The
relentless attacks by the Taliban on ANP, MQM and PPP candidates and public
meetings, aimed at hurting their campaigns and threatening potential voters and
supporters, constitute a threat to free and fair elections and to the subsequent
democratic transition.
Electioneering
activities in the small provinces - Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh,
have virtually been paralyzed, rendering election campaigns impossible for
certain political parties. That is synonymous with denying a level playing
field to some political players, and that puts a big question mark on the
credibility of the election process and on its results. The behavior of
returning officers maligning politicians during the submission of nomination
papers for elections and their scrutiny has already tested the limits of
independence of the election commission. In its recent statement, the Election
Commission admitted that the caretaker government had failed to provide
adequate security to the targeted political parties.
The
situation rouses fundamental questions in people's minds. Are these political
parties being targeted for being secular and for uniting in the struggle to
change the prevailing political paradigm with the introduction of the 18th
constitutional amendment to empower civilian institutions, especially the
parliament?
These
attacks, in stark contrast with Taliban's behavior during the 2008 elections,
are being justified on the grounds that the ANP took part in America's war by
supporting the military operation against the Taliban in Swat. This argument needs
a logical deconstruction.
The
actual military operation against the Taliban started in Waziristan in 2003
when they had been dislodged from Kabul and subsequently sneaked into the
tribal areas and started their activities from there. Similarly, the military
operation in Swat was kicked off during the time of the caretaker government in
November 2007, and proved a great fiasco, leading to the erosion of the state's
writ. In 2008, Swat was completely under the control of the Taliban.
Subsequently, the Taliban threatened the ANP government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
asking them to resign or in other words to hand over Peshawar to them.
Consequently, ANP was left with no options but to restore the writ of the state
in the troubled areas by supporting a full scale military operation.
It
is further transpired by the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's
unequivocal declaration while addressing a Martyrs Day gathering on April 30
that the war against terrorism is our own war, imposed by non-state actors on
our country. However, surprisingly, the political forces traditionally known to
be the establishment's allies - currently holding sway over the election field
- consider the ongoing war to be America's war that it has imposed on Pakistan.
In
fact, the most daunting act of the coalition government of PPP, ANP and MQM was
their struggle inside the parliament to balance the political power by bringing
a shift in the existing political paradigm through constitutional measures.
Perhaps, beneath the surface, this was the real elephant in the room. Besides,
the previous parliament also gathered the courage to take political ownership
of the war against terrorism.
Supposedly,
the Taliban changed their targets in order to create political rifts in the
country to penetrate in the political power centers. And this strategy does not
seem to be the product of a simple minded combat entity but clearly a brain
child of sophisticated political minds.
Although
one cannot ignore their governance shortcomings during their incumbency, one
can also not deny the fact that physical mobility of the leadership of the ANP,
MQM and PPP was constrained by acts of terrorism and sabotage by the Taliban,
and therefore the incumbency factor had been further aggravated by narrowing
their governing space. Politically, they were hurdled in many ways, including
the reactions to the 'Kerry Lugar Bill', the campaign against fake degrees of
parliamentarians, the insistence on writing a letter against the president to
Swiss courts, and what was called the Memogate scandal, to prevent them from
asserting civilian supremacy and from implementing the 18th amendment in both
letter and spirit. However, for the first time in Pakistan's political history,
the political forces, particularly the above mentioned coalition, showed
resilience to withstand the turbulence and at least succeeded in completing
their tenure and ensuring general elections to continue the democratic
transition.
The
current pre-election mayhem predicts the importance of the coming election and
of their result for the future national, regional and global political
scenario, particularly in the framework of the post July 2014 American withdrawal.
The political parties who show no concern for the paradigm shift or
indifference towards the post-cold war security paradigm enjoy physical as well
as political space, and are being encouraged to dominate the coming political
set up. This seems to be a quid pro quo that they will confine themselves to a
superficial rhetoric of change and restricting their political action to the
improvement of social services to create a temporary aura among the masses. The
exclusion of the left and liberal forces from the election process through
brutal terrorist acts might result in a polarized post-election society. The
emerging non-election political alliance among the ANP, MQM and PPP at the
moment seems a response to their precarious situation, but can take shape of a
resistance movement in future.
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