ASIF Zardari is in the headlines, again. Arguably Pakistan’s most easily scapegoated political figure, Zardari is not known to make unplanned outbursts, so there is obviously some method in his apparently mad decision to launch a verbal attack on the men in khaki.

The former president was of course widely reviled during the PPP’s 2008-2013 stint in power for constantly preaching the virtues of ‘reconciliation’ with other mainstream parties and the establishment. It was party to the Zardari-bashing then, but the PML-N is finding out now that completing a term in government in this country means kow-towing to the self-proclaimed guardians of the state.

The military establishment’s refusal to tolerate even a modicum of independence for elected government is indeed one of the defining features of the polity. In fact, the unelected apparatuses of state — including the civil bureaucracy — have regularly prevented electoral exercises from taking place entirely. We should never forget that the powers-that-be only relented and conducted countrywide elections 23 years after Pakistan came into being.

I mentioned in my last column that the mainstream political process is one heavily tilted in favour of the rich and powerful. So why then have state institutions and their ideologues such an aversion to an exercise that holds little promise of structural change for the poor and dispossessed?

Legislation for LG elections has yet to be passed.

I think the answer has to do with the fact that (post) colonial states are threatened by electoral exercises in particular and the practice of politics in general because potentially subversive ideas, individuals and groups come into the public view and this itself constitutes a challenge to the established order. Most mainstream electoral contenders might eventually be co-opted but the popular will can never be completely muted.

Take for example the Islamabad local government elections scheduled to be held next month. A cursory look at the draft bill lying in the upper house of parliament confirms that little meaningful authority is to be transferred away from the capital administration and the Capital Development Authority (CDA). Yet both of the latter are noticeably worried about the prospect of any change whatsoever and there is apparently intense lobbying ongoing behind the scenes to prevent the election from taking place altogether.

Presumably there are some within the political mainstream that do not want a local government in the capital, and they, along with the unelected apparatuses of the state, are stalling as long as they can.

The situation is so farcical that the Election Commission is planning for the polls to be held at the end of July but the required legislation has yet to be passed by the Senate (the draft bill was approved by the National Assembly some months ago). In other words, there is a blatant legal lacuna that could easily be instrumentalised to render the entire process illegitimate. What eventually happens will depend on many factors, not least the reaction of the Supreme Court which pushed through the end-July date for Islamabad’s elections in the first place.

An intriguing aside is the dramatic re-emergence of a controversy over katchi abadis in Islamabad. It was a year or so ago that the Islamabad High Court, interior minister and CDA resolved to mow down over a dozen squatter settlements in the federal capital. Security threats were invoked sometimes, at other times the imperative of beautification and still others the sheer illegality of the settlements. After considerable mobilisation by the squatters themselves, and with the start of the PTI and PAT dharnas, the plan was shelved.

Two weeks ago the court re-opened the matter, summoning the CDA chief and demanding to see a revamped eviction plan. The interior minister jumped on the bandwagon again, this time citing the need to secure the recently inaugurated metro bus project. One way or the other, the powers-that-be appear intent on razing thousands of working people’s homes to the ground.

Is it a coincidence that these same katchi abadi dwellers are making noises about standing candidates in the local body polls? While the rest of the country has had numerous experiences with local government, the scheduled local government election would be the first of its kind in the federal capital. That squatter settlements exist in ‘Islamabad the beautiful’ is bad enough, but squatters running for elections? I would be up in arms if I were a general or bureaucrat too.

It is thus a pre-emptive strike is being planned and might be executed. The same impulse explained the establishment’s actions when elections would have brought the Bengali majority to power, and the dissolution of the NAP government in 1973 after Baloch nationalists won the elections.

It is thus that elections, whatever their limitations, represent a threat to this most authoritarian of states. How long it will take to democratise it is anyone’s guess.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2015

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