| July 8, 2005 | Friday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 30, 1426 |
‘Kiyoonkay Musharraf saab aarahay hain’
ISLAMABAD: Elections in Pakistan held at the national level are rarely without ominous forebodings. The scheduled local body polls in August and September are no exception.
They are going to be held, again, on a party-less basis. Perhaps this time, this is being done to prevent the political fever from attaining a dangerous level just about two years ahead of the national and provincial legislative elections planned for the year 2007. Politicking stretched over such a long period might be regarded as unhealthy and disruptive.
However, a new development has taken place that can upset the schedule of the local elections. Floods in almost all the major rivers sweeping through the north-west and apparently threatening the south pose the danger of displacement of a vast segment of the people in the affected areas. This may seriously hamper and interfere with the election arrangements and the election campaign of the candidates.
The campaigns are already under way, and the candidates and indeed the political parties girding up their loins for the electoral contest believe that the outcome at the grassroots will help them to train their sights and strategies for the 2007 general elections.
The apparent keen involvement at the highest echelons of the ruling PML-Q in petty party politics and the wrangling between Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and federal minister Humayun Akhtar Khan — who were close to openly falling out till the president and prime minister intervened — cast doubts on the transparency and impartiality of the polls. Such blatantly well publicized events in the media run counter to the claim that under the electoral laws, the local elections will be party-less and no political party will be allowed to back its candidates in the polls. But the old game of ganging up against rival political parties in distributing seats among favourites through behind-the-scenes activity has been openly discussed in the media. government officials, both civilian and uniformed, are reported to be under instruction fromtheir superiors to help the favoured party or parties to ensure that “undesirable” political rivals are not able to find a worthwhile foothold in the local bodies which are regarded as the grass-root-level power houses not only for local politics but the anticipated general elections. It is noteworthy that the so-called Q-League has already declared the president in uniform as its candidate for 2007 while the incumbent Prime Minister, Mr Shaukat Aziz, might also be a Q-League nominee.
Meanwhile, the government and its League have trained their guns against Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League to ensure that they do not get significant representation in the local bodies. The threat of violence also looms, with Karachi’s ongoing nazim saying he fears for his life. And the new election commission orders that persons perceived as corrupt and even sitting members of the assemblies will be permitted to take part in the elections raises new questions. Such orders late in the day certainly cast serious doubts on the government’s intentions.
Since the advent of President Musharraf, Pakistan’s name has surfaced in the foreign media as a country with a positively redefined relationship with the rest of the world, especially the US. I am very proud of the fact that now when people ask me where I am from they know where Pakistan is.
I don not visit Pakistan very often and when I do, the lack of time limits me to Karachi. This time I decided to visit relatives in Islamabad too. Though sightseeing was not the purpose, my aunt insisted we visit Murree. I have never been there so I agreed.
It was a coincidence that the president and I visited Murree on the very same day on July 6.
It was late morning when we reached Murree and soon discovered that the president was also going to be in town. We were pretty excited. My daughter was thinking that she would get a chance to run into the president on The Mall and maybe get an autograph! Allay ray masoomiat!!.
The president did not turn up till late evening. We walked off The Mall after a very good day but could not find our van we had left at the start of the town. We walked and walked and then were finally informed by a ranger that because of the president’s visit, all vehicles were stopped at Ghora Gali. That single winding road into Murree was closed off to hundreds of pedestrians and cars.
We had walked almost a mile out of the main city when a plainclothes security guard literally shooed us off the road into the only hotel in sight. When I asked him why we needed to get into the hotel, he said: “Kiyoonkay Musharraf saab aa rahay hain.” I asked him, “so people cannot walk on the road when he is about to drive by?” “No”, he sneered. I was taken aback. I was with my cousins and four kids. No men. His attitude was not civil at all.
Half of us went inside the hotel, but my daughter, two cousins and I sat at the top of the steep stairway and decided to watch the president drive by. My daughter had her digital camera ready. I laughed and told her that the president would drive by so fast that she would not even be able to catch his car with her shutter. My cousin had her regular camera focused too.
Ten minutes later jeeps carrying policemen started driving by with sirens blaring. Seconds later the president zoomed by in his sleek Mercedes. Actually there were two Mercedes cars. My daughter and cousin must have clicked their cameras only twice. They could not even catch the cars. Suddenly I saw the same security guard running towards us two steps at a time. He came near my daughter and before we realized what was happening, he snatched the camera out of her hand. I reacted in a split second and lunged at the camera. He was furious and refused to let go, and judging by his attitude, I knew if I let him have it he was going to break the camera. It wrestled it out of this hand. Suddenly he saw the camera in my cousin’s hand and grabbed hers, and before I could gather my wits, he ran down the stairs, opened her camera and pulled out the entire roll of film in one dramatic sweep in front of our shocked eyes.
Is this the way for a security guard to have behaved? My children were scared, stunned and severely disappointed to have witnessed this. My cousin was near tears. I was appalled. The president’s visit was suddenly not as exciting as we had anticipated.
I have no objection to security rules. If he had told us before or even when he had approached us, we would gladly have complied with security requirements and deleted the images, not that there were any images at all when we later checked. What was disgusting was his outrageous insolence.
I went into the hotel and demanded to see the manager. I told them that since the incident had occurred on their premises, I held them equally responsible. They said it was the ISI and they had nothing to do with it.
To me, whoever is guarding the president or is part of his security or part of his team in any direct or indirect way, has to be an epitome of the president and Pakistan. If the hotel management had been responsible for this, I probably would not have felt so thwarted. But coming from the president’s security, it was a total let down. We had planned to have a trip we would remember for a long time... I guess we got our wish.
Maybe next time the president and I should coordinate our visits and make sure we do not end up there on the same day. Theek hai na Musharraf Bhai!!——Irum Sarfraz (a visitor from San Francisco, USA)