By Zofeen T. Ebrahim, IANS
Karachi : In the elite drawing rooms of Pakistan’s largest city, they are whispering to each other to stock up on kitchen items in case the situation gets “really ugly” in these days ahead of elections in the country.
The undercurrent of fear is palpable with some going on to say that the Dec 27 violence, which killed former prime minister and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Benazir Bhutto, was just a “trailer of things to come”. And that election day Feb 18 may bring a wave of violence – not terror related but politically motivated.
Worried that elections would be “highly disruptive whatever the outcome”, senior political analyst Ghazi Salahuddin told IANS: “If the PPP does not do well nationally, native Sindhis will feel cheated and the federation will come under increasing pressure.”
Recalling the severe reaction to Bhutto’s assassination in the garrison city of Rawlapindi, he says: “Nothing like this has ever happened in the country.”
And so when Sharif Bandecha, 50, also from Sindh province as was Bhutto, says, “even if a dog under the banner of Bhutto stands for election, the people of Sindh will vote for it”, it has to be taken seriously.
“We will settle for nothing less than the premiership of the PPP, otherwise be prepared for a bloodbath,” he says with finality.
Sentiments similar to those expressed by Bandecha are echoed all through rural Sindh in the run up to the general election to be held only a few days from now on Feb 18.
Internationally noted Pakistani writer, broadcaster and analyst Tariq Ali, however, doubts the party “would win a majority nationally even if the elections are totally free”.
In any case he wonders: “Since everyone is so convinced the elections will be rigged, why give them legitimacy by participating? Wouldn’t it have been much more effective to boycott? All this bravado!”
“Nothing will happen,” says Munaf Lakda, dismissing rumours of the impending violence as mere hype.
A chartered accountant working in a multinational firm, he predicts that with “no clear national winner, although the PPP might have the most seats on a single party basis, there will be a hung parliament with everyone getting a slice from the cake”.
In the first public rally at Thatta, a town in Sindh after Bhutto’s 40-day mourning period ended, the party’s co-chairperson and widower of their slain leader, Asif Ali Zardari, told a rousing crowd of over 100,000 that if the government tried to “intimidate” him and rig the poll, “I will destroy them”.
Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, views Zardari’s comments as mere “election rhetoric”. But he believes that “polling day rigging may have serious consequences”.
According to Hasan, Zardari’s threat gives vent to “the deep sense of anger and frustration felt with the military-controlled state by the supporters of the largest political party in the country”. Thus, he believes “a free vote is the only hope of defusing rising political tension and anger”.
“But that is not possible,” argues Hamid Mir, one of the six TV anchors from three private channels banned by President Pervez Musharraf from coming on air even after their channels have resumed transmission, “Musharraf cannot afford a fair and free election.” He also fears “a lot of violence on Feb 18”.
He predicts that the PPP and the Nawaz Sharif-headed Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) will form the government in the Punjab. In Sindh, it will be a coalition government of the PPP and the urban-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (backed by ‘Mohajirs’ or Urdu-speaking settlers who flocked to Karachi from northern India following the 1947 partition of India along religious lines) after the PPP asks the latter to abandon the Musharraf-backed PML-Q.
(Zofeen Ibrahim can be contacted at [email protected])