Pakistan: ELECTIONS AMID ANARCHY

Naïve leaders from Punjab are making the persistent demand for immediate elections without considering the anarchy prevailing in all spheres of life of Pakistan. The writ of the Government had not been restored in some parts of Pakistan and life is not normal in other parts which will prevent the rulers from holding the elections. If demand for holding immediate elections is a political slogan and a pressure tactic on the coalition Government, then it is ok. If the Punjabi leaders are serious in forcing the Government to hold ahead of schedule elections is dangerous then we will be collecting huge crowd of unarmed and innocent people for the terrorists to kill people in thousands in a single explosion. In case of Balochistan, election campaigning is impossible as there is a strong and powerful section, though small, is opposed to parliamentary politics or representative democracy for which they had made some leaders target. The performance of the present Government in power in Balochistan is not ideal and people, in general, are not satisfied as they failed to deliver goods during the present political tenure. Presumably, they will not dare to face their electorates if the elections are called and if they did not enjoy the support of the establishment as usual. In such a case, their future is doomed and they are dumped in the history by the establishment. There is a growing awareness among the people in general not to tolerate any engineered elections. There will be zero tolerance to electoral fraud. Only genuine people enjoying the confidence of their electorates will be tolerated to contest the elections and people will listen to those parties and leaders who served the masses or comparatively more honest in political dealing. Those forces are not coming forward at the moment merely because of complete uncertainty and an adverse political environment created in Balochistan against representative democracy for the genuine people. Holding elections in parts of Balochistan and KP will not be very easy for the Election Commission or the new caretaker Government because of the law and order situation and also because of bitterness among the people on certain political issues. The security environment around Pakistan is not conducive for holding immediate elections, it is generally believed. Military leadership had issued public statements and published in the newspapers and carried by all the news channels in recent past that 20 foreign intelligence agencies are operating in place like Balochistan. If it is a possibility, then many more must be operating in the Federal Capital and the Punjab undermining the security of Pakistan. If the foreign powers are bent upon to settle their score with Pakistan, then there will be a definite interference in holding of transparent elections. It is claimed that during the last elections foreign money was available for certain parties. It was not confirmed by the officials to this date that foreign powers interfered in the last elections or not. Elections mean complete uncertainty. Who will win? No one knows. What will be the policies of the new Government? The entire system will observe a complete halt once the elections are announced. If elections are engineered by the establishment, then there will be no question of uncertainty on the political and economic front. The results will be manipulated in favour of the favourite party. If the stakeholders are confident that there will be no upheaval, no revolution, no least known, unpredictable man will rule this country, the situation will return to normal giving credence to electoral fraud in favour of the new ruling party. Presumably, the international community, led by the US and its allies, will try to defend their interests in the region by playing some role in the scheduled elections—seen or unseen. In the final analysis, elections are a distant dream of the Punjabi politicians and Punjab based political parties who are unaware of the ground realities in the whole country. Pakistan is not confined within the limits of Lahore and its surrounding. By holding one meeting in Quetta, it does not mean that all is well in rest of Balochistan. They will have to depend on their local allies to run the affairs of Balochistan, KPK and Sindh, if not the Seraiki area of Punjab.