“Non-party” elections to 2720 local bodies for 41,837 councillors in the Punjab have run their predicted, pathetic course: with 14 dead, hundreds injured and arrested and credible charges of official rigging souring the atmosphere, over a dozen factions of the Muslim League have won about 60 per cent of the seats. However, when prime minister Nawaz Sharif says the results are a “strong reiteration of the peoples’ support for the IJI”, he may not, as usual, be telling the full, sordid story.
Originally, elections to local bodies in all the provinces were scheduled for last November. But the government had second thoughts. The “law and order” situation in Sindh remained beyond the control of Jam Sahib. In Punjab, following the misappropriation of billions of rupees from the Co-ops by IJI stalwarts, the government was naturally worried of a public backlash. Nor could a weak coalition government in Balochistan be relied upon to control rising ethnic tensions between the Baloch and Pathans, especially since political temperatures are high during elections.
So elections were postponed. It was also decided to hold “non-party” elections so that the IJI could not be effectively targeted by Benazir Bhutto for running a corrupt government.
In the event, correctly fearing that the government would resort to foul means to win these elections, the PDA accused the prime minister of “lacking courage to hold ‘party-based’ polls” and lost interest in the whole exercise. Meanwhile, the IJI split into many parties, groups and factions reflecting local pressures and constituencies, with cabinet ministers throwing themselves shamelessly into the fray on behalf of their factions, often at violent odds with one another.
Government officials say that voter turnout was high and that the elections were fairly conducted and won. The press thinks otherwise: voters were less than enthusiastic with no more than 25 per cent turning out on polling day; the “non-party” sticker was farcical, with ruling party parliamentarians openly campaigning for candidates while the Punjab CM allegedly spent billions of rupees from state funds promoting his favourites.
The unfairness of the polls was never in doubt. The Lahore High Court accepted over 340 pre-poll petitions alleging illegal interference in the electoral process by senior members of the Punjab government, including the chief minister. Said the Court after examining evidence of official tampering with electoral lists to help government-supported candidates: “If this is not pre-election rigging, then what is?”. A couple of days earlier, Election Commission officials had warned the Punjab government against the practise of registering “bogus or fictitious voters” in all the districts of the provinces. Matters didn’t improve any when the press discovered the existence in print of 5 million ballet papers in excess of those legally required for the polls.
Some people aren’t too worried about the controversial results. They believe that local issues have cut across party lines as indeed they should; that the control of the centre over local politics is bound to diminish because a younger and more independent leadership has emerged; and that this is a healthy development in the long-run especially if it leads to a devolution of power.
That may be misplaced concreteness. At least three developments provide food for fresh thought. First, there is the issue of the sanctity of the electoral process. Mian Nawaz Sharif has knocked another nail into the coffin of democracy for short-term, dubious gains. The low turnout indicates the deep cynicism with which millions of citizens view their progressive disenfranchisement at the hands of the IJI. At the rate at which Mian Sahib is going, he should put Gen Zia’s referendum to shame by the time the next elections come round.
Second, scant attention has been paid to an unprecedented series of advertisements in the press sponsored by international agencies warning citizens not to vote for drug barons and narcotics agents newly flush with money. Such misgivings were not without foundation. Scores of drug-pedlars and crooks have been ‘elected’ under the banner of the Muslim League. It is apparently not enough that we should have several drug-warlords strutting about in the Baloch assembly. Now we have to open the doors of the Punjab government to them also so that they can safely step into the provincial and national assemblies in a couple of years time. Instead of implanting the Crescent of Islam over this region, our ruling elites seem instead to be bent upon stamping the skull-and-bones over future generations of Pakistanis and Afghans.
Third, the politics of factionalism and biradari are disastrous from the point of view of a stable, two-party system. The fact that the Muslim League has succumbed to its inherent weaknesses should strike a note of deep pessimism in Islamabad rather than elicit the sort of ridiculous, crowing response which the prime minister has thought fit to deliver.