Pakistan: Battle for democracy

Going by the set of candidates, their manipulative electioneering campaigns and the party leaders' largely empty, if not indecorous, rhetoric at the rallies are any indicators the outcome of the May 11 election is not expected to be very different from before. Of course, there are quite a few new entrants - some only for inclusion in the 'also-ran' list - but most of the front-runners are chips off the old block. If they are not close blood relations of the party leaders then they are time-tested cronies or safe bets on their family seats. Even the latest players in the power game have preferred 'electables' over their committed workers. Yet in the fullness of time the outcome of the May 11 election would be recorded as different, very different, from ever before - for the reason that this is taking place despite the stiffest and most prohibiting challenges. Given a high incidence of violence in many parts of the country particularly in provincial capitals of Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar, the forces opposed to this democratic exercise seem to be calling the shots, at least as of now. Three major political parties - PPP, ANP and MQM - have been literally confined to have at best corner meetings instead of public rallies, a situation that is a crass contradiction of the much-hallowed characteristic of impartial and transparent election. No wonder the leaders of the three parties are crying foul, complaining inaccessibility to a level playing field and pre-poll rigging. With only 10 days left for the polls the election wagon is running the endgame lap. The anti-democracy forces will spare no device in order to derail the wagon of democracy; we may have more violence at more places. But whatever cost the democratic forces they cannot afford to abandon the race and thus yield to anti-democratic forces. For all practical purposes for democracy in Pakistan it is 'to be or not to be' question. By derailing the electoral process now under way the anti-democratic forces will have won and the future Pakistan an anachronistic fiefdom runs by extremists. And if some parties now in the field feel safe and un-rattled by violence they are sadly mistaken. Read what the spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman says; he says "we are against the secular and democratic system which is against the ideology of Islam ...and we are not expecting any good from other parties either, who are supportive of the same system". Why they are not being targeted, the spokesman says, that's "our own prerogative". No doubt in the situation that tends to obtain during the next week or so the prospects of an election that would be peaceful, largely participated and rightly reflective of the national will are slim if not dismal. But some of the steps of late taken by the authorities will certainly help restore the balance between the threat posed by the TTP and its genre and the polity's mood to exercise its democratic right to choose its rulers. The most crucial step is the government's decision to deploy forces including troops in all the districts of Balochistan. Some 18,461 teachers had refused to perform polling duties in 11 sensitive districts fearing violence. Not only on the day of election but all along since May 1 the troops and paramilitary forces would be deployed hoping it would give boost to presently nearly stalled electioneering activity. In fact, the threat to timely election in Balochistan is double-edged. Both the TTP and the nationalists are working hand in glove to sabotage the polls, the former out to assert that election is anti-Islam and the latter to establish that the province is beyond the writ of the government of Pakistan. At the same time the political parties have to forge unity in defence of election on time not only by condemning violence but also by desisting use of abusive language against each other, which tends to cast them more as power-hungry gamblers than as national leaders. That they have yet to sit together and think out a united stand against terrorist attacks is indeed disappointing. Perhaps they don't realise the consequences of a failed election. Not only the outcome of the polls held in the absence of level playing field would be controversial it may trigger a replay of 1977 failed election facilitating General Ziaul Haq to take-over. It's heartening that the caretaker government would brook no delay in holding election on May 11. But it's not the government and the candidates that have to secure timely election; the voters too owe a responsibility in that they should turn up at the polling booths in large numbers. A poor turnout is also a negative development that can help the anti-democratic forces claim that the people are also opposed to having a democratic system in Pakistan. We are in the midst of a gigantic battle for the survival of democracy in Pakistan, and it can be won only by putting aside party affiliations and personal reservations.