Talks for fair polls

THE Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) includes the country’s two largest parties, the PML(N) and the PPP. As such, what the alliance does or says with regard to the October elections should be regarded with care. At a meeting in Islamabad on Thursday, it decided to maintain its unity beyond the elections and complained of massive pre-poll rigging by the government, but it did not take a decision on whether or not to abstain from taking part in the elections. So far, leaders and members of the alliance’s component parties have all filed nominations, and there is also evidence of several crucial seat adjustments. The PPP and the PML (N) are generally expected to dominate the elections if they remain in the arena, and neither party has given any indication of boycotting the polls.

The decision is not an easy one to take. The PPP had not taken part in Zia’s 1985 polls, and later admitted that it was a mistake despite the fact the elections were ostensibly held on a non-party basis. If the ARD refrains from participation, it will provide a walkover to the breakaway PML(Q), which is widely believed to enjoy the government’s patronage, especially in Punjab. On the other hand, if the ARD is convinced that the elections will not be free and fair, it can then argue that a boycott will deprive the process of credibility and embarrass the government. But there can be two problems with this approach. One, the government has shown that it is not too concerned with democratic niceties: President Pervez Musharraf’s “substance of democracy” would in any case have been provided by the other parties that take part. Two, what will the ARD do if it stays away and the election process goes ahead without it? It will be impossible to repeat the 1977 scenario and launch a countrywide agitation either against the electoral outcome or to undo the constitutional changes brought about by the government. It is difficult to visualize any kind of popular mobilization for such an agitation. If the people are not too enamoured of the present rulers, they have also been disheartened by the performance of the successive Benazir and Sharif governments. The citizens’ economic woes too have increased, despite the slick talk of our ministers. The people hardly have any spirit left to back a protest movement.

The choice for the ARD is, therefore, not easy to make. But the government is also being short-sighted in tending to marginalize the alliance and its leaders. If it can convince the ARD that complaints about pre-poll rigging and manipulation will be seriously addressed and that the administration itself will not be a party in the elections, then there may be room for the polls to be held in an atmosphere of amity rather than bickering and strife. The Musharraf government has more to gain from a rapprochement with the ARD, both in respect of the conduct of the elections and the proposed changes to the Constitution than by relying on shoddily-crafted party rumps. The president has talked individually to senior leaders of the ARD’s component parties, but there is still time for detailed consultations with the alliance as a whole on the entire constitutional and electoral agenda. Is it too late to hope for a round-table of all the major players to discuss the modalities of the elections and ways of making them fair and meaningful?

Karzai’s narrow escape

AFGHANISTAN’s well-wishers must have heaved a sigh of relief over the failure of the attempt on President Hamid Karzai’s life in Kandahar on Thursday. One of the president’s bodyguards was killed in an exchange of fire with the attacker, who was in Afghan military uniform. But Mr Karzai remained unhurt. In July also, the Afghan government had discovered a plot to kill Mr Karzai. This was, however, the first serious attempt on his life. The firing in Kandahar came within hours of a car-bomb explosion that killed 30 people in Kabul. The two incidents serve to underline the precarious security situation in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are not the only threat to peace in Afghanistan: there are tensions within the government itself, with the Pashtoons, who are in a majority, unhappy with the preponderance of the Tajiks in the Karzai government. A large number of Pashtoons who fled the northern part because of persecution by Uzbek and Tajik warlords have still not returned home. Also unhappy with the interim set-up is Gen. Dostum, the Uzbek warlord, who refused to join the Karzai government because he was denied any important ministry. There is also widespread banditry in the countryside. The regime’s stability is tenuous because the International Security Assistance Force remains confined to Kabul. This means the Karzai government has to rely on the goodwill of the warlords.

Without peace and a strong central authority, it would be impossible to pacify and rebuild Afghanistan. The $4.5 billion committed at the Tokyo conference for the country’s reconstruction will merely remain pledges, unless there is peace. The US, which had previously opposed an extension of the ISAF to areas outside Kabul, now seems inclined to do so. It is, however, doubtful if foreigners alone can help establish peace in the strife-ridden mountainous country. Ultimately, it is for the Afghan leaders themselves to realize the consequences of further bloodshed in a country devastated by two decades of war and violent strife.

This scandalous racket

THE fact-finding committee of the Karachi University, constituted especially to look into alleged irregularities in admissions to Sindh’s medical colleges, has recommended action against 46 students, who were not admitted to any medical college in the province but appeared in the professional examinations this year. This is shocking beyond belief, and goes to show how rules and procedures are flouted to accommodate certain crooked elements who, in this case, would have become ‘qualified’ doctors if they had not been caught in time. That said, the matter should not end with the action taken against such students only. Obviously, the students managed to appear illegally in the professional examination with help from certain officials of the Sindh health department, and those in charge of the medical colleges who facilitated the crime. This sort of gerrymandering with rules and procedures is downright criminal in that lives and health of an uncounted number of people would have depended upon the nostrums handed out by these fake doctors if they had managed to slip through the scrutiny of the fact-finding committee. Worse still, it is anyone’s guess for how long this ignoble racket has been going on.

The corruption and irregularities involved in this racket calls for a high-level and in-depth inquiry into the policies and practices governing admission into the province’s medical colleges. The recommendation by the KU committee that criminal proceedings be initiated against the students involved in the present case needs to be taken to its next logical stage, and must include initiation of similar action against the concerned officials of the health department, the medical colleges and those vetting the examination papers in the university itself. It is a shame that the ills afflicting general education in the country should now be seeping into our professional institutions as well. That the case at hand pertains to the medical profession is all the more disquieting.