Outlook for Sindh

FOR the fifth time in a row, the People’s Party and the MQM have emerged as the two largest parties in the province. This is in keeping with the pattern in 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997. The MQM has managed to secure a seat or two in the interior also, but basically it is urban Sindh that continues to be its stronghold. A comparative study of the number of votes secured by the MQM now and in earlier elections will take some time, but it is obvious that over the years there has been a serious erosion of its electoral support. As elsewhere in the country, the MMA has improved its tally of votes and seats in Sindh — mostly at the expense of the MQM and the PML(N). But that does not take much away from the MQM’s position as the second most important political force in the province. The PPP has retained its traditional seats in Karachi, though its bastion remains the interior. Among them, thus, the PPP, MQM and MMA represent Sindh’s ethnic mosaic fairly adequately.

Once again, no party has been able to secure an absolute majority. Which means Sindh will again have a coalition government. At least once in the past — in 1988 — the PPP and the MQM were coalition partners, but the experiment ended in dismal failure. The MQM coalesced with the PML(N)/IJI twice — in 1990 and 1997 — each time the coalition coming to a sad end. In June 1992, the IJI government launched a crackdown on the MQM militants as part of an anti-terrorism campaign. The PML-MQM coalition broke up again in 1998, this time over Hakeem Saeed’s assassination. There were two notable features of these coalition governments. One, no provincial government completed its five-year term because of the fall of the PPP and PML governments in Islamabad. Two, the working of the coalition partners was characterized by mutual distrust and bickerings. More unfortunately, these differences did not remain confined to politics but spilled over into the streets in the form of strikes, violence and lawlessness bordering on anarchy, especially in Karachi and Hyderabad. The cumulative effect of frequent “wheel-jam” strikes, shootouts and extrajudicial killings was economic recession. Industrial production fell, no new investment took place, there was flight of capital, and the education system all but collapsed. The result was massive unemployment and a high crime rate. Side by side, the population continued to swell, thus putting further strains on the economy and civic services.

Once again, Sindh’s two leading parties have an opportunity to join hands in a coalition government and deliver. If they learn from their past mistakes and show a spirit of mutual accommodation, there is no reason why the PPP and the MQM cannot give a stable government to Sindh. The province has some problems peculiar to it. Karachi’s ethnic mix and its position as the country’s largest industrial and commercial hub constitute both a challenge and an opportunity. It needs more funds besides an emergency action plan for arresting the rapid decline of its civic services and for tackling unemployment and crime. As history shows, whatever happens in Karachi ultimately affects the entire country. By giving Karachi and the province an improved law and order situation, ethnic harmony and an economic upturn, the two parties can make a significant contribution to the entire country’s political stability and economic progress.

Chorus of foul play

IN what has become a traditional part of the post-election scenario, a crescendo of voices is once again crying foul and accusing the government of large-scale rigging. Barring the 1970 and 1993 polls, there have been loud accusations of electoral fraud by the losing parties, most spectacularly in 1977. Except for that occasion — when a protest movement was launched by the opposition — most parties have eventually accepted the results and taken their seats in the assemblies under protest. While there is little denying that the government took some questionable steps in the run-up to the recent polls, most observers believe that the exercise was by and large above board. The opposition, however, has pointed to the Election Commission’s inordinate delay in announcing the results as cause for deep suspicion. The People’s Party, for example, has voiced concern over the delay and alleged that the government had held back results to make last-minute ballot stuffing and so on. Its leader Benazir Bhutto termed the polls “fraudulent and manipulated” and demanded fresh elections under a neutral set-up. A party spokesman, however, struck a more moderate line, saying that despite the rigging, the PPP would accept the results under protest. The PML(N) also alleged massive rigging as a cause for its debacle. The party’s senior vice-president claimed that the MMA landslide in the Frontier was the result of the government’s tacit backing of the religious alliance. An outraged MQM also claimed that its relatively poor showing was the result of massive rigging in favour of the MMA. The MMA, meanwhile, countered that the MQM had pressured the government to withhold the results on certain Karachi seats to give the MQM a more respectable tally. While the government brushed aside such criticism, the parties remain in a sulking mood. In contrast, there was a rare example of grace in defeat. The prompt resignation from party posts by the ANP’s Asfandyar Wali and Naseem Wali was a refreshing example of accepting personal responsibility for their party’s poor showing rather than crying ‘foul’ and blaming others. Perhaps the best way to eliminate such allegations — by bad losers as well as the genuinely aggrieved ones — is to learn from the Bangladesh example of a neutral caretaker government, with no stake in the outcome, taking over for three months to oversee the holding of elections and then quitting after a new government comes in.

Contaminated water

THE Sindh government and its environment protection department should pay some heed to the concerns expressed by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) regarding the disposal of untreated toxic effluent into water bodies that cater to the drinking needs of millions of people in the province. The PMA has said that factories all over Sindh were discharging industrial effluent and toxic waste into canals and streams which were an important source of drinking water. Clearly, this kind of pollution hazard could affect the health of the people, especially in the rural areas where many are not even aware of the hazards of contamination.

The PMA reports that every month doctors treat hundreds of cases involving gastroenteritis and related complications and that the primary cause is contaminated water. The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency should move swiftly and serve notices on all such polluting factories and ensure that they refrain from releasing their dangerous waste in such a cavalier manner. The ready excuse for the environment department’s failure to fight pollution is that there is a shortage of funding and human and technical resources. The authorities must put environmental protection higher on their list of priorities and set aside resources for this purpose as pollution poses a serious threat to people’s health.