HOWSOEVER often and emphatically President Musharraf might say that the forthcoming elections will be free, fair, transparent and (he now assures) peaceful, no political party, with the exception of his allies in the Q-League and the MQM, is inclined to believe him.

All parties, again with those two exceptions, also feel convinced that the assorted and leaderless caretaker governments at the centre and in the provinces, the district governments headed by the nazims and the election commission will act as Musharraf wants them to. Even if the odd ones don’t, the unnamed agencies will produce the result he wants.

The people at large are no less sceptical about the fairness of the polls. Their scepticism is sure to show itself in low voter turnout which in any case is going to be lower than the usual 40 per cent because of the overhanging fear of terrorist violence and open warfare in parts of the NWFP and Balochistan.

The men and the institutions responsible for regulating the election campaign, holding the ballot, and for later arbitration in disputes, have hardly ever been trusted to be wholly impartial.

So deep-rooted is the distrust this time round that some parties have chosen not to participate at all. The bigger ones — the PPP and the PML-N — and also the born-again ANP are participating in the hope that they would be able to trounce the “king’s party”, despite rigging or counter it with physical force.

If President Musharraf truly does not want the elections to be rigged he should unhesitatingly concede the main demands raised both by the PPP and PML-N for reconstituting the interim governments and the election commission and making the nazims non-functional. These demands have no legal implications and will cause no disruption or delay.

By conceding them Musharraf has nothing to lose but his ego, and a pledge to redeem.

The apprehensions of rigging arise chiefly from the size, composition and character of the federal caretaker cabinet. The ministers in it, 28 in number, are a bit too many, some are unknown, others are yes-men, and only a few can be considered neutral.

Career public officials could have been relied upon for running the administration in the interim period, and surely some subjects like women, minorities, youth affairs and non-existent tourism could do without ministers for 60 days or 100 as it has tragically turned out to be.

Ten or less ministers would have sufficed for managing the polls.

No doubt Article 224 of the Constitution (as amended by the Legal Framework Order of 2002) empowers the president to appoint a caretaker cabinet “in his discretion” when the National Assembly is dissolved on completion of its term. But with suspicions of rigging swirling all around him, it would have been prudent on the president’s part to have consulted political leaders and eminent citizens not involved in politics in selecting a much smaller number of ministers who would inspire confidence for their neutrality, and more important, for their integrity.

Now it so happens that the central and provincial cabinets have more ministers who would influence the polls their way rather than see to it that there is no official interference.

More specifically, if the opposition is right in alleging that rigging is being master-

minded by the president’s men, it would be hard for Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro to stand in their way, for he owes his transition from banking to politics first as governor of Sindh and later as chairman of the Senate entirely to the president.

The widespread impression about the inability, or unwillingness, of the cabinets to ensure fair polls is said to have reverberated in the central cabinet itself.

Among the few ministers who come close to being neutral is my friend and defence minister, Salim Abbas Jilani. According to a press report, he tried to persuade his colleagues to make way for a national government which would command the confidence of the electorate but that the caretaker cabinet obviously doesn’t want. Some supported his standpoint but the majority would rather stay, for the management of the polls is the responsibility of the election commission and not theirs. They have only their ministries to look after.

How naive or cunning they were being! Surely they well knew that the election commission is there only to lay down the polling scheme. The hundreds of thousands of staff who have to conduct, supervise and count the ballot and maintain law and order all must come from the provincial and district governments.

An election commission of five cannot reach 64,000 polling stations to make the staff behave and wouldn’t be so inclined if it is not impartial. Quite apparently it wasn’t in the 2002 referendum — when an incredible 98 per cent voted for Musharraf in a turnout of 71 per cent — and in the by-elections held since.

Rigging apprehensions will persist and keep gaining credence despite Musharraf’s assurances to the contrary, unless he agrees to replace without delay the present central and provincial cabinets with smaller cabinets that are truly and demonstrably neutral.

The reconstitution of the election commission and action on the other demands of the political parties like the lifting of curbs on the media and the freeing of detained lawyers and judges could then be safely left to the consideration of the prime minister, who after all is now the chief executive, and his cabinet.

What cannot brook delay, however, is the preventing of nazims from influencing the polling process which they are already reported to be doing openly and on an extensive scale using public funds and manpower. (According to the European Union, even the use of official cars in electioneering amounts to rigging).

All the nazims have been elected with the support of political bosses if not on party tickets. They have a favour to return. The best course would be to cut short their terms and hold local polls afresh soon after national elections.

It is not Musharraf’s opponents alone, the whole world strongly suspects that elections will be rigged. The Economist of London ponders the question of whether the forthcoming postponed election is doomed to be a violent shambles and, further, whether the “country itself is doomed to disintegrate, fall into the hands of the Islamists or lose control of its nuclear weapons to the jihadists”. Not necessarily in the short run, concludes this venerable journal.

The long-term answer to this grim question hinges entirely on the credibility of the elections. The clinching argument for Musharraf should be that he might be able to control the hostile fallout of fair polls but not of a rigged election. The arson and plunder that followed Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is proof enough of the government’s inability to control mob fury. The rage of the people tricked out of their vote will be entirely uncontrollable.

THE bombing outside the Lahore High Court on Thursday which left over 20, mostly policemen, dead will be seen by many in the usually unruffled Punjab capital as a sign of extremist terrorism having arrived in the heartland of Pakistan. The strike at Lahore can be seen as sending a message that extremists can now hit at the time and place of their own choosing.

The problem with this analysis is that it’s all very logical and that other disturbing questions remain unanswered by the simplicity inherent in this very close to official line of argument.

For instance, how come the Chaudhries of Punjab, who have lately been going around spitting ethnic venom in their rallies, unperturbed by the mayhem gripping the rest of the country, have nothing to fear? Wasn’t it they who have been these past eight years the most willing supporters of Musharraf’s anti-Taliban, anti-extremism policy?

If all things terrorist here, and that includes Al Qaeda and its sympathisers, work so logically, then shouldn’t the Chaudhries, too, have braved at least a couple of attempts on their lives by now?

Surely, if the terrorists can take out a leader of the stature of Ms Bhutto, whom the government insists was provided foolproof security, and who was killed because of her own “foolishness” by standing up from her vehicle, it cannot be too hard to take out a Chaudhry or two — the Gujrat clan is fielding a dozen or more candidates in the forthcoming election. Being Musharraf’s right-hand men and very much part of a government that has been hounding extremists and handing them over to the Americans, the Chaudhries should have been the prime and relatively easier target for terrorists.

Ms Bhutto, on the contrary, was only an opposition leader and one in exile from where she had nothing to do with the capturing and handing over of Al Qaeda operatives to be taken to Guantanamo Bay and tortured there. While her detractors have credited her for strengthening the Taliban during her two stints in power, they could not blame her for taking a U-turn on Pakistan’s pre-9/11 blue-eyed boys. What happened to Bhutto defies logic; it makes little sense to apply any such faulty logic to others.

After returning from exile, there was only a possibility that Bhutto might come back in power and then continue the Musharraf regime’s policy of chasing out the extremists. But then again, what about the erstwhile rulers, with the possible exception of Aftab Sherpao, who were actually the proponents of the same policy and who, if they return to power, will likely continue doing, as it is believed, Musharraf’s and America’s bidding on the extremism front? It is indeed surprising that they should have no fear of any reprisal attacks by terrorists.

Maybe the survivors of the Lal Masjid brigade, and whom the Chaudhries publicly vowed to give stipends for life in the aftermath of the gory Islamabad drama, have generated enough goodwill among their fellow suicide bombers for the Gujrat clan. While the fear of God gripped the Chaudhries as the Lal Masjid brigade was being dismantled, they have since had nothing else to fear, it seems. It is either smart politics on their part, as opposed to Benazir’s foolish handling of her election campaign and thus her own safety, or just a gift made out to the Chaudhries by God’s self-styled deputies on earth.

That the Chaudhries should have nothing and no one to fear, despite their flagging about of ethnic hatred as the most defining feature of their election campaign, equally defies logic.

President Musharraf, too, seemingly finds there’s nothing wrong with the PML-Q’s venomous campaign, ostensibly because it’s not coming from a smaller province that can be seen as a centrifugal force, and hence a threat to the federation. Not that Punjab leaders belonging to the opposition have fared any better in the current scheme of things.

One only need cite the example of the house-arrested Aitzaz Ahsan, who is seen as the most dangerous, living rabble-rouser by the establishment. The castration of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi before Ahsan is also a case in point; and if it weren’t for the ousted Supreme Court judges, he too may still have been rotting behind bars.

The president’s own remarks in a speech to the nation, singling out Sindh for the post-Dec 27 rioting endorses the Chaudhries’ view of the land. Musharraf’s candid admission in an interview with an American network that Bhutto for him was a bitter pill to swallow is perhaps a more honest assessment of his predicament. More so, the strange company he keeps defies his own logic of having been raised with a set of family values that he so readily flaunts. Strange logic, all the way.

MINUTES before she was killed on Dec 27, Benazir Bhutto declared that she and her party were for keeping Pakistan united. Three days later, Asif Zardari reiterated her resolve. On Jan 8, their son, Bilawal, told newsmen in London that Pakistan would break up if the coming elections were rigged.

Numerous other politicians, columnists and commentators warn that unless the conditions they name are met we are likely to see a repeat of Dec 1971 (secession of East Pakistan). I object to this kind of talk most strenuously.

First, it can end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. Folks who have heard it repeatedly may begin to expect the country to fall apart. That state of mind may lead them to the notion that the creation of Pakistan was a bad idea. (Regrettably, it is already being said in quite a few drawing rooms.) They may then do nothing to defeat the machinations of external and internal saboteurs whose design it is to destroy Pakistan.

Second, the comparison between the grievances of our smaller provinces and those of East Pakistan is invalid. The latter were much deeper than the former.

Apart from the fact of their physical separation, it is noteworthy that professed allegiance to Islam was just about the only thing common between the country’s two wings. In terms of ethnicity, physical appearance, language and literature, script, song and dance, food and dress the people on the two sides were quite different. It should then have been expected that East Pakistan would some day want to go its own way.

Ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences between regions of the post-1971 Pakistan do exist. There are regional and sectional differences among people living in the same country in the vast majority of cases. What will dominate their thinking and feeling? Commonalities or differences? That will depend on which way their political and social elites choose to steer them. That in turn will depend on whether, and to what extent, these elites are satisfied with the existing distribution of power and its rewards.

I do not believe that Pakistan is in any imminent danger of breaking up or that such an eventuality is inevitable. It is true that some of the elites in its smaller provinces are dissatisfied with their share of the good things the country generates. But their grievances are not huge and the demands accompanying them are not all that difficult to meet.

The basic grievance is that the Punjabis dominate the central government. Further, they dominate commerce in the smaller provinces, and they have taken far too many posts in their government and administration. These assertions may be slightly exaggerated, but they are not entirely unfounded.

There is first the inescapable fact that Punjabis constitute more than 60 per cent of the country’s population. The sheer logic of numbers makes them dominant in matters that fall within the central government’s domain.

This will remain the case as long as the centre’s jurisdiction remains as extensive as it is. Second, it so happens that Punjabis (and the Urdu-speaking people) have had greater access to general education, professions and managerial training. This edge enabled them to take jobs in the smaller provinces that would otherwise have gone to local aspirants.

This state of affairs has been changing as universities, colleges and training institutes have multiplied in the formerly neglected areas.

But even as they catch up with the Punjabis in terms of education and training, their presence in the central government will remain relatively modest.

This problem cannot be overcome except by limiting the central government to a few enumerated functions, the ones to which the federating units have agreed, and by transferring the rest of its current powers and functions to the provincial governments.

This is what “maximum” provincial autonomy means. It is a call for a limited, not weak, centre, which may be energetic and competent within its assigned domain.

If provincial autonomy along these lines is implemented, most of the jobs currently located in the central government and occupied by Punjabis will move to the provincial governments and open up to the local elites. So will the policymaking function with regard to resource management, commerce, industry, education and healthcare. A major provincial grievance will thus be removed. And the Punjabis will lose nothing.

Most of the positions of power they occupy in Islamabad will move to Lahore. The central government will no longer be a place of work coveted by bright and ambitious young men and women (except those who wish to serve in the diplomatic service or the armed forces).

The notion is entirely flawed that a “strong centre” is essential for keeping culturally diverse people together in one country. This is a notion initiated by theorists of the sovereign state in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Experience, our own and that of several other countries, has shown that it does not perform the function that was expected of it. Even the United Kingdom, which planted the “strong centre” in the Indian subcontinent, has abandoned it in dealing with its own component units (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales).

Provincial autonomy has been a prominent subject in the Pakistani political discourse for as long as one can remember. Various political parties have endorsed it when they were out of power, and others have promised it when they were in power. Most recently, spokesmen of the PML-Q government, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain Syed, assured us repeatedly that they were working on the issue, that a committee had investigated the grievances of Baloch politicians, and that another committee had been preparing a constitutional amendment to transfer certain powers and functions from the centre to the provinces.

But it was just talk like their declarations and promises on many other subjects, and nothing was in fact done. Why this reluctance?

There may be elements in the higher bureaucracy, still swayed by the pre-Independence paradigms of British rule in India, the “viceregal tradition”, and moved partly by fear of the untried, that are sceptical of provincial autonomy. More than these old-fashioned bureaucrats, the armed forces may be opposed to it. They belong to the central government.

They want to dominate the country’s governance, but they can do so only if governance is for the most part located in the centre’s domain. If much of it moves to the provinces, the military will have no way of controlling it. The people of Pakistan are, and can forever be, “One Nation under God”. The impediments to their unity and integrity can be swept away if the ruling elites will quit being stubborn in their attachment to antiquated theories.

It should be understood that those who block the way to provincial autonomy are no friends of this country. Pakistani nationhood and an overbearing centre cannot go together.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is currently a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

anwars@lahoreschool.edu.pk