KARACHI, Nov 6: Three days after the imposition of emergency rule in the country, protest on the part of mainstream political parties is conspicuously absent and while political leaders claim that their muted response is due to widespread arrests and the necessity to go into hiding, members of civil society and the legal community have been foremost in resisting the suspension of the 1973 Constitution despite the threat of violence and detainment.
Apparently in total disarray, a number of political leaders told Dawn that they were “waiting until it became clear whether the current state was that of an emergency or a martial law”, and the central leadership of the political parties “would meet soon to formulate their strategy to launch a concerted movement” for the restoration of the 1973 Constitution and the holding of elections by an independent election commission under a caretaker setup. They added that they were in the process of making contact with those who had gone underground to escape arrest.
Since the announcement of General Musharraf’s decision on Nov 3, scores of lawyers, judges, journalists and civil and human rights activists have been taken into police custody. While a number of activists and leaders of various political parties also suffered the same fate, the mainstream political parties have – unlike the groups mentioned earlier – put up no public show of resistance in terms of street protest. The task of resisting official high-handedness appears to have fallen once again on the shoulders of the common citizen.
‘Political leadership to blame’
Asked about this, political workers blamed their leadership for failing to see through what they termed the deceptive designs of ministers who denied until the end press reports about the imminent declaration of a state of emergency. Leaders in the opposition, meanwhile, took refuge in blaming the dragnet cast after the emergency and the arrest of leaders and activists of those political parties that could have been instrumental in mobilising party cadres and the citizenry.
The deputy chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Professor Ghafoor Ahmed, defended his party by saying that over 150 activists of the party had been arrested during the past three days while the party’s entire local leadership had gone to attend the party moot in
Punjab and had only returned on Tuesday. However, he pointed out, “our party was the first to express solidarity with lawyers and judges by staging a protest on Multan Road [Lahore] against the imposition of an emergency.” He added that the brutal force employed in the current instance against lawyers and journalists “left behind the repression of past autocratic governments.”
The acting president of the PML-N’s Sindh chapter, Salim Zia, also said that his party could not join lawyers and journalists since most of its activists had been arrested. “Anyway,” he added, “there is no point in staging rallies in isolation since we were not able to contact the JI leadership to sit together and formulate the joint strategy of all the parties in the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM).”
Pointing out that the Pakistan Peoples’ Party was also one of the major parties, Mr Zia said that despite their changed strategy, he was confident that their lawyers’ wing was active. Many members participated fully in the rallies and a number of them had been arrested, he said. The PML-N leader opined that the situation that was unfolding in the country would “certainly have impact on the thinking of the PPP high command” and said that the party was striving to regroup party activists in order to participate fully in any protest calls issued by their central leadership.
No decision from parties’ high command
Qari Usman, a leader of the JUI-F, said that the legal fraternity deserved to be saluted for reacting promptly to the government’s move and offering resistance. He added that the party leadership were in consultation but any reaction against the imposition of the emergency was conditional upon the decision of the party high command.
The leader of the Sindh chapter of the ANP, Shahi Syed, told Dawn that the various political parties were slow to react since they had been unprepared for the situation. “The APDM, which came into existence at the cost of over-shadowing the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, has so far not been able to organise itself on the district and provincial levels,” he commented. “Therefore, every party is facing difficulties in mobilising the citizenry.”
The chairman of the LP, Nisar Shah, said that since the working class was not organised as it should have been, his party did not so far have a base broad enough to mobilise people en masse. “Our organisation in Sindh is not yet strong enough to come out [on the streets]; there was no point in getting our cadre arrested and leaving no one to raise their voices against their colleagues’ arrest,” he said. However, he pointed out, the Awami Jamhoori Mahaz had organised some demonstration in the Punjab, including Rawalpindi.
The central vice president of the Tehreek-i-Insaf, Arif Alvi, said that he had gone to join the protest held at the Karachi Press Club on Monday but had found the area cordoned off by a heavy police posse. He added that efforts were under way to hold an APDM meeting in order to decide upon a joint strategy for the launch of a protest movement.
