Balochistan: Elections on Gunpoint

The Baloch Hal

Throughout its history, Balochistan has never witnessed controversial and shady elections like what we are experiencing in 2013. With the international election observers, including those from the European Union, refraining from visiting Balochistan to monitor the fairness of the elections, the polls have have nearly lost credibility in the first place. The government, particularly the military, wants to take advantage of some nationalist parties’ decision to contest elections by hastily organize a ‘selection’ process instead of encouraging free and fair elections. The biggest cause of concern is the very will of the voters to go out and cast their vote. A vast majority of the voters are likely to stay home instead of going out to vote. The Baloch armed groups have created an atmosphere of such terror across the province that the voters are too scared to go out on May 11 and vote. The interim government has miserably failed to restore peace in the province. In more than half of Balochistan, voters have no access to cable news and newspapers because the Baloch groups have forcefully shut down the cable news services. They complain that the Pakistani media either does not sufficiently and objectively cover Balochistan or it takes sides with the government in presenting a distorted image of the actual situation in Balochistan. Public transportation and every day business is absolutely paralyzed following the call for a complete wheel jam strike by the Baloch National Front (B.N.F.), an alliance of Baloch nationalist groups that seek Balochistan’s independence from Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities indeed underestimated the situation in Balochistan. They thought by convincing political figures like former Chief Minister Sardar Akhtar Mengal of the Balochistan National Party (B.N.P.) and Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch of the National Party (N.P.) to participate in the elections, they would be able to normalize Balochistan. That strategy has backfired. The B.N.P. and the N.P.have come under unimaginable attacks by the fellow Balochs who are unwilling to reconcile with Pakistan. The nationalists are distinctly divided between the pro and anti-election camps. The hardliners among the nationalists, who oppose the polls, believe these two parties have “betrayed” their “national cause” and compromised with the Pakistani government to offer legitimacy to the elections. The endless attacks on Baloch nationalists remind us that the situation in Balochistan is unlikely to change after the elections even if these ‘moderate nationalists’ win the polls and form a future government in the province. During the election campaign, Balochistan has witnessed an extraordinary amount of attacks. These cases did not get much attention in the national and the international media because they coincided with a similar wave of violence across Pakistan that targeted the Pakistan People’s Party, the Awami National Party and the Muthida Quami Movement. These were robust attacks in they country’s major cities and hence they received more space in the national news. Nonetheless, the election violence in Balochistan merits special attention because it is predominantly separatist Balochs versus the moderate Balochs. Limited space for political parties elsewhere in Pakistan simply means fewer chances for them to come in the next government whereas violence in Balochistan means Pakistan’s loss of control over national integrity. The nature of violence in Balochistan is also different from other parts of Pakistan in terms of the motivation of the perpetrators. While the Taliban consider democracy as a westernized ‘un-Islamic concept’, the Baloch nationalists do not confront the idea of democracy and elections but they oppose the very framework ( in this case it being the Pakistani state) in which they are asked to exercise their democratic right. The Baloch insist that elections will perpetuate what they bill as their ‘slavery’ inside Pakistan. The government has deployed 60,000 troops, including 7000 army soldiers, in Balochistan ahead of tomorrow’s general elections. Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani also visited Balochistan to review the arrangement of the elections. He said he wanted to see peaceful elections in the province. The General should have realized that mere deployment of troops does not motivate people to get out of their homes to vote. The armed Baloch groups that have threatened to disrupt the elections seem to enjoy some level of public support for their stance based on the army’s repressive and rigid policies toward the Baloch people. Even the heavy deployment of troops has not deterred the Baloch armed groups to carry out attacks on the security forces and election campaigns. These attacks have in fact significantly increased since the fresh deployments began. There are reports of several assaults on the conveys of the security forces but there is so much election-related violence taking place across Pakistan that the media barely covers the full picture of the violence that has engulfed Balochistan. The success of the B.N.F.’s wheel jam and shutter down strike on Thursday ahead of the elections shows that the people are not willing or free to vote. They are either angry with the government polices or are scared of the insurgent groups to get out of their homes. The primary responsibility of any interim government is to provide a conducive atmosphere for the elections which has not happened in Balochistan. The transparency of the elections on May 11 in Balochistan is questionable because people are not absolutely free in their decisions. In both situations, whether the people will go out to vote or stay home to boycott the elections, they are compelled to make a decision on gunpoint.