An advertisement in a leading Pakistani newspaper proclaims that “Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf has decided to allot National and Provincial Assembly tickets to the civil society and lawyers to contest elections from PTI platform”. The same paper carries another statement by Imran Khan denouncing elections under General Musharraf and calling for a boycott. Much the same confusion prevails among sections of the lawyers’ movement and civil society advocates. Justice (r) Wajihuddin Ahmed has withdrawn his petition against the usurpation of the presidency by General Musharraf but is exhorting his supporters to flood the election commission and file their nomination papers so that a tough fight can be given to General Musharraf.
Mr Nawaz Sharif is traveling in the same boat. In a statement from Jeddah following General Musharraf’s recent visit there, he says he is readying to return to Pakistan “in time to file his nomination papers in the Election Commission before the cut-off date of November 25”. This runs parallel to another in which he says that elections under General Musharraf are not acceptable and should be boycotted.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad has also been calling for a boycott. But his senior partner in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Maulana Fazal ur Rehman, says his Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) will definitely participate in elections. However, Qazi Sahib is not ready to quit the MMA in pursuit of his stand against elections under General Musharraf.
Everyone and his aunt, meanwhile, are exhorting Ms Benazir Bhutto to boycott elections. Yet no one is prepared to sit with her and forge a common front – with or without elections – against General Musharraf. Mr Imran Khan says he will parley with her only under the umbrella of the Pakistan Bar Council or some such body. Mr Nawaz Sharif refuses to accept the legitimacy of any All Parties Conference (APC) called by her or the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). Instead, he insists she must submit to the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) cobbled by him in London to negate the ARD. But the validity of the APDM is suspect. Maulana Fazal is a member of the APDM; yet he has already decided not to be governed by its joint charter or discipline.
Ms Bhutto is in a quandary. The PPP’s boycott lobby argues that the election will be rigged; so far from leveraging a constitutional amendment to enable Ms Bhutto to become prime minister for the third time, it may not even yield a government-forming majority in parliament. Instead, the argument goes, a full-fledged boycott in which the PPP is joined by all oppositionists will deny legitimacy to the general election as it did General Musharraf’s referendum some years ago and plunge him into a greater crisis.
But to what effect, asks the pro-election faction? With Maulana Fazal out of the opposition’s loop, General Musharraf’s PMLQ led Grand Alliance will cobble a working relationship with the JUI and hobble along. In the event, the oppositionists will have no future platform for opposition except the street. And the street, unfortunately, hasn’t been too accommodating so far. Indeed, with the Pakistani bazaar and Karachi consistently refusing to shut down against General Musharraf, no popular movement can take off against him. On the other hand, even a rigged election in which all opposition parties take part is bound to return a strong anti-Musharraf force in the next parliament. Indeed, if the objective of the opposition parties is a return to full democracy for the country rather than party political interests only, they should be able to manage an effective seat adjustment arrangement everywhere and deny the PMLQ the simple majority it covets from the election. At the very least they can deny General Musharraf the two-thirds majority he requires to indemnify his unconstitutional moves since November 3 from the next parliament.
Therefore a preferred course of action for the opposition should be to band together and agitate for a fair and free election, preceded by General Musharraf’s exit as army chief, a withdrawal of the Emergency, suspension of Local Bodies, restoration of fundamental rights, the return of Nawaz Sharif and freedom for all political prisoners. This would require Ms Bhutto to adjust her sights for the next round. She should get ready to play the role of an opposition leader in parliament rather than accept a junior partnership in General Musharraf’s PMLQ-dominated dispensation.
If the elections are massively rigged, the opposition can always refuse to accept its results and boycott parliament, which would amount to the same thing as having boycotted the polls in the first place, with much the same critical consequences. But if the results are satisfactory, they can take on General Musharraf in the court of the people when he applies for indemnity from the next parliament. If they can muster a two-thirds majority among themselves, they could impeach him. If they can’t, they could extract a free judiciary and a free press at the very least in exchange for indemnity. In that way, they could live to fight another day in the most democratic and popular of all ways. We can’t afford to allow cold blooded logic to be drowned out by passionate outrage.