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WEEKLY
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| Eyes on the future |
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
By now the contours of the new national and provincial assemblies will have become clear. After a delay, the 2008 poll which will determine who is to sit in these assemblies, has finally taken place and initial indications are that despite fears of terrorist attack or other kinds of violence, the turnout may not be as embarrassingly low as had been feared.
After a somewhat slow start, people in most parts of the country seem to have come out to vote in sizeable numbers, most notably in Sindh and Punjab. In many urban constituencies in these provinces, a large number of women at polling stations was particularly visible. Apart from the skirmishes that are a part of most elections, and which caused a temporary halt in polling in at least one polling station in Karachi, for the most part polling, broadly speaking at least, has proceeded peacefully despite some rumours of blasts or a suicide attack in Rawalpindi. The notable exception to this trend has perhaps been seen in NWFP and in Balochistan, where even in Peshawar and Quetta people have seemed reluctant to visit polling stations. In these cities, as elsewhere in the two minority provinces, the recent spate of suicide bombings and other attacks have obviously taken their toll. And, disturbingly, even in the rural areas bordering the capital city of the NWFP, women in many cases were not permitted to vote. It is feared the restrictions may have been worse still on female voters in other places, and it seems evident that despite a campaign run by the EC, women may have been widely deprived of their basic right to vote.
Problems with the polling scheme were also reported. Voters in Lahore were reported as complaining that they could not cast their ballots because it was not possible to locate the station where their names had been listed. As happened in 2002, other problems with the lists were also reported this time – family members were split up, some names and addresses apparently were incorrectly printed and the name of some voters were apparently missing altogether (for instance Abdul Sattar Edhi in Karachi). Similar difficulties were faced by voters in Sindh. It is easy to put these matters down to the inefficiency that permeates almost all spheres of life in the country. But the reality is that, as some angry party workers opposed to the former ruling party, the PML-Q have said, the suspicions always linger that this may well have been a deliberate ploy aimed to discourage heavy balloting – a scenario that would have favoured the opposition parties. Whatever the truth, the fact is that such issues discourage citizens and deprive many from what should be an easily accessible right.
Such factors are particularly important because, inevitably, the shadow of rigging will hang over these polls — and the question of how dark and dangerous this cloud is may determine many events in the future. As has been widely reported, much of the alleged rigging had taken place well before people queued up at polling booths. The issue of thousands of postal ballots cast weeks in advance of polling day, although prisoners deny papers were ever distributed to them, the taped conversation in which the attorney general referred to the government’s rigging plans and the wide misuse of the official machinery in favour of PML-Q candidates in the months and weeks of campaigning are all well-documented. There has also been talk, as in past polls, of ‘ghost’ polling stations. In an environment in which large rallies and meetings were discouraged, particularly in the tense days that followed the December 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, parties able to wage large-scale advertising campaigns on the media and through tactics such as aerial drops of leaflets, have accumulated obvious benefits. The lead in this has been taken by the PML-Q, with ads plastered across newspaper pages even on polling day itself, when campaigning should, according to EC rules, have ended Saturday at midnight.
These realities, and the directives by PEMRA placing tough restrictions on media channels covering polls, have been construed already by some observers as a means to determine the outcome of this election. The EU team, comprising the largest contingent of foreign voters, has already commented on these scenarios. The extent to which the advice from the EU, sanctioned by the EC, to display the result of each polling station as soon as the result is compiled has been adhered to will become clear only as accounts from the competing parties, journalists and observers come in.
Several polls completed before the election have indicated a clear lead for the PPP and the PML-N, two former rivals seen to be working closely together on polling day, even where their candidates were pitched against each other. Indeed, the support for the former ruling party, the PML-Q, was said to have slumped sharply over the past few months according to opinion surveys conducted both locally and by international agencies. But the findings of these surveys seem to have greatly angered PML-Q patron President Pervez Musharraf, who has lashed out against those who have conducted the polls. One of the organizations, the US International Republican Institute (IRI), which conducted a survey that produced results adverse to the PML-Q, was in fact forced to pull out of the country a few weeks ago, after visa extensions were denied to their representatives. PML-Q leaders too maintain, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, that they will sweep the poll and form the next government.
The post-poll situation in the real world, rather than the dreamland in which PML-Q leaders seem to live, may, however turn-out to be considerably different, if the polls are relatively free and free. The predictions coming in suggest that the PPP and PML-N may be in a position to form a government particularly if they agree to join hands – as seems likely at present. The real question that will arise though is whether the key contestants will be ready to accept the result produced by this election, and whether, indeed, it will throw up a seat distribution able to produce a viable, stable future government. The possibility of an un-wieldy situation emerging in the aftermath of the polls remains high. In this situation, it can only be hoped that all leaders will recognize the need to display high levels of statesmanship and maturity, so that the stability and the security the country so badly needs, and which has been largely absent during the last few months, can be re-established. Surveys by media channels indicate people are largely hopeful of a positive change. One must urge all political parties to ensure this optimism is not allowed to crumble in the coming days, weeks and months.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
