| December 01, 2007 | Saturday | Ziqa’ad 20, 1428 |
|
Politics of boycotts
AS the countdown for the Jan 8 elections begins, there is a rising chorus of boycotters. While the mainstream parties are being cautious, smaller players have already announced their intention to sit out the polls. (Meanwhile, APDM has formally decided in favour of a boycott.)
Indeed, pundits and the morality brigade have taken a highly principled position on the whole issue. Basically, they are saying that unless President Musharraf restores the status quo ante Nov 3, all parties should boycott the elections. What they are demanding is the lifting of the emergency, the removal of all restrictions on the media, the release of all political prisoners, and the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and his colleagues.
Musharraf has already met one key demand by retiring from the army; he will lift the emergency on December 16 and may release political prisoners before the elections. But there is no way he will reinstate the Chief Justice as long as he wields any power. So will the opposition stick to this point and boycott the elections, or will it take what it has managed to squeeze out of Musharraf and contest the polls?
There is a school of thought that is of the view that a boycott of the elections would rob them of legitimacy, and isolate Musharraf. But since when have people like the Chaudhrys and Musharraf cared a hoot about legitimacy? For them, democratic norms and structures are simply tools to achieve power.
Indeed, the prospect of an opposition boycott must be a cause for celebration in the PML-Q. Should it come to pass, the sound of Kalashnikovs firing in the air will have to compete with the popping of champagne corks in Gujarat.
Let us consider the political landscape in the event of a boycott. The PML-Q will storm back to power. Pervaiz Elahi will be the next PM, while his wheeling-dealing son Moonis rules the roost in Punjab. In the Frontier, Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI-F will form the government with support from independent candidates. In Sindh, the MQM and the PML-Q will rule, as they have these last five years. The opposition will be out in the cold, while all protests are savagely suppressed. The media is cowed, and their dissenting lordships are kept off the benches from which they were illegally removed.
Musharraf, far from being isolated, has the support of the Chaudhrys, and barring any major political movement, has the backing of the army. Washington is happy with the status quo, and the greenbacks keep flowing into the military’s coffers. All in all, a boycott would be widely welcomed by Musharraf, the Chaudhrys and their cohorts, the MQM and George W. Bush.
And what happens if the opposition fights the elections? People say that since the polls are going to be heavily rigged, what’s the point in running, and thereby legitimising the exercise? But they forget that whatever the game plan cooked up in the election cell of the Presidency run by the ISI, things do not always follow the script. Elections create their own dynamics, and seldom yield the results forecast by GHQ.
The reality is that the polls are actually conducted by middle- and low-level civil servants who are conscious of which way the political wind is blowing. Should the returning officers sense that the PML-N and the PPP are set to sweep the polls, they will be reluctant to tamper with the results, thereby jeopardising their careers.
In any case, rigging in constituencies where one candidate or another traditionally wins by a wide margin is very difficult. So agencies focus on contests where the margin of victory and defeat is narrow. Normally, we are talking about 20-30 seats where the results are fixed. Of course, this does not take into account the pre-poll rigging that began weeks ago with the launch of pro-PML-Q ads on TV placed with official funds. This was followed by a flurry of transfers and postings in the bureaucracy to favour the ruling coalition. Finally, there was the induction of a caretaker government that is anything but neutral.
However, I, for one, am not going to hold my breath waiting for a perfectly level playing field. The harsh truth is that we will probably never get one in the foreseeable future. It is far better to participate and create more democratic space each time.
Let us now speculate on what will happen if the mainstream parties contest the elections. In Punjab, the PML-Q gets squeezed between the PML-N and the PPP, and is completely wiped out in Sindh. Overall, its share of seats in the National Assembly drops to a score, whatever GHQ might have wished for. And remember, there is now a new army chief who would probably wish to disengage from politics. Musharraf is the one who wants a certain outcome, not his uniformed successor who does not share his ex-boss’s hatred for Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.
With a comfortable majority in the National Assembly between them, the PPP and the PML-N can now exert pressure on Musharraf by moving a resolution to restore the deposed judges. They can also begin the process of weeding out the thousand or so serving and retired defence officers currently occupying civilian posts.
The PML-N would form the government in Punjab, while the PPP would run Sindh. In NWFP and Punjab, broad-based coalitions would probably be formed. The army will be able to focus on the Taliban threat without the constant distraction of political entanglement.
In this scenario, Musharraf will be well and truly isolated. Bereft of day-to-day support from the army and the ruling coalition, he will be a lonely figure in the Presidency. Although he will have the power to dismiss the government under section 58 (2) b of the Constitution, it is unlikely that he will be able to get any support from General Kayani. Having staged two coups already, a third one will be difficult to sell to the army or the Americans.
Indeed, given the constant friction between the Presidency and the elected PM, Musharraf is likely to re-think his options. Having wielded absolute power for eight years, he will not be able to suffer the humiliation of being left out of the loop, and become a figurehead president that the Constitution calls for. My guess is that he will probably not remain president for very long.
So while principled politics is all very well, practical politics calls for flexibility and the ability to see and seize opportunities. The elections of Jan 8 present us with such an opportunity. It must not be missed.
