October 10, 2002	Thursday	Sha’aban 3, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: The elections for the national and provincial assemblies on the same day will be remembered for a number of oddities and peculiarities.

Most stunning is the lacklustre electioneering ever witnessed in the previous seven elections held in the country.

Women and minorities have been given substantial representation in the assemblies which has no precedence in the past.

Voters age lowered to 18 years from 21 and condition of graduation for contestants have changed the entire scenario as majority of new faces have emerged to give the next parliament a fresh look.

Due to restrictions on the political processions and short time for the electioneering the whole campaign remained peaceful.

The election campaign was extremely disorganised giving a look of party-less polls mainly owing to the absence of the key political figures — Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto and Altaf Hussain.

Majority of the political parties and alliances failed to hold big public rallies to ascertain the expected vote flow for a particular party and most of the candidates remained busy canvassing in their own constituencies.

The polls have stunned many of Gen Musharraf’s critics as they thought “something extraordinary” would happen and elections would be postponed.

Starting with Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who overthrew a civilian government in Oct 1958, none of the military rulers could fulfil the promise of handing over power to an elected government.

Another peculiarity of these polls is that despite being the most controversial, due to allegations of pre-poll rigging, the military government was able to achieve what Gen Musharraf had said on August 14, last year.

It is alleged that the military regime’s power brokering wing remained busy to forge pro-government alliance which emerged in the shape of Grand National Alliance (GNA).

However, it did not confined itself to the GNA but created another group of potential independent candidates with the symbol of crescent. It is thought that it would play as a ‘B’ team for the regime.

A few prominent names like Sheikh Rashid Ahmed in Rawalpindi, Dr Azhar Jadoon in Abbottabad, Abbas Sarfaraz in Mardan and Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani have already emerged as the winning candidates of the group.

Another special aspect of these polls is the emergence of an alliance of the religious parties in the form of the MMA which may perform well.