Going through the political
history of Pakistan, one is constrained to learn that till 1956 Pakistan was
without a constitution and it banked upon Government of India Act as an interim
instrument to govern the country. It cannot be denied that all elections held in
Pakistan were rigged. The first ten-year political era suffered from so much of
instability because of the miserable performance of the Muslim League, Awami
League and NAP politicians that seven prime ministers changed hands and gave
rise to bureaucratic-military oligarchy. The first generation politicians are
responsible for laying down weak foundations of democracy. They didn’t hold
elections for they knew they would be bundled out by the electorates. Absence of
elections stopped the process of pruning of the unscrupulous politicians and
replacement by better ones. As a result, the same lot of base politicians
plagued democracy and Pakistani politics.
Owing to continually deteriorating conditions, President Iskandar Mirza sacked
Feroz Khan Noon’s government on 7 October 1958, abrogated 1956 constitution,
dissolved the parliament and provincial assemblies and declared martial law.
Political parties were suspended. He appointed Gen Ayub Khan as prime minister
on 27 October. Soldier turned bureaucrat, Mirza was firmly of the view that
unless desired level of awareness and mass literacy was achieved whereby the
common man could discern the value of his vote, his rights and true meaning of
democracy, parliamentary form of government would not bring any tangible
results. Gen Ayub Khan and his military colleagues shared his views that the
system based on western democracy was ill-suited to the people’s psyche.
After sacking Iskandar Mirza on 28 October 1958 and forcing him to fly out to
London, Gen Ayub debarred 6000 politicians from taking part in politics or
holding any office of responsibility under EBDO and introduced Basic Democracies
as an alternative political system. He also promulgated new constitution in
1962, lifted martial law and took oath as president under the new constitution.
Ban on political parties was lifted by him the same year. Politicians were
unfettered from EBDO on the insistence of his blue eyed Foreign Minister ZA
Bhutto who reverently called Ayub ‘Daddy’. Ganging up of the morally degenerated
politicians, coupled with high ambitions of ZA Bhutto and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
to gain power together with mistakes made by Ayub to sack the two Governors,
Nawab of Kalabagh and Lt Gen Azam Khan, and the economic impact of 1965 war
which cut Ayub Khan to size, led to his fall, thus putting an end to Ayub’s
golden era.
Gen Yahya Khan on taking over declared martial law but committed mistakes of
abrogating 1962 constitution and dissolving one-unit. The December 1970 general
elections were the first ever held since birth of Pakistan. It was widely opined
that elections were the most transparent and fairest elections ever taken place.
However, the fact is that Awami League had carried out massive rigging prior to
and during polling through high handed tactics. Throughout the yearlong election
campaign, Awami League activists together with RAW agents terrorized the people
of East Pakistan and prevented all other political parties belonging to West
Pakistan to hold public meetings. Both the Governor and Corps Commander
overlooked hooliganism of Awami League thugs because of overall policy of
appeasement of Bengalis. As a consequence Awami League swept the polls.
When power was not handed over to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman because of Bhutto’s
obduracy, Mujib’s small heartedness and Yahya Khan’s bumbling, Yahya in his
earnestness to save the situation launched a military operation on 25 March
1971. It however proved to be the beginning of breakup of Pakistan and triggered
a civil war which ultimately led to disintegration of Pakistan into two and
creation of Bangladesh. Had he not taken the fatal decisions of abrogating 1962
constitution, undoing one-unit, and parity formula settled by consensus while
formulating 1956 constitution, Pakistan would have stayed intact. Elections
rather than integrating the nation disintegrated the country.
1977 general elections were again rigged by ZA Bhutto’s administration since
Bhutto was keen to win two-thirds majority. It led to formation of seven-party
alliance called Pakistan National Alliance. Complete deadlock created by the
irreconcilable politicians led by late Nawabzada Nasrullah, Asghar Khan and
Mufti Mahmood resulted in military takeover by Gen Ziaul Haq in July 1977. Less
PPP, all other politicians got adjusted in Zia created Majlis Shura and later
took part in party-less elections to become members of parliament under
Zia-picked Muhammad Khan Junejo in March 1985. Martial Law was lifted in
December 1985 but after getting 8th amendment passed which transferred greater
powers to president.
For the November 1988 elections, IJI was formed by the then DG ISI Lt Gen Hamid
Gul to prevent Benazir Bhutto from winning. Money was used to win over 30
independents. When she won with thin majority, she was asked to accept Ghulam
Ishaq Khan as President and retired Lt Gen Sahibzada Yaqub as Foreign Minister
since she was viewed as a security risk by the military establishment under Gen
Mirza Aslam Beg. In the 1990 elections, President Ishaq, Gen Beg and the then DG
ISI Lt Gen Asad Durrani were involved in bribing political party leaders to
ensure success of IJI under Nawaz Sharif.
In the 2002 elections organized by Gen Pervez Musharraf regime, pre-poll rigging
was undertaken to browbeat politicians and make them join hands with King’s
Party. NAB, ISI, Rangers and ANF were used to coerce those unwilling to tow the
given dictates. Patriots belonging to PPP were created by NAB. Even after so
much of manipulations and two mainstream leaders in exile, Zafarullah Jamali
could manage to win vote of confidence by one vote only. Former head of ISI’s
political cell Maj Gen Ehtesham Zameer Jaffery confessed that the 2002 elections
were rigged in favor of King’s Party.
In the 2008 elections, although the new Army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani
recalled all Army officers serving in government departments and prohibited Army
institutions from interfering in elections, yet the caretaker government, PML-Q,
MQM and USA used their influence to manipulate the outcome of results in their
favor. MMA was trounced and liberal parties emerged victorious. The only aspect
which went against the script was the entry of PML-N in Punjab and in the
centre. The dream team scripted by Washington was formed once PML-N left the
federal cabinet.
Imran Khan referred the case of bogus voting to the Supreme Court (SC), when to
his and the nation’s horror it was learnt that from among the 40-45% votes
polled in 2008 elections, over 37 million voters were bogus. He maintained that
with the termination of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and unearthing
of bogus votes, the sitting government had become illegal and had no right to
stay in power. When a restraining order to the Election Commission was issued by
the SC asking it to rectify the voters list before holding by-polls, the
government together with PML-N hastened to introduce 20th Amendment in the
Constitution to participate in by-elections.
About 300 candidates got fraudulently elected in national and provincial
assemblies who had forged their Bachelor degrees. Large numbers of
parliamentarians with dual nationalities have been plundering national wealth,
buying properties abroad and maintaining foreign currency accounts in foreign
banks. They are all set to flee to safe havens once the going get rough for
them. Rupees 8 billion get eaten up in corruption every day. PIA, Railway, Steel
Mill, OGDC all are running in huge losses.
While the Army is holding on to FATA and Swat with dogged determination, Karachi
and Balochistan are on fire and out of control of provincial governments where
target killings and kidnapping for ransom have become a norm. In the last 30
months 8000 people have been killed in Karachi by target killers but not a
single killer has been convicted and hanged since the ruling coalition of three
parties patronizes armed militant wings and are deeply engaged in turf war to
retain/gain hold over their constituencies in port city. In contravention to SC
orders, MQM, PPP and ANP have not abolished their militant wings. Delimitation
of five districts of Karachi is being vehemently resisted by MQM for it sees it
as an attempt to diminish its prospects of gaining total control over Karachi.
In order to accommodate legal and mostly illegal demands of its coalition
partners, the PPP has been pursuing policy of reconciliation, which means
compromising on wrongdoings. Nepotism and cronyism has flourished under the garb
of national reconciliation. As a consequence, merit has been sidelined and
corruption, inflation, price hike, joblessness, poverty, and crimes have scaled
new heights. The PPP government oblivious of miseries of the people is solely
interested in completing its five-year term. It is confident that it will once
again win the elections by buying the voters.
Although the new chief election commissioner is a man of high integrity and
acceptable to all parties, it is to be seen whether he succeeds in closing the
past unholy practice of rigging and holding free and fair elections. The onus of
electing the right candidates is on the voters; otherwise one will have to admit
that Iskandar Mirza’s assessment was right.
Unholy practice of rigging elections
Asif Haroon Raja
The writer is a retired Brig, a defence analyst and a freelance columnist.
Email: [email protected]