Major issues in election

WHOM to vote for? is a question that is on the minds of millions of Pakistanis as the country gears up for national elections just three weeks away. This is a perplexing question given the plethora of political parties plus independents fighting in both the national and provincial assembly constituencies.

A staggering 12,308 candidates are in the run for 1,070 National and Provincial Assembly seats throughout the country. This works out to an average of 11 candidates vying for each seat. For Islamabad’s two National Assembly seats, 20 candidates in total are contesting. So, whom to vote for?

Unlike previous national elections, where “accountability” was a major campaign issue and voters had mainly to decide which party could best work for their social and economic interests if voted into power, this time round the one issue that stands out is the political role of the army. When casting their votes, voters will actually be deciding, consciously or unconsciously, whether they want the army to run the affairs of the government hand in hand with the politicians. Ironically it was President Gen Pervez Musharraf himself who made the role of the military the key election issue when he passed the Legal Framework Order establishing the supra-parliamentary National Security Council and reviving Article 58-2(b) giving the president the power to dismiss the prime minister.

The political party that is most vocal in its support for Gen Musharraf’s political policies is the newly-formed PML (QA), whom other parties refer to as the “king’s party”.

In Lahore on Sunday, the PML (QA)’s Punjab president said that his party would support Gen Musharraf when the latter seeks a presidential mandate in parliament. He also said he believed in the efficiency of a system of checks and balances.

The two major advocates of a federal parliamentary system with a powerful prime minister as opposed to the “checks and balances” system that President Musharraf intends to put in place are the two mainstream political parties, viz. PPP and PML (N), which are expected to harness a major portion of the votes in any free and fair elections.

But perhaps due to the absence of their top leaders from the country’s political scene, and the fact that the latter are focussed on fighting with the government for their right to contest the elections — the government having either disqualified them from contesting or rejected their nomination papers — these two main parties have so far not been able to present their election objectives as articulately as some smaller parties have done.

Besides, although officially all political parties have been allowed to start campaigning from Sept 1, the PPP kicked off its election campaign only yesterday (Sept 16) with a public rally in Multan.

On the other hand, Pakistan Tehrik—Insaf led by Imran Khan, who had previously been supportive of the military government, seems to have taken the lead in speaking out on the issue of the role of the army, particularly since his candidature for his hometown constituency of Mianwali was rejected by the Election Commission to the apparent advantage of candidates from the PML (QA). Last week the PTI chief came out very clearly against giving the army any role in ruling the government. As reported in the press, he specifically called upon the army to extricate itself from the political role and return to the barracks after handing over power to the elected representatives.

The other party that has been strongly critical of any political role by the army in the internal and external affairs of the country is the Frontier-based Awami National Party (ANP), which has reached an agreement on seat-to-seat adjustment with the PPP in the NWFP province. As was reported in the press last week, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, senior vice-president of the ANP, said at several party meetings that the army had no role to play either in government or in politics and that the survival of democracy rests on the permanent writ of politicians in government. Another ANP leader, Aurangzeb Khan, who said that the army had only been conquering its own country since independence, also exhorted the army rulers to end their political role and pay attention instead to their professional duties.

While vote rigging has usually been a cry after the event by politicians who lost in previous elections, this time pre-poll rigging has been pushed up as a major election issue. Those accusing the current military government of “massive” pre-poll rigging include the PPP, PML (N), PTI and, to a lesser extent, members of the alliance of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA). The PML (N) has accused the government of working on a “grand rigging plan,” and the PTI chief went further by saying that the pre-poll rigging by the military government was damaging the credibility of the army as an institution.

Both the PPP and PML (N) have accused the military government of pre-poll rigging by barring their top leaders from the general election and by actively patronizing certain personalities and the “king’s party”, the PML (QA). They, as well as the PTI, have blamed the government for accepting the candidature of key leaders in the PML (QA) who are said to have confirmed records of loan default. Both main parties have also said that election boycott remains an option for them if “pushed to the wall”. The PML (QA) leaders, on the other hand, have been rejecting the pre-poll rigging charges, saying that the allegations were mere election stunts to win sympathy from the masses, and assured voters that the election on Oct 10 would be a free and fair one.

If there were any expectations earlier on that the two mainstream parties would unite on the issue of the constitutional amendments or on the issue of pre-poll rigging, this has somewhat dissipated. Instead, the PPP has teamed up with the PTI to try and build up a political consensus among leading political parties in the MMA and the so-far-inactive ARD, of which the PPP and the PML (N) are members, on a one-point agenda of ensuring free and fair election.

Neither the country’s Kashmir policy nor its involvement with the US-led coalition against terrorism has come up as a major election issue, and even the religious parties, which have come together for the first time to contest under one umbrella, have only been criticizing the injustices of America and other forces on the people of Afghanistan, Kashmir and Palestine. They have been avoiding harsh and direct criticism of America’s policy in Afghanistan or even the American military presence in Pakistan. At the most, the MMA representatives have been criticizing the US capitalists, specially the IMF and the World Bank, for wanting to take over Pakistan’s resources.

Instead, in defence of the much-maligned image of religious parties as violent “fundamentalist terrorists” after Sept 11, the MMA leaders are taking pains to focus their campaign on the establishment of a “true Islamic rule” in the country that would bring about a peaceful, just and prosperous society. The MMA’s election symbol, a book, is a reflection of the kind of image it wants to project to voters.

Voters may be up for some surprises during the next three weeks as the election campaign picks up steam and political parties change or settle down to their election alliances. If voters are looking for a political party that could present a credible and feasible plan to solve the country’s myriad social and economic problems andput it on the road to development and prosperity, they will be disappointed.

Under the present political scenario, where the struggle to establish a democratic political order continues to occupy the attention of the politicians, and the major political parties seem unable to unite for the collective good of the country, voters can only expect nothing much more than continued political instability long after the October election.

Smoking the peace pipe in Kashmir may not be a daydream

IT was Imtiaz Alam, a journalist friend from Pakistan, who first drew my attention to the palpable cussedness that defines the subcutaneous nationalism of the so-called liberal Indian intelligentsia. “Scratch an Indian liberal on Kashmir and you will fight a patriotic spitfire beneath the skin,” he confided during one of the perennial seminars that go on being organized on the issue in New Delhi and elsewhere.

I observed several discussions closely after that. On most issues, the Pakistanis and the Indians, from the left to the right of the spectrum, would promise each other the moon and seal their abiding trust with a quaintly Punjabi embrace.

Ask Inder Gujral, the former prime minister and best-known exponent of this Punjabi jhappi, a self-styled advocate of peace, love and harmony between India and Pakistan, about the way out on Kashmir. He too will follow the integral- part-of-India route, the Pakistan-backed-terrorism accusation.

I found numerous Pakistanis, not the easiest of customers on Kashmir, at least willing to submit that yes their country’s involvement in aiding and abetting armed Kashmiris and other assorted Muslim jihadis to kill and pillage was a profound mistake. “Absolutely right, very insightful,” the Indian discussant would promptly ad lib, but without giving an inch, mind you, of his own rigidly defined territory that straddles the seemingly endless discussion.

Of course, there are exceptions on the Indian side too. I heard Gautam Navlakha, the human rights activist and the Delhi point man of the respected journal Economic and Political Weekly the other day hold forth on the right to self- determination of Kashmiris. Of course, I too would believe in self-determination if I believed in the concept of a nation-state in the first place, but that’s beside the point.

To many of us human rights are the watchword, not just in Kashmir but also in Bihar or Jaffna and any other god-forsaken, hapless place. There is a view that if even a mere 50 per cent of basic human rights are actually observed, preserved, and defended in a society, a rights-based approach even at the municipal level, not to speak of a country, could lead you to a happy and —-# Šagreeable resolution of most conflicts and other miserable situations.

Imtiaz Alam was an incorrigible chain-smoker when we met. I have noticed that his consumption of cigarettes has gone up over the years. Yar ye badey ajeeb log hain, he would grumble between his drags, expecting that extra bit of nicotine to help him absorb the Indians’ delightful stories on Kashmir.

Unlike Sahir Ludhianvi, the leftist Urdu poet, who used to break the filter tip of his expensive 555 State Express cigarettes before lighting up, Imtiaz would smoke them right to the end, till the filter began to burn, creating a foul stench. Perhaps that was his way of getting even with the heavy bias of the Indian seminarians.

We now have a cure for Imtiaz. He should promptly meet Ram Jethmalani, the maverick lawyer and former law minister of India, who now heads the so-called Kashmir Committee. There are conflicting views about the relevance of the Kashmir Committee to the resolution of the Himalayan conflict, as there are indeed about Ram Jethmalani and his magnificent seven who have embarked on a mission that has proved to be an intractable one for most, to put it mildly.

Yet there is a very major, radical difference. For Jethmalani is the first instance of an Indian of any stature to accept the idea of plebiscite in Kashmir as legally and morally binding even though he has expressed serious difficulties in seeing how in today’s world (I’m trying to avoid the clichi-riddled post 9/11 world) anyone is going to accept it.

But before we take a look at what Jethmalani has said, something that has gone widely unnoticed in the media, I would like you to meet a senior police officer of Srinagar. My guess is that he must have killed or ordered the killing of scores of people in his capacity as the law-keeper of a key part of Kashmir.

Meeting him last year during this precise month in Srinagar, we heard all manner of nasty talk from him about the situation in Kashmir. Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of the Mahatma, was with me along with several other rights and other manner of activists. In his cold and menacing tone the police officer was trying to argue that the laws did not permit him to be kind to those he was forced to take as suspected militants.

“There would be fewer legs broken if we could keep the men for some more time without rushing them off to the magistrate,” I remember him saying. In other words, if the law permitted the police to keep the suspects for interrogation for more than 48 hours in police lock-up, they would be able to “communicate” better with each other.

Now for some reason, and your guess are as good as mine, I decided to change the subject. I asked the police officer if he liked music. The question threw him. There was a long silence. He coldly regarded the question and peered into my mind. I repeated the question. Do you like new music or old? “Old music of course,” came the answer, accompanied with an uncertain grin. “I like Mukesh songs, the old sad Mukesh songs, sometimes even the happy one.”

This police officer has a schoolgoing daughter he is very fond of. Sometimes, incognito, without the security bandobust he drops her off to the school. That’s a kind of special thing he can do for her.

His eyes are moist. He wants a good secure future for his daughter. What is the relevance of this story in a place where both sides in the equation are killing each other, both sides have families, sons and daughters and wives, grandmothers? I believe there is relevance because I believe this story is important if ever there is a need to consider a South African- style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the end conflict in Kashmir.

It’s human beings killing fellow human beings. They all have their reasons, valid, compelling reasons to lunge at each other if you agree with their logic, their premise, which I believe is grossly faulty.

Ram Jethmalani with his sheer doggedness may have brought us closer to such a prospect. Read what he wrote in the Hindustan Times in July. In the article titled “India must allow the US and UK to mediate and solve the Kashmir crisis once and for all”, he says:

“As a thinking citizen and as a member of parliament and the consultative committee of the ministry of external affairs, I have been exercised for decades about the festering sore called ‘the Kashmir problem’. Whenever I have thought or written about it, I have been reminded of Barbara Tuchman’s famous book March of Folly. Its basic theme is that avoidable political disasters in the history of mankind have taken place because of peculiar trait of people in power, which she aptly describes as ‘wooden-headedness’. I am convinced that the Kashmir problem is with us because of persistent wooden- headedness of the last 55 years. No government has escaped this disease except perhaps during the tragically brief tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri.

“It is time we accept that Kashmir is an ‘international’ dispute within the UN charter to which Pakistan is a party. This dispute has to be resolved in accordance with the UN charter, which is binding on both the parties to the dispute. The charter emphatically imposes the duty of negotiation.

“International law expert Openheim explains that where the continuance of dispute is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, the parties are under a clear obligation to seek its solution by, inter alia, negotiations [UN Charter Article 33(1)]. This obligation exists even in the absence of a specific undertaking to do so and the obligation is judicially enforceable. The International Court of Justice can mandate the parties to negotiate.

“No compromise can be arrived at without some ‘give and take’. Adopting an inflexible position make nonsense of any honest negotiation. India and Pakistan have never undertaken any sincere dialogue.

“Our most puerile wooden-headedness has been our failure to honour what is not merely an international obligation but constitutional obligation as well, namely to settle the dispute by arbitration. We have contemptuously rejected even something much less than arbitration — mediation.

“Our allergic aversion to arbitration and mediation has never been justified. It is based on the fear that there are no honest arbitrators and mediators in the world. The world situation has materially changed. The Cold War has ended. Now that we are involved as partners with the democratic world in the war against terrorism, it is foolish to think that no honest mediators are available. The Americans stopped the Kargil war. Mediation by the US or the UK or both should be welcomed to solve this problem.

“The burden of war-like preparations is crippling India and Pakistan. Kashmir is a bottomless pit, which is devouring our meagre resources. Our successive skirmishes with Pakistan mean not only soldiers killed and maimed, and thousands of widows and orphans, but also millions of hungry people dying of malnutrition, disease and destitution.”

Thus spake Jethmalani, quite possibly the only Indian of stature that has ever said what he has said. Imtiaz, you may at least now stop smoking.