PMLN to bounce back, although to write off the incumbent PMLQ would be unwise since it is fielding some very strong candidates despite defections and its own policy to undercut some of its candidates — after giving them tickets — through independents. The 53 seats in South Punjab are under threat from the PMLN which is also set to win handsomely in Lahore and Faisalabad, the second and third largest cities in the country. One feels that Mr Nawaz Sharif is reconciled to letting the PPP rule in Islamabad and handle President Musharraf while he gets Punjab on the basis of all the tools he will have handy in the National Assembly to play the kingmaker.
The rise of the ANP in the NWFP is bound to fill the vacuum left behind by a bickering MMA. Out of all the parties, it is the ANP which is campaigning bravely after being fatally targeted twice by the terrorists. If the voters come out the party is sure to increase its presence in the provincial assembly as well as have enough numbers in the National Assembly to form meaningful alliances. The PPP doesn’t have a good past record with the ANP, but the new orientation in both parties is to disembarrass themselves of their old identity markers and seek reconciliation. Just as the PPP began making overtures to the MQM in Sindh right after the arrival of Ms Bhutto from exile, the big party is bound to ride together with the ANP and allow it to form the government in the NWFP.
The PPP was in the process of discussing power-sharing with the PMLN on Friday. Mr Nawaz Sharif has stiffened his rhetoric on the presumed basis of negotiations, but this could be mere electoral pyrotechnics to win votes. He wants President Musharraf ousted and he wants the dismissed judges restored. (His wife has promised a gathering that her party would replace President Musharraf with Dr AQ Khan.) No doubt the parties will have to develop the requisite measure of flexibility after the elections to work in double harness at the centre and in Punjab. There is evidence that they don’t want to revert to the cloak-and-dagger days of the 1988 assemblies when Punjab spies called Midnight Jackals had tried to topple the PPP at the centre.
At no time in the past have local and foreign observers been forced to keep their fingers crossed as now. There are far too many elements for comfort today who would wish to see the elections go wrong. Nor is the world too reassured of Pakistan’s real intentions after it returns to democracy. *
SECOND EDITORIAL:Naval exercises with India
A symposium held by the naval chiefs of Indian Ocean states heard the India naval chief saying his country would welcome naval exercises with the Pakistan navy. There were 27 naval chiefs present at the symposium but the Pakistani chief was not there. Many environmental issues were discussed. A UAE security representative present at the meeting asked for protection of the under-sea communications cables laid on the ocean floor at the cost of billions of dollars.
India has done naval and military exercises with the US and China recently. Pakistan and India too should agree to cooperate at sea where their fishermen tend to violate presumed territorial waters. Agreed that the Sir Creek dispute has complicated the matter of the maritime boundary, but Indo-Pak disputes have tended to be perennial and must be ignored now till they disappear gradually through bilateral normalisation. Not attending the symposium means isolating yourself especially in relation to the Gulf where Pakistan’s security interests are involved. Pakistan’s India policy has become snagged with Islamabad’s obsession with a quid pro quo, whereas national interest should be supreme, especially when it demands pacification of the eastern border to face up to the trouble coming across the Durand Line.
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