By IANS
Islamabad : Fearing a rebellion in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), the government has quietly asked the police to ensure all its MPs are present here when presidential elections are held Oct 6.
“In an unusual move, the Shaukat Aziz government is secretly using district coordination officers (DCOs) and senior superintendents of police (SSPs) all over Pakistan to ensure the presence of ruling party MPs on the day of the presidential election on Oct 6 and cast their vote in favour of (President) General Pervez Musharraf,” The News reported Monday.
“The troubling signs of rebellion within the ruling party against the election of Musharraf in uniform have frightened the government authorities to an extent that now they have decided to use the police to keep such elements within their ‘limits’ and, most importantly, to make them available in Islamabad on Oct 6,” it added.
Many members of the parliament who were planning to perform Umrah during the holy month of Ramadan have reportedly been asked to postpone their departure till Oct 6. Likewise, those MPs of the ruling party who are already in Saudi Arabia are being contacted and asked to return in the first week of October to vote for Musharraf.
“Sources said that DCOs and SSPs have been directed to ensure the presence of MPs of the ruling party from their respective districts on the day of the re-election of General Pervez Musharraf. They have been asked to remain in touch with the government leaders,” The News said.
“The ruling party, which is already facing defections since the announcement of Musharraf to contest the poll in uniform, is not in a position to take any risk of absence of even a few MPs as it might jeopardize the whole re-election plan,” it added.
Pakistan’s opposition parties have already announced that their legislators would quit the national and provincial assemblies Sep 29 to protest Musharraf’s re-election plans.
After getting instructions from the government, DCOs and SSPs have started making personal contacts with the ruling MPs of their respective districts. “Sources claimed that these verbal instructions to DCOs and SSPs were actually issued by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat last week after the announcement of the schedule for the presidential election by the chief election commissioner,” the newspaper said.
Asked to comment on the development, Information and Broadcasting Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said he was not aware that the police were involved in the poll process but admitted MPs had been asked to travel abroad only after Oct 6.
According to Durrani, PML-Q chief whip in the National Assembly Nasrullah Dareshak had been tasked with ensuring that party MPs were present in parliament on voting day.
Senator Kamil Ali Agha, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs, was conducting a similar exercise in the upper house, Durrani added.
The regime of prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali (Nov 2002-June 2004) began using the police to perform political errands when it “faced a big problem of lack of quorum in the parliament”, The News said.
“The problem had become so severe that the government started facing difficulties even in getting its own agenda items passed. As part of the strategy to deal with these indifferent MPs, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat devised a strategy to use DCOs and SSPs to contact their respective MPs and deliver messages to them to attend parliamentary sessions.
“This trick had successfully worked in those days, as it was considered that if the MPs did not oblige their SSPs and DCOs, they might face some trouble in the district, particularly those parliamentarians who were fond of using the police and district administration for their own political ends and crushing their political opponents,” the newspaper said.