Since its inception in September, 1988, the nine-party right-leaning alliance, Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), had been insisting on holding elections and allowing all parties to participate. While there was great fervour around elections, the uncertainty regarding which party the people were going to vote for also generated much pre-poll trepidation throughout the country.

All possible players were canvassing in their style. In Punjab, Nawaz Sharif, the businessman-turned-politician who had served as chief minister during Gen Ziaul Haq’s era, now wanted to reap the dividends. Nawaz had been prompted by Gen Zia to create his constituency to ensure the continuation of his vision of governance.

For the PPP, it was time to woo people again and earn sympathy votes. But Benazir Bhutto, who had been waiting for the past 11 years for such an electoral contest, was troubled by two factors: first, holding of elections on non-party basis; and second, the requirement of showing national identity cards (NIC) at the time of casting votes.

As PPP party workers activated the camp offices, Bhutto assured them that both issues would be resolved before the voters actually went to poll. Both these conditions had been planned by Gen Zia with the intention of keeping away the PPP — led by the daughter of the man whom he had hanged. Even after his death, both conditions stayed in place as acting president Ghulam Ishaq Khan decided to hold elections in a way that suited him.

Amid great uncertainty after the Bahawalpur crash, Gen Zia’s proxies went up against the force that was Benazir Bhutto

Senior PPP leaders wondered why Bhutto was so confident while launching her party’s election campaign. Before the Bahawalpur air crash, she had discussed various political possibilities — whether Gen Zia was honest this time around about holding polls or if he’d go back on his word again.

There was also the matter of meeting some of Gen Zia’s conditions. The first was the registration of the party with the Election Commission (EC). Bhutto told her aides that she was prepared to meet this condition, as it was only a question of filling a form before the EC. “There is no harm in it, on the contrary it would show our commitment to democracy,” she had argued.

To a query by one of her party leaders about whether she was prepared to work with the Gen Zia if he continued as president and she became the prime minister, she replied in the affirmative. Her rationale was that if Junejo could work with him and find his way, why couldn’t she.

“We want to move step-by-step. Our first objective is to restore the 1973 Constitution,” Bhutto had asserted. Her party leaders had no objection as many of them had also been waiting for the past 11 years to return to power. During this period, her uncles such as Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Ghulam Mustafa Khar and Jam Sadiq Ali, had all deserted her and the party.

Gen Zia, too, was not ill-informed and had other ideas. In an attempt to block the PPP’s entry into governance and to prevent a situation where he might have to work with Bhutto as prime minister, he convened a meeting of some religious men and sought their opinion regarding a woman being the head of the state in a Muslim country.

The clerics initially supported Gen Zia, saying there was no room for a woman to head a Muslim state. But soon, they realised that they may be accused of having mala fide intentions and dropped their stance.

Once this ploy failed, it was planned to enforce a law to make it compulsory for the prime minister to be at least 40 years of age; this was intended to disqualify Bhutto as she was only 35 at the time. However, the Aug 17 crash in Bahawalpur completely changed the political landscape.

Although Ghulam Ishaq Khan and some other players were there to act as Gen Zia’s proxy, they faced successive defeats in their attempts to prevent Bhutto’s rise.

On Sept 16, for example, exactly two months before the polls, the Supreme Court handed a verdict in favour of holding elections on party basis. Ghulam Ishaq and his supporters saw the first failure of their workmanship.

The second obstacle, of presenting NICs at the time of casting votes, was a little more problematic. Electoral rolls had been prepared in 1987 by the EC under the instructions of Gen Zia. They contained the names of voters prepared for the 1985 elections and did not include about 40pc voters who had reached voting age by that time but did not possess the ID cards.

These rolls contained 32.5 million votes as compared to the revised rolls in 1987 with 47.9m votes, which meant that 15.4m genuine voters were not included as voters. In the presence of the ordinance on ID cards these voters would have been deprived of the right to vote.

This ordinance had caused much hopelessness among the political parties and constituents, as not all voters had been able to obtain their ID cards. Again Bhutto challenged the ordinance and the Supreme Court ruled it as illegal on Nov 12, only four days before the poll date, paving way for a large number of voters to join the elections process.

Electioneering began on a slow note but soon gained momentum. It was quite smooth except some scattered incidents of violence. The IJI candidates, particularly those backed by Nawaz Sharif and the Jamaat-i-Islami, enjoyed smooth sailing while PPP supporters did not have to make sturdy efforts as the force of Bhutto’s personality weaved its magic. Electioneering also brought many underdogs into the limelight who benefited from the laborious campaigns of Sharif and Bhutto.

This was undeniably a phase of strained nerves that had to pass without any unpleasant incident. This time, though, there was renewed enthusiasm — in the politics of the country and indeed its future.

shaikhaziz38@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 29th, 2016