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Winners and losers: LAHORE DIARY WHO WON the referendum last week? The various reactions to the famous ‘victory’ have all been predictable. From the president, governors, their ministers, Nazims and councillors to the chief election commissioner — everybody was pleased with the lack of violence and satisfied with the results. So were Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto and Qazi Husain Ahmad. At least that was what they said. The president, of course, as had been pointed out by many, had little to gain from the exercise. He has been firmly in the saddle and even those crying themselves hoarse in the opposition know they cannot do a thing about it. His two constituencies, the Armed Forces and the silent majority, are unmoved by their clamour. The latter, if media reports about polling on April 30 are anything to go by, may actually have grown. But the converse is not true. Technically speaking, the president had nothing to lose. The opposition clearly saw that and refused to solicit a ‘No’ vote. As Advocate Sheikh Umar Draz of Lahore, apparently a Musharraf supporter, had apprehended in his April 9 letter to the president — a copy was made available to Dawn — it chose to seek abstention. The good advocate, who seems to understand better than most presidential advisors the difficulty of obtaining an affirmative vote, had advised rephrasing the referendum question. If he had his way, the question would be whether the president should quit. The cost of canvassing and transporting the voters would be up to the opposition and a poor turnout would allow the president to continue. Brilliant, of course. Why the advice was ignored and abstention allowed to favour the opposition is not clear. The very nature of the referendum allowed only for subtle gains and losses. The winners seem to have been back-benchers in mainstream opposition, the police, the local administration and the chief election commissioner’s office. The losers include politicians among the president’s most allied allies, the Bar associations and the rule of law. While the cynics have pointed to the awkwardness about demanding a plebiscite in Kashmir, it is likely to be temporary. * * * * * * * * Speaking over the din of self-congratulation all around, the Punjab governor chose to praise the great resilience of our ‘life as usual.’ Now that a campaign involving the largest ever electorate in the country’s history was over, he predicted, everything would return to normal in no time. He was himself scheduled to take a tour of five districts to ensure personally that unlike last year the vested interests should not succeed in turning a good harvest into a bane for the growers. He also visited Islamabad to brief the president ahead of the latter’s post-referendum address to the nation. In Lahore, he opened the 958th urs of Data Ganj Bakhsh, the city’s patron saint, laying floral wreaths and a chadar at the shrine. Devout gowalas of the city and the its suburbs supplied milk for the traditional sabeel and a three-day mela spreading from Urdu Bazaar to Atiq Stadium adjacent to the Badshahi Masjid got underway. The qawwali concerts beginning right after Isha went on till dawn. For newspaper workers, May 1, the international labour day, was once again a ‘however holiday.’ (The typical notice formally announces the holiday, only to add: “However, the paper will come out as usual.” Hence the name.) In Islamabad, non-violent demonstrators were baton charged by police for demanding an end to laws discriminating against women and expressing solidarity with a woman they said was wrongfully sentenced to death by stoning. In Karachi, there were six blasts in two days and several politicians, including some former parliamentarians, were arrested for calling a protest strike. The army, the constabulary and the rangers were called out to help with law and order. In Domar village of Dera Ghazi Khan’s tribal area, a pregnant woman was reported to have been slaughtered by her husband for disagreeing with him when he proposed killing her only hen to serve a dainty meal to a guest. After she was declared a shaheed by the local religious leaders, the report said, the body was buried on an ‘as is’ basis — in the clothes she wore and without being washed. Such is our life. The more it changes, the more it remains the same. * * * * * * * * If the high official turnout for the presidential referendum last week was not the eye-opener for the opposition, the Punjab governor said it should be, Malik Abdul Qayyum, the Millat Party secretary-general, was fortunately at hand and available to drive home the point. Obviously pleased as he was, even the governor admitted, he had not expected it to be that high. It fell, therefore, to the MP leader to analyse and explain the phenomenon for the politically uninitiated. Mr Qayyum was reported to have said he had identified 19 reasons which, had they been understood, would have spared the governor the surprise and convinced the opposition to throw in the towel rather than face the inevitable snub by the electorate. “The top reason was that a lot of white-collar, educated people and business class cast their votes for the first time.” He said women had voted for the president on account of the 33 per cent representation in the union councils, the youth for reduction in the minimum age for voting and the minorities for the restoration of joint electorate. Then, he said, there was the support of local government leaders and the political parties. The expatriate Pakistanis were another factor. The ‘reasons’ included people’s confidence in the government’s socio-economic policies, taking up Kashmir issue with the Indian leaders and bringing dignity to the country by supporting the coalition forces against terrorism. Somewhere along the line, the report lost the count. It is unclear, therefore, whether the MP leader realized the contribution from the country’s prisons. For if Malik Aftab Rabbani of the Prisoners Aids Society (sic) is to be believed, the way to vote in the referendum was one thing the prisoners and jail staff agreed on. He said while the primary motivation came from the reforms, including jail reforms, pursued by the government, the Society, too, had done its bit. * * * * * * * Referendum Nama, a poem by Minhaj Burna, the veteran journalist and trade union leader, is currently doing the rounds in the country’s press clubs. It calls for a reference to the electorate on substantial questions instead of soliciting a personal endorsement. * * * * * * A spokesman for the Punjab government ‘clarified’ last week that the show-cause notice served on Dr Ajmal Niazi, a Government FC College teacher, “was not related to the phenomenon of referendum at all... The government believes in the freedom of the press and is committed to tolerate healthy criticism in the media with open-mindedness... no government servant is eligible to get any document published or make any statement to express views on controversial political issues or on government policy in a manner which is capable of embarrassing the central or any provincial government.” * * * * * * What’s in a name? Given any name a rose smells as sweet and a road remains as useful. Not so in Gojra. A road sign announcing its name has been twice installed at the district Nazim’s bidding and removed under pressure from the tehsil Nazim. Nor are the two elected leaders alone in the fray. Led by the Nazim, the district council has adopted a resolution naming the road after Chaudhry Fazle Karim. As if by way of a reply, the tehsil council has adopted a unanimous resolution naming the same road after Mehdi Shah. Since both Nazims claim jurisdiction, the officials concerned have been forced to refer the matter to the Local Government Department. — ONLOOKER Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
