By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : All major Pakistani opposition parties contesting the Feb 18 polls fear rigging and have alleged that the parties allied to President Pervez Musharraf have prepared a plan for large-scale electoral fraud.
“The rigging has already started and all members of the local government are favouring the government candidates,” spokesperson for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Sherry Rahman told IANS, referring to the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) that is being supported by Musharraf.
The opposition parties of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have been saying that they will not accept the results if the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam being supported by Muhsarraf emerges victorious.
Not a single election in Pakistan since 1970 has been accepted as entirely fair and free, and no outcome has gone uncontested.
This time, several parties, including the mainstream rightwing Jamaat-e-Islami, Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf and several smaller parties are boycotting the polls on the grounds that they cannot expect transparent polls under Musharraf.
The present phase of electoral politics started in 1971 after the break-up of the country. The 1970 polls were the first general elections after 23 years of independence on the basis of direct adult franchise. Conducted under the martial law regime, the elections were free and without any interference by the government.
But, the political outcome of the elections that gave a majority to the Awami League party of then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, was not accepted by the military and the Pakistan Peoples Party, the majority party in West Pakistan.
That resulted in a major political crisis leading to civil strife, a crackdown by military authorities, breakdown of authority in East Pakistan and then to war with India in 1971. The first ever general election ended up dividing the country into two.
The next elections conducted by a civilian government headed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in March-April 1977 were massively rigged, which provoked a joint opposition of nine political parties, the Pakistan National Alliance, to launch a nation-wide protest.
The agitation paralysed the government, which created yet another opportunity for the military to take over power on May 5, 1977. General Zia ul Haq, who later created a civilian facade through party-less elections in 1985, ruled the country for the next 11 years.
Since 1988, five general elections have been held, each after an elected government was dismissed through use of a controversial article of the constitution that Zia ul Haq had inserted so that he could dissolve an unwanted government.
The last and fifth such dismissal was done by the military when Musharraf took over power on Oct 19, 1999. Interestingly, he captured power after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif dismissed him as the army chief and tried to install another general in the post.
The last election – the sixth in less than 17 years – was held on Oct 10, 2002 and the assemblies formed as a result of these elections completed their five-year term under the army chief’s supervision, for the first time in Pakistan’s history.
“Musharraf is my boss,” former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali had openly said when a journalist asked who heads the government.
“All the military leaders who captured power have viewed free play of democratic forces as dangerous, anti-development and pregnant with the potential of degenerating to lawlessness and anarchy,” says political analyst and author R.B. Rais.
Rais thinks that the military has never allowed political forces to act independently. This, he says, is the reason why no election has ever been declared free and fair and the losing parties have never accepted the results.