Electoral profile 2002

A PROFILE of the October elections in Pakistan can be sketched in terms of a change from the electoral profile prevalent over a decade from 1988 to 1999. This change has come about in the context of both political developments and constitutional reforms. While the public will soon be engaged in the election campaign at the micro level, the contours of the overall shape of the post-election scenario at the macro level are already clear.

The decade-long electoral profile of Pakistan was characterized by the Punjab-based national divide between the two mainstream parties, PPP and PML. Both sought to expand their constituencies in the smaller provinces, except in Sindh where PPP was already present as an ethno-national party. However, in the face of somewhat resilient ethnic vote blocs in these provinces, both PPP and PML found it expedient to win over the existing smaller parties into election alliances and seat adjustment. The MQM, ANP, BNP and JWP as typical ethnic parties as well as JUI and other Islamic parties became coalition partners of one or the other mainstream party at one time or another at the federal or provincial level.

A lot has changed since October 1999. The logic of pursuit of corruption cases and awarding of sentences to the leaders of PPP and PML as well as the Islamabad-Riyadh understanding on the role of Nawaz Sharif has rendered the two parties leaderless. The flow of the military government’s patronage to the new faction of PML led by Mian Azhar, and, to a lesser extent, to the new faction of PPP led by Sherpao in the NWFP, has been widely acknowledged, even if formally denied by the government’s spokesmen.

To recapitulate, the two mainstream parties have been weakened by: the exile of their leaders; official propaganda against them on account of corruption; and emergence of the new PML faction, which is generally characterized as the king’s party. The fact that the PPP and PML took almost three years to outgrow their mutual hostility and acknowledge their shared predicament at the hands of the military government has left them practically immobilized. Therefore, their ability to enlist the support of smaller parties from provinces other than Punjab has been grossly circumscribed in the present context.

At the other end, smaller parties lost a bit of their lustre in the absence of grand election adjustments with the mainstream parties. As long as democracy is on hold, they cannot have a role in government formation in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar or Quetta in a situation of pressures on the two mainstream parties. The integrative mechanisms incorporating the functioning of both mainstream and smaller parties have become irrelevant. Ethnic and Islamic parties in various provinces have lost their political agenda in terms of entering coalition governments led by either PML or PPP.

Electoral politics in the 1990s produced two parallel series of concentric or overlapping circles, which drew meaning from the fact of representing a wide spectrum of political groupings compressed into a bipolar conflict. The competitive nature of elections defined the political dynamics in terms of rival leadership patterns. During elections for National and provincial assemblies, people virtually voted for prime minister, either Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif. Similarly, MNAs, MPAs and party activists belonging to PPP, PML and smaller parties sat together and bargained over allocation of resources, jobs, development funds, water and power, law and order, and portfolios in the cabinet. The predictability of the lines of potential or actual coalition-making lent a measure of stability to parliamentary politics.

The twin-party core of the electoral profile of the 1990s is currently missing. Also missing is the role of smaller parties seeking to operate on the national chessboard through the mainstream parties. The combined effect of these developments is that the larger canvass of national politics has become redundant. The localized pattern of an all-pervasive exercise in mosaic-building at the constituency level has emerged as the core of electoral politics.

We can point out three major determinants of the emergent electoral profile in Pakistan in the year 2002. First, the military government pursued a policy of political deinstitutionalization during the last three years. This policy undermined the two-party model that had provided some kind of political stability. This, despite the fact that the tenure of five elected governments was cut down in the middle. A plethora of old and new party factions, minuscule parties and party leaders have suddenly emerged on the public platform in recent months.

The gradual process of crystallization of a bipolar political system spread over the last decade has been reversed. Bipolarity has been replaced by extreme multipolarity. Institutional core of the political community has given way to a relatively non-institutional approach to politics, characterized by ad hoc arrangements between political contestants. The candidate-based dynamics has overtaken the party-based dynamics of elections.

The second major determinant of electoral profile in 2002 is the element of localization of politics. This factor has operated on the national scene in two ways. First, issues and policies relating to national life have been eliminated from the political agenda. This is an election where public campaign is largely devoid of issues such as: unemployment, price hike, law and order, access to justice, access to medicine, access to education, access to social security, and provision for accountability of public office holders. The constituency-based logic of communal voting operating through vote deliverers is the name of the game. Local patronage, not public policy, is the currency in these elections.

The second aspect of localization of politics can be understood through the institutional mechanism enshrined in the administrative set-up of district governments. Nazims and deputy nazims as well as district and union councilors were elected on a non-party basis, ostensibly to make them rise above partisan politics.

Nothing is farther from reality in the world of politics in Pakistan where party identification lies at the core of political imagination of people. Nazims and councilors were disallowed from becoming members of political parties, which are typically organized horizontally across districts and vertically up to provincial and national levels. Being cut off from these links, the district politics has been boxed up within unnaturally defined parameters of public life.

Apart from de-institutionalization and localization of politics, the third major determinant of transformation of the electoral profile in Pakistan is the general disbelief in the logic of numbers on the floor of parliament being relevant for government formation in the new context. Instead, the prospects for patronage coming through official channels would strongly influence the choice of a prime minister.

Additionally, the pull factor operating from outside the parliament has acquired the structural dynamics of its own in the form of the Legal Framework Order 2002. This is the undoing of democracy per se. The Order has axed parliamentary sovereignty, made public representatives accountable, not to the electorate which would have been the logical democratic practice but, to the supra-parliamentary office of president. The common voter looks through the electoral candidates to the ultimate source of official patronage located outside the parliament.

The low power potential of parliament has cost the efficacy of coalition-making as the way of putting together a majority in the house. The much-feared move for indemnification of the regulations and ordinances issued by the COAS-president during the last three years would effectively put the parliament at a receiving end. Law-making from outside the law-making body will in all probability continue to be the practice in the future.

In this scenario, the emerging electoral profile can be defined in the context of the electoral prospects of various contestants. The PPP and PML have demonstrated goodwill for each other and resolved to make seat adjustment arrangements with each other. However, nothing much has happened on the ground. ARD was never meant to be an electoral alliance, nor has it evolved into one. The National Alliance continues to be a non-starter at best. For MMA, public posturing rather than constituency-level mobilization of potential voters remains the core activity.

The 2002 electoral profile can most probably be defined by a hung parliament at its core, with three mainstream groupings, including PPP and two PMLs. However, there may not be an open-ended competition for coalition partners as per the standard parliamentary practice. President Musharraf has publicly committed himself to keeping PPP and PML out of office. This situation has a grave potential for creating a political crisis, especially if PPP and PML decide to join hands on the floor of the parliament.

In this situation, the loyalties of smaller parties of the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan as well as Punjab could be compressed into a charted path, either at the bidding of the establishment or by the logic of political expediency or both. The emerging scenario points to multiple groupings revolving round the axis of power representing governmental rather than political realities.

Where ignoring is bliss: LETTER FROM NEW DELHI

IF GOVERNMENTS were to forgo the temptation to pay one another in the same coin, they would sound responsible and mature. Outsiders would applaud them. But the desire to have the last word drives them to take a position which fritters away whatever advantage they initially had.

India had an opportunity to put Pakistan to shame. But it surrendered to the impulse of one-upmanship. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should have ignored Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s speeches in the US, either at the UN, which the general himself characterized as “desperate” or at other places. What the Pakistan president said was nothing new. He and his government have assailed India in a similar vein many a time before. Was it necessary for India to retaliate in the same vituperative language? Does taking notice of abuse help?

Vajpayee’s own reply at the UN was on familiar lines. He and his spokesperson have said more or less the same things, even in a harsher tone. By repeating them, he may have countered Musharraf but did not put him on the spot.

Vajpayee would have done so if he had refused to take notice of Musharraf’s raving and ranting. The Pakistan president wanted to provoke him and he, in turn, got provoked. Imagine Vajpayee not giving point-by-point reply to Musharraf’s allegations. By not even mentioning his name, much less his remarks, the prime minister would have gone down better. India would have looked tall. The international community would have noticed the difference.

Musharraf would have been the loser, not Vajpayee. Not long ago, India had given up the tit-for-tat policy. It would seldom take official notice of Islamabad’s harangues at the UN or at other world forums. Governments headed by V.P. Singh, Narasimha Rao and Inder Gujral did not even exercise the right to reply and left Pakistan squirming in its rhetoric. Even junior officers in the ministry of external affairs made it known that they would not stoop to the level of Pakistan.

This hurt Islamabad. It looked silly when New Delhi would not even retort to Pakistan’s attacks. The result was that Islamabad saw the futility of speaking violently or noisily against India at international gatherings, be it in Geneva or New York or The Hague and raising the problem of Kashmir. An atmosphere of decent quietness, if not understanding, came to prevail in the relationship between India and Pakistan. There were no acrimonious exchanges.

This lasted for nearly a decade.Today the same old bout of abuses has come back with a vengeance. No sooner did General Musharraf take over than it began all over. Till the writ of the deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ran, there was an effort towards conciliation. Vajpayee even took a bus to Lahore. Apparently, the military rulers headed by Musharraf had to indulge in a hate-India campaign and to raise the temperature on Kashmir so as to provide justification for the ousting of democracy.

The same old accusations and counter-accusations have come to hold the field. This is almost like day one at the UN when New Delhi referred to the problem of Pakistan’s “attack on Kashmir” some 52 years ago. They were open sessions of rancour and abuse. There were no holds barred.

Gopalaswamy Ayyengar and Krishna Menon, the two stalwarts of the fifties, on the Indian side and Sir Zafrullah Khan on the Pakistan side went on speaking for hours, hurling invectives against each other. One landmark of those days at the UN is the speech by Krishna Menon, who spoke for more than 26 hours at a stretch. Subsequently, in the sixties, Swaran Singh and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, both foreign ministers of their respective countries, picked up the thread from where it had been left off. The vituperativeness on both sides had not lessened, nor the tendency to join issue even at the slightest provocation. Still the debates reflected a bit of the strength of arguments rather than the coarseness of accusations.

A decency of sorts prevailed. Bhutto publicly apologized for his remarks that the “Indian dogs have gone” when the Indian delegation withdrew from the UN debate. Fortunately, cross-border terrorism was more or less absent at that time. There was infiltration by Pakistan in 1964 that resulted in the 1965 war between India and Pakistan. After the Tashkent agreement between Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan there was a pause in the foul language the two sides used against each other. But it started soon after all over again on a full scale.

When the Janata Dal came to power in the nineties New Delhi took a policy decision not to reply to Pakistan’s adverse remarks at international forums. The BJP-led coalition followed a different policy. Still the vexation was less in the early days of relations between India and Pakistan.

Musharraf revived abusive language deliberately. He has the satisfaction of successfully bringing Kashmir to the fore from the back burner. Many Pakistanis are happy that he makes no compromise with the large-sized India which is breathing down their neck. But never before has cross-border terrorism been so relentless and never before has relations between India and Pakistan touched so low as today.

Had Vajpayee ignored Musharraf’s remarks, however provocative, nothing would have been lost. The dust would have settled quickly as it generally does. In the process, New Delhi would have made the point that it was a country secure enough and had a society stable enough not to bother about the remarks that an unsure leader makes. There should have been at least that much of difference between a 55-year-old democracy and a military-ridden country for decades.

In fact, the problem with the governments in India and Pakistan is that they have their eyes fixed on the domestic audience: how it would react to what they say or do. And over the years they have nurtured separatism, which requires hatred to sustain itself. From infancy it is dinned into the ears of the people on both sides that the enemy lives across the border. Foreign ministry officials in the two countries are the worst culprits. They do not ever let the unending exercise in confrontation slacken.

One knows the compulsion of Musharraf. He has created the Frankenstein’s monster of terrorism and extremism which is threatening him and Pakistan society. He has to highlight the danger from India all the time to seek legitimacy for his military rule. And the October elections, despite the constitutional authority with which Musharraf has armed himself, are still unpredictable.

But what are Vajpayee’s compulsions? He has the entire country behind him on cross-border terrorism. Parliament has given him full support. Why should he feel it necessary to talk something for home consumption? He does not have to play to the gallery.

Vajpayee should have rebutted Musharraf’s nuclear blackmail with withdrawal of forces from the border and the resumption of bus, rail and air services to help people-to-people contact. Even President Bush would have congratulated Vajpayee. India has not learnt how to adjust and live with an intransigent neighbour like Pakistan. It tends to behave like a Big Brother, which has an area of influence and expects small countries to look up to it. Pakistan genuinely fears that India, a far bigger and more powerful country, will one day gobble it up.

It imagines that New Delhi is not reconciled yet to the creation of Pakistan, although Vajpayee has recorded in the visitors’ book at Minar-i-Pakistan that the integrity and development of Pakistan is essential for the integrity and development of India. The reiteration of such a statement would have been the best reply to Musharraf’s warnings.

The writer is a free-lance columnist based in New Delhi.

Nuclear plant safeguards

RECENT reports that al-Qaeda terrorists originally considered slamming aeroplanes into nuclear power plants but instead targeted skyscrapers and monuments are of small comfort to Americans still jittery about future attacks.

The nation’s 103 commercial nuclear plants are already “hard targets.” Their domes and towers are made of thick reinforced concrete. Sophisticated security systems and armed guards protect control rooms and monitor access to plants. In the new world of terrorism, however, where zealots are willing to die to cause mass destruction, these plants are still not “hard” enough.

Since 9/11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the utilities that run commercial power plants have implemented many welcome changes. All facilities have remained on the highest state of alert. The NRC has ordered plants to upgrade security in dozens of ways.

More than 1,000 new guards now protect the nation’s nuclear plants, bringing the total to about 6,000. New hires must pass a comprehensive background check. The FBI has checked all plant employees against a watch list. —Los Angeles Times

Women not fully enrolled and FATA blues: ELECTION WATCH

ONE of the significant issues in any general election in Pakistan, from the perspective of women’s participation in politics, has been the percentage of women voters. In all the past five elections women appeared to have been under-registered, and over-registered where manipulation had been planned. The position has apparently not changed. The data on voters given to the Election Commission by NADRA reinforce this view.

According to this data, 72 million voters will be entitled to vote on Oct 10, 2002. Of these, 38.70 million, or 53.75 per cent, are males, and 33.15 million, or 46.04 per cent, are females.

These figures do not correspond to women’s share in population. The country’s population now is estimated at 145.96 million, out of which 75.79 million, or 51.925 per cent are men, and 70.17 million, or 48.1 per cent, are women. Many people believe that even the census does not offer a complete count of women in Pakistan. That issue apart, the percentage of women voters to the total electorate should not be any lower than their share of the total population. Unless it can be established that women take longer years to qualify as voters, the fact that women voters form 46.04 per cent of the electorate while they are 48.1 per cent of the total population can only mean that all women eligible to vote have not been enrolled.

The percentage of women voters in the total electorate varies from province to province.

In Islamabad, out of 383,561 voters, 203,371 are males and 180,190 females. Women form 46.98 per cent of the electorate.

In Punjab province, out of 41.23 million voters, 19.37 million, or 46.98 per cent, are women.

SINDH: Out of 16.16 million voters, 7.4 million are women, that is, 45.79 per cent of the electorate.

FRONTIER PROVINCE: Total voters 8.85 million; women 3.92 million; that is, 44.29 per cent.

BALOCHISTAN: Total voters 3.92 million; women 1.8 million — that is, 45.92 per cent.

FATA: Total voters 1.85 million; women 469,945 — that is 29.64 per cent.

In other words, while the percentage of women voters in Punjab and Islamabad (46.98 pc in both cases) is higher than the national percentage (46.04 pc), this percentage declines in Balochistan, Sindh, the Frontier and FATA — in that order. That the women voters’ percentage in Sindh, where voters in big urban centres exceed the rural electorate, should be lower than in Balochistan is quite significant. Obviously, Balochistan has greater interest than Sindh in getting its women enrolled as voters.

The essential tell-tale figures relate to the Frontier province and FATA. The women voters in the Frontier are 2.5 per cent lower than their percentage in Punjab and Islamabad. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that in this province all the women eligible to vote have not been registered.

The numerical disparity between male and female voters in FATA demands special attention and the question is whether notice has been taken of the fact that in this region 70 per cent of the voters are men and they are nearly twice the number of women voters, and whether any special effort was made to put all women on the electoral rolls.

That the need for such an attempt was manifest can easily be appreciated. Till January 1997, the right to elect members of the National Assembly to represent the population of FATA was available only to tribal maliks and proteges of the Political Agents. The electorate comprised a little over 35,000 people — all of them men. It was only for the general election in February 1997 that adult franchise was introduced in FATA.

That about 100,000 women were enrolled as voters in that election was, in the circumstances, something of an achievement. However, it should have been clear that left to themselves all women in FATA entitled to vote could not get their names on the electoral list. If steps had been taken in time to concentrate on women’s enrolment in the region the present situation could have been to some extent controlled.

Even otherwise too the Federally Administered Tribal Areas have not received a fair deal in relation to the coming general election. The only favour granted to them is that their seats in the National Assembly have been raised from eight to 12. But how this figure has been arrived at is not clear. Balochistan has an NA seat for 280,000 voters, the highest seat-voters ratio of all provinces.

Punjab has an NA seat for every 278,581 voters, Sindh one seat for 264,918 voters, and the Frontier one seat for 252,851 voters. Islamabad is somewhat better placed with one NA seat for every 191,780 voters. But in case of FATA the ratio is 1: 132,137. Incidentally, at one stage FATA had been promised 12 seats in the provincial assembly. How was its entitlement to seats in the National Assembly considered equal to its seats in the provincial assembly?

The FATA population has also received a concession in that it will directly elect its representatives to the Senate.

But there the good part of the deal ends. On the negative side, there are no reserved seats for women and non-Muslims for FATA and the election there will be on a non-party basis. The two issues are interlinked. Since political parties are not allowed in FATA, there can be no party lists of women or non-Muslims for the seats reserved for them. If strengthening of the party system was desired, as has been stated, elections on a party basis should have been allowed in the areas.

These problems have arisen as a result of the vested interest’s success in persuading the regime to delay the local government elections in FATA and to have second thoughts about its representation at the provincial level.

At the moment the merits of the promises made to the tribal population is not the issue. The only point one wishes to make is that the population of FATA is extra-sensitive about the promises made to them. Giving them hopes of enjoying some authority at the local government and provincial levels and not ensuring fulfilment of these expectations within the given timeframe will not be considered wise.

An inch-by-inch advance

PAKISTANI security forces capture a key Al Qaeda suspect in a bloody shootout. Singapore arrests 21 terrorism suspects, including some who allegedly had been in al-Qaeda training camps. The FBI breaks up a possible “sleeper cell” in the quiet Buffalo, N.Y., suburb of Lackawanna.

The first two events are familiar, the third jarring. Together they comfort, suggesting that after months of few clear victories, the multinational war on terrorism is progressing.

John Walker Lindh was the first US citizen to become known as an American Talib, and the five alleged Al Qaeda operatives arrested in the former steel mill city of Lackawanna — along with a sixth picked up in Bahrain — may also fit into that category. They are accused of training at an Al Qaeda base in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors say they spent several weeks in the Afghan camps now notorious for teaching aspiring terrorists everything from how to obtain false identification to how to concoct poisons and explosives. The complaint charges that while they attended the camp, Osama bin Laden himself came to rail against the United States and Israel.

If a court finds the six suspects conspired to assist Al Qaeda, they are, whatever the formal charges, traitors. Until then, fairness and principles of due process require that these Americans be presumed innocent and that they be given the full protections of the Constitution. Beyond that, their arrests challenge fellow citizens to uphold American ideals by continuing to shun anti-Arab or anti-Islamic bias.

The FBI reports that many Lackawanna Muslims helped its investigation. Not everyone in Karachi was so cooperative, which makes Pakistan’s arrest of Ramzi bin Al Shibh all the more heartening. Some analysts have long suggested that Pakistan’s security service, with its old ties to the Taliban, is more eager to help Al Qaeda than the United States. But the force proved its loyalty to the war on terrorism — and its courage — by facing grenade explosions and automatic weapons fire in arresting Ramzi bin Al Shibh and his cohorts.

By his own account, Ramzi bin Al Shibh, a Yemeni citizen, had plenty to do with the planning of the 9/11 attacks. Appearing a week ago on Al Jazeera, the Arab TV network, he triumphantly showed off a suitcase of “souvenirs” — flight manuals, CD-ROMs and other items that a cell in Hamburg, Germany, may have used to help prepare for last September’s airliner attacks.

His arrest gives federal investigators a chance to learn more about Al Qaeda’s operations. There is no mystery about the fanatical mind-set that led to the attacks. But a moral obligation to the dead and survivors of 9/11 compels investigators to unravel the chain of events that led to the destruction of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. —Los Angeles Times