What’s sticking like a sty in my eye right now is how the caretakers, the Election Commission and even the army are congratulating each other on the conduct of ‘peaceful’ elections and how they haven’t even said a word about those who weren’t allowed to campaign.

The election day bombing of an ANP office in Karachi which killed nearly a dozen people was just one among a spate of incidents which claimed over 100 lives in a matter of weeks and should have served as a sobering thought for key state functionaries patting each other on the back.

Of course, this isn’t to brush under the carpet misgovernance, corruption or a lackadaisical attitude towards lawlessness which would have weighed heavily against the incumbents anyway. But equally valid is the argument that the three secular parties were unable to take their case to the electorate.

This isn’t to suggest this would have changed the outcome of the election but would have at least ensured a level playing field. Perhaps, even belatedly, those in positions of authority should say a prayer for all those who were killed by the Taliban for merely campaigning, for asserting their democratic right.

Ironically, the critical state of the country and the mountains of challenges that lie across its path dictate that there isn’t much point in pondering the past, and to move on. Even those affected by the Taliban’s bloody ban on electioneering have accepted the result for, they say, democracy’s sake.

So, what does the future look like? One indication came in a statement by PML-N MNA and negotiator Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, yes, the one who slew the change dragon in Lahore. “I can confirm we have a majority now but can’t give you exact numbers as people are joining every hour.”

The results have yet to be notified but the PML-N’s stunning victory has led to a deluge of independent elected members joining the party — even small parties such as the National People’s Party whose leader has announced a merger with the Raiwind Royalty’s party.

It is becoming clear that, short of constitutional amendments, the PML-N will have complete control to do as it pleases at the federal and Punjab level. This can only be good as success or failure will be clearly attributable to the policies and implementation of a single party and not a coalition muddle.

Everyone lauded the maturity of Mian Nawaz Sharif in publicly stating that since the PTI emerged as the largest single party in KP its mandate should be respected. As a result, the conservative government there is likely to be stable, that is, till it falls foul of the PML-N.

Balochistan is a different story. The PML-N’s contrived numerical superiority as elected members from the pool of independents and even the PML-Q rush to join it will give its chief minister’s candidate, Sanaullah Zehri, no more moral authority than his predecessor Aslam Raisani.

If the PML-N leadership has really come of age it should ponder whether offering the chief minister’s slot to one of the Baloch nationalist parties will be in greater national interest. Admittedly, none of these nationalist parties would have secured a majority on its own given the political landscape.

However, that these parties defied not only threats of retribution from armed separatists but also in some cases had to face up to the nastiness of those running election campaigns with as much impunity as they have allegedly run death squads, should amount to something.

What greater demonstration to seeking a resolution of Balochistan’s issues within the confines of Pakistan’s Constitution and on the floor of the assemblies could there be? Surely, the state can reward their gesture better than by delaying, withholding and allegedly changing their results.

So, a real test of statesmanship awaits the Sharifs but I doubt they’ll rise to the occasion on this one. If prominent nationalists are not in government, the PML-N chief minister will have to proactively control state excesses or Balochistan would be pushed further into the separatists’ lap.

The Balochistan government formation story is yet to unfold fully. One can talk more definitively of Sindh. Whether Qaim Ali Shah is reinstalled as chief minister or it is Hazar Khan Bijarani or Nisar Khuhro or even Owais Tappi they all face the same challenge.

Roads, infrastructure, development more generally and even provision of jobs (on merit and without seeking kickbacks from the poor unemployed) can all come later. The first and foremost priority for the Sindh government ought to be law and order particularly in Karachi.

This must be the most dramatic failing of the last coalition; even more than the unending tales of corruption and price-tagged decisions. If the MQM is part of the new set-up as well, it is even more incumbent on the two to deliver a safe environment to their devoted voter.

This is in their self-interest. As the statistics show, voter loyalty patterns are shifting at least in urban Sindh. And if a viable alternative appeared in the rural parts of the province, the current rulers can rest assured they’ll rapidly lose their traditional support in the absence of delivery.

Also, the elected provincial government will ignore law and order at its own peril. With a central government belonging to a party which isn’t exactly enamoured of the warlord-like attitude of the Sindh coalition particularly in Karachi it can only speed to its sacking by repeating its past mistakes.

For all the political parties, the electorate and the media the euphoria generated by an election campaign (even if all parties couldn’t participate equally or at all) will soon be a thing of the past — such is the daunting agenda that lies ahead.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Nawaz Sharif’s tenacity is remarkable. As he stood on that balcony of the PML-N headquarters, making his victory speech in the small hours of Sunday, images of the troubled face of the deposed prime minister outside that Karachi anti-terrorism court in 1999 must have flashed before many eyes.

He’ll quickly need to analyse the countrywide election result and what it means for him and more importantly for the country that, during his campaign, he repeatedly pledged to rebuild, to pull out of the morass.

So what does the verdict tell us? First and foremost that the PML-N may have earned the unambiguous right to rule the country and Punjab but that the party will have to accommodate those whose ambitions it crushed as it captured the biggest crown.

This is the nature of the verdict. The PML-N leader often complained that following the 2008 elections, the PPP reneged on the Charter of Democracy the two parties had signed in London in 2006. Now it has the opportunity to implement it unilaterally — if only as a tribute to Benazir Bhutto, whose insistence made Sharif contest the last elections, enabling his party to lead the Punjab government. For the PML-N’s brand of politics, this was the only launch-pad for the sort of win the party has seen in the province this time.

The triumphant party will need to coexist with the PPP-led Sindh government. If it has to have any hope of reviving the struggling economy, a live-and-let-live policy is the only way forward as further acrimony can only deliver lethal shocks to the system and set adrift the federating units.

Equally, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf should be asked to put together a government in KP as it has emerged as the largest single party there. Any attempt to put a Rest of the World XI can only erode the democrat’s image built up patiently by Nawaz Sharif over the past five years.

Most of all, all eyes will be on Nawaz Sharif to assess if he is really the mature statesman his supporters claim he has become during his days in the political wilderness and no longer the man who once aspired to become the Islamic republic’s all-powerful amirul momineen.

We all know the major challenges: terrorism, lawlessness, economy, power cuts. But there are more nuanced threats too. He has close friends in the Gulf but that shouldn’t prevent him from assessing if tyranny of a particular ideology is best suited to Pakistani culture.

Culture does evolve but this isn’t an issue of culture alone. Many believe this ideology is actually inimical to the country’s existence as it threatens to tear it apart. Many proxy battles have been fought on this soil. It is time to end all that.

This has to be done in concert with the country’s military and who better than a leader with near-unanimous backing from Punjab to do it. His last falling out with the military must inform the manner in which he engages GHQ, but engage he must.

Regional peace and stability are a prerequisite for Pakistan to prosper. The prime minister-to-be, being a business-industrial tycoon, must know this better than anyone else. The earlier on in his tenure the tone is set the better.

His recent interviews such as the one given to Dawn’s Cyril Almeida, showed he has not only thought about these issues more than other leaders but has also a firm idea on how to proceed. This can only be good.

However, he will be tested early because matters such as government formation in strife-torn Balochistan are heading straight at him and their resolution will almost set the theme for how he plans to proceed. The delay in results such as those for nationalist Akhtar Mengal’s Balochistan National Party (BNP-M) is causing anxiety as we speak.

The extent of Sharif’s win may have surprised the city-centric media and its often partisan pundits but there can be no doubt it owed itself considerably to how the party’s governance was perceived by the electorate. Traditional patronage may have informed its politics but corruption was not rampant.

By contrast, the PPP can only have itself to blame. Poor governance, widespread allegations of corruption and then an arrogant resort to slogans based on ideology and sacrifices when both were things of the past. Whose fault is it other than Asif Zardari’s that there was no national campaign leader?

This isn’t to say the party is dead and buried. But it well may be without serious soul-searching, rediscovering its ideological moorings and a conscious attempt to reconnect with the jiyala support base. Its choice of Sindh chief minister and how it governs will indicate whether it can rise phoenix-like.

The media may have over-egged the PTI pudding but Imran Khan’s energetic campaign and appeal to a totally new set of voters — a colleague called them the non-voters — can only be seen as one remarkable aspect of these elections, almost a game changer. What Bhutto did for the dispossessed, he did for the educated urban middle class and the elite; he galvanised them into a vote bank.

He has the chance to lead a ‘model’ government in a province and, depending on its performance, stake a claim to bigger things in the next elections. If he falls a little short of an outright majority and leads a coalition as a senior partner, it’ll be useful political training if a bit humbling.

The challenges are multifold without doubt. But who knows if Pakistan is ready to turn the corner.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

No, that wasn’t a cynical statement. Optimism abounds if you have been to political rallies and heard leaders speaking of hope, of a tomorrow pregnant with promise: promise of change, of equal opportunity, of good governance, of uninterrupted power supply. Vote for them.

Those were, of course, the ones who were free to hold and speak at huge rallies and to campaign.

Then there were those who weren’t at liberty to speak but tried valiantly. Spare a thought for the over 100 people who were murdered by the Taliban for merely trying to exercise their democratic right to campaign, to canvass. Vote for them. Salute them.

You could also vote for the seemingly sorriest of the lot. The party with a populist past, a history of sacrifices which left its ‘jiyalas’ orphaned, its cadres rudderless — perhaps, hoping its current leadership’s ability to wheel and deal would compensate for its lack of interest in any public contact.

It would be in bad taste on polling day to talk of corruption and of rampant lawlessness in Karachi, the capital of its power base Sindh. For balance, the Benazir Income Support Programme should be referred to which helped some of the poorest in the country.

What if it delivers the votes’ bonanza the party hopes for? Who knows? All the pundits, who in the past were eager to stick their necks out, are taking no risks, despite being prodded. Their final breakdown of seats is predicated on so many intangibles it leaves one none the wiser.

So, if you passionately wish your party to win or are certain it will deliver on its pledges do go out and vote. This may be your last chance. Imagine, what’ll happen if talks with the Taliban fail. The talks the two major parties, fighting for a lion’s share of the vote in the Punjab, are calling for.

The rightward lurch in the country, which may have started in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s final days in office but gathered lethal momentum in that horrible, nightmarish long night that was the Zia era, may now be heading towards its logical conclusion. If not checked it might devour democracy too.

But shun all negative thoughts on this wonderful day and dream. Be filled with hope, be buoyant with optimism. Look around you at countries we so ardently revere, so attentively listen to, and you’ll realise that they are so bereft of representative rule it can’t be holy. Be grateful.

I am. For only democracy allows me to write what I want. Yes and unbridled freedom of speech allows us journalists the freedom to not only be objective but also to push and peddle our own agendas, biases. Like the imperfect democracy we have had, the media too will take time to learn.

Let’s hope that after the elections, after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan the party or parties in power can develop a national consensus that our army seeks to crush the biggest existential threat facing the country today.

Yes, the Taliban do represent the kind of darkness that threatens to make most of us forget loadshedding. Be optimistic that having lost over 3,500 lives of their own brave men all the defence forces await is a consensus to crush those who mock us, our Constitution and our democracy.

The Taliban may have spared some political parties their wrath, while targeting others, merely to drive a wedge between entities all of which believe in, and want to be a part of, the democratic process, but there is no mistaking that one by one they’ll target all. They have priorities, no friends.

The economy ails without doubt. But economic growth against the backdrop of a global recession can hardly be expected when terror stalks large parts of the country by night as it does by day. Let’s hope we can sort out the mess so the economy can get moving, jobs are created, inflation dips.

When the security environment registers an improvement we may also focus attention on multiple priorities. We need to. It is desirable for thousands of commuters to have a system to carry them across huge urban conurbations.

You’d agree it is equally vital, for example, to have proper fire-fighting and rescue equipment and the ability to extract people caught up in fires in high-rises before we allow multistoreyed buildings with no sprinklers or, secondary fire escapes.

The elite seem to have long assumed that since they have state of the art medical facilities and because their children go to schools from where it is a short hop to the Ivy League institutions, there is no need to invest in health and education. We can only continue on this path at our own peril.

We all know the plethora of issues that awaits the government the people choose. For the moment let’s celebrate a historic (not a cliché) election which will see a transition from one elected government to another; and not from a military regime to a quasi-military government.

Vote today so in five years you can re-elect those who have delivered or reject those who have let you down. Vote for new, reconditioned, dry cleaned or whatever you believe Pakistan ought to be but make sure that you deliver a riposte to those who question the merits of representative rule.

Most of all vote for peace, stability, sanity and a level playing field so that the next election is contested across the federation free of fear and not just in one province; so campaigns, candidates and voters call the shots everywhere and not terrorists. It is a big ask but try anyway.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Thus spoke PTI leader Imran Khan to BBC’s Islamabad reporter Orla Guerin as she accompanied him on his campaign trail towards the end of April. The prime ministerial hopeful’s stance on the Taliban is well known but his denial of Al Qaeda’s presence here was surprising.

In the past, he has received briefings on issues of national importance such as ‘memogate’ from security agency officials and it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to ask such officials for information before making such a categorical assertion.

Al Qaeda apparently exists in Pakistan’s lawless and largely ungoverned tribal areas and the country’s security establishment is aware of this. In fact, data compiled by a number of agencies demonstrates that a large number of committed cadres of the terror group are based here.

For example, two years after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, his former deputy Ayman al Zawahiri is said to be either in the tribal region or in the border areas in Afghanistan. He runs an operational command network from Fata of top Al Qaeda men who number in the double digits.

Zawahiri, now the Al Qaeda chief, may now be more focused on developments in Iraq and Syria but retains several hundred, mostly Arab, fighters on Pakistani soil dedicated to operations within Pakistani territory. These fighters work hand in glove with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and its affiliates such as the Punjabi Taliban.

The names, including those of two sons-in-law of Zawahiri, and nationalities of the various people who form the apex group and fill various key positions such as finance, bomb-making, trainer, chief screener, courier etc are known.

If Al Qaeda “hardly exists here”, who are Safiyan al Maghrabi (deputy amir and Zawahiri’s son-in-law), Mansoor al Harabi, Asad al Kuwaiti, Abdur Rehman Maghrabi (Zawahiri’s son-in-law), Obaid Talishui, Rehman al-Sharqi; Hamza Darnvai; Hamza Ghamdi, Omar Khalil Sudani, Sanafi al-Nasr and Waleed Ansari to name just a few of those reportedly in Pakistan.

There is evidence to suggest that Al Qaeda is not only present in Pakistan and in the Afghan border areas in its close proximity but also loosely guiding the terror group’s campaigns in Iraq, Syria, Libya and even in some of the African countries from here.

Another group said to be several hundred-strong and aligned to Al Qaeda, TTP and the Afghan Taliban, is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan led by Abdul Fattah Ahmadi based in North Waziristan. Its erstwhile amir was Tahir Yuldashev who was killed in South Waziristan.

The IMU possesses some of the deadliest fighters, most of them from the Ferghana valley but it also has a number of Westerners in its ranks such as two of the main commanders, said to be Germans of Afghan origin.

Several other groups belonging to militant Islamic movements in different countries and seen as Al Qaeda affiliates are also based in Pakistan. At least privately security officials confirm this. Even then the PTI leader denies the presence of Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

But it isn’t Imran Khan’s fault that the TTP is threatening to alter the outcome of the May 11 elections. The terror group has been given much space by the ambivalence towards it in the top echelons of the security establishment and elsewhere.

The fear of, even if not support for, the terror group is so compelling that key national leaders, hoping to lead the government following the elections, have stayed silent as the TTP has avowedly targeted selected political parties with bloody violence and crippled their campaigns.

However, an interesting scenario is emerging. To try and call the election result would be foolhardy but it is clear that some of the serious contenders for power believe that the country’s defence, foreign and national security policies have been on the wrong track.

They are right to hold any opinion and seek a mandate for policy change. On the other hand, despite his own institution’s earlier ambivalence on issues such as the Taliban and the so-called war on terror, the army chief has of late taken to saying the war against the TTP is “our own war”.

The army chief’s statements are normally taken to represent the collective view of the institution. This may be one of those rare occasions when one finds oneself in agreement with the country’s top military man but that isn’t the point.

What if after the polls parties that have long maintained that the war against the TTP isn’t Pakistan’s war come up with a majority? For example, Imran Khan has repeatedly said he’d stick to his guns on the need to abandon ‘America’s war’ and initiate a dialogue with the Taliban.

Will such a stand put him and others who share his thinking such as the Jamaat-i-Islami on a collision course with the military? Well, if the mandate is clear-cut in favour of a policy change one is sure he has the determination to stay the course regardless of the consequences.

But whatever stance he takes after poll results are clear, he’ll need to make sure it is much more informed than saying that Al Qaeda “hardly exists” in Pakistan. If he doesn’t do his homework he’ll only undermine his ability to influence policy and change its direction.Being honest and well-meaning is wonderful but being naïve or deliberately economical with the truth isn’t advisable for a leader pledging a “new Pakistan”. It is another matter his new Pakistan, given the rhetoric so far, threatens to be more right-wing than anything we have known so far.

The so-called liberal parties’ poor governance and propensity to corruption may have strengthened the right’s hand.

But the right too will have to temper its views on the Taliban with the reality of the latter’s criminality, terrorism and disdain for democracy to have a chance of governing effectively in case of an election win.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Even then a succession of military leaders demonstrated so much commitment to safeguarding the country’s at best loosely defined ‘ideological frontiers’ that they may have done so at the expense of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country.

Military ruler Gen Yahya Khan’s information minister, the reputedly pro-Jamaat-i-Islami Gen (retd) Sher Ali Khan, invented the term ‘ideology of Pakistan’ ahead of the 1970 elections, thinking perhaps it would be the glue to hold the country together. We all know how miserably he failed.

However, even at this stage the culture within the army was unchanged where loyalty to unit and country remained the foremost concerns and not ‘ideology’ and where the officers’ mess retained some of the best-stocked, mahogany-topped bars in the country, where officers and their families played tombola on weekends.

The atmosphere may have been elitist but was far less prone to divisive ideologies.

After seizing power, Gen Zia made no bones about his adherence to his own narrow version of religion to more or less the exclusion of all other brands. The rest of the general staff followed the leader as if on cue. Shalwar-kameez waistcoats replaced ‘monkey jackets,’ ‘blue patrols’ and lounge suits.

The Soviet army’s march into neighbouring Afghanistan was a godsent for Zia. It enabled him, in partnership with the CIA, to father what would become an unstoppable monster. Yes, for what else would one call such an ideology? A hate-filled philosophy that makes Pakistani Muslims turn on one another with the sort of relish even the vilest of predators wouldn’t reserve for the choicest of prey.

This ideology is tearing Pakistan apart. Official figures say the murderous campaign of the zealots has so far claimed the lives of more than 3,500 army and paramilitary soldiers and injured or maimed nearly 12,000 others. This is not counting the civilian casualties.

It was against this backdrop that last Sunday’s newspapers carried army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani’s statement in which he delivered a ‘reminder’ at the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, not far from where US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

“Let me remind you that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never be taken out of Pakistan. However, Islam should always remain a unifying force. I assure you that regardless of the odds, the Pakistan Army will keep on doing its best towards our common dream for a truly Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as envisioned by the Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal.”

Whilst the general hadn’t, perhaps the military’s media wing should have shared the background to his statement. It wasn’t clear who, if anyone, was trying to “take Islam out of Pakistan”. Ask anyone around you if they see Islam in danger of being taken out of Pakistan. You’ll only hear one response: no.

Also, it would have been hugely beneficial to the young cadets and officers at the PMA had Gen Kayani defined a truly Islamic republic as “envisioned” by the Quaid and Iqbal and referred to the constitutional provision which made it incumbent on the army to strive towards realising the dream.

Frankly, an army chief who says his hand has been stayed by a lack of “national consensus” in imposing the writ of the Islamic Republic on large swathes of the country’s land where its territorial integrity is in tatters, should have ideally refrained from making this statement.

He may not have realised it but his words could easily have been interpreted as further encouragement by militants who have said they’ll attack and disrupt the election campaign of the political parties seen as ‘secular’.

Dishonestly, some have described secular parties as ‘godless’ merely because these parties feel that given the dozens of schools of thought, with often widely differing interpretations of religious tenets, the use of religion in the affairs of the state can be, and is, divisive.

A tolerant state where all citizens enjoy equal rights, where bigotry has no room and where the role of the men in khaki is in line with the Quaid’s wishes expressed in Quetta all those years ago would be closest to Jinnah’s vision, Gen Kayani would agree. The definitive piece of writing on Iqbal’s vision appeared in Thursday’s Dawn penned by I.A. Rehman.

If the general has to be proactive, then wise counsel would have it that he move to ensure that there is a level playing field for all those participating in the May 11 elections regardless of whether they are closer ideologically to one state institution or another.

The inability of the multi-billion rupee intelligence juggernaut at his disposal as also the men under arms at his command to afford protection to several major political parties in the country is nothing that a professional soldier would be proud of.

The army’s foreign detractors, particularly those in the West and in unfriendly or hostile countries such as India and Afghanistan, have long accused it of having an institutional bias in favour of militant Islam and against forces representing liberal thought in the country.

Instead of moving to dispel such impressions and clearly demonstrating his commitment to a tolerant, pluralistic, Pakistan, the general chooses to make a vague statement on “Islam being taken out of Pakistan”.

Large chunks of the populace in Gen Kayani’s, Nawaz Sharif’s and Imran Khan’s ideal Saudi Arabia and even in Iran agree on what Islam is and, therefore, while the two may be in a clash regionally, there is domestic peace as there is consensus within each on what constitutes Islam.

Pakistan is so, so different. Test my hypothesis. Just stop four, five people at random on a busy street and ask them what their belief is. I am not prescribing something I haven’t tried. I learnt religion is best left to the individual. Call me godless if you will but please ponder if there is truth in what I say.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

It was late afternoon on March 9, 2007 and in my then Dawn office the TV set was tuned to DawnNews (test transmission of course as the formal launch of the channel was still three months away) when breaking news started to flash across the screen: ‘CJ suspended’.

One failed to understand why. For, till this news broke, the chief justice and the president-army chief had worked in complete harmony. After all, he had been on the bench that endorsed Gen Musharraf’s takeover earlier, given him the right to change the Constitution and ample time to hold the elections.

From being a member of that bench to being elevated to the highest judicial office in the country, there was never a hint of any friction between the two. In fact, their cordial relations extended to their families. It was reported that the chief justice and his spouse would also visit the president and the first lady at Army House.

Politicians such as Javed Hashmi, who’d been imprisoned on a totally flimsy and ludicrous charge by the general, had failed to find relief from the superior judiciary for five long years. There were other instances too of opposition politicians being denied review or relief.

Perhaps, the only judgement which could be seen as inconsonant with this history was that a chief justice-led bench had overturned the privatisation of the state-owned juggernaut, Pakistan Steel Mills, to the favourite bidder of the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz.

Aziz was said to have been miffed at this and may also have complained to his boss. But surely on its own this couldn’t have been cause enough to rupture relations which had been built up over several years and which were widely seen as happy and harmonious.

Therefore, the suspension news brought considerable excitement to an otherwise routine day. But one had no idea how much excitement was to follow over the months, even years, rooted in that one act. Reckless it was as it would decidedly weaken the military strongman who’d appeared infallible till then.

Later, when the Dawn story from Islamabad landed in Karachi, the magnitude of the falling out was becoming clearer. The report said the chief justice wanted to head to the Supreme Court on his return from that long meeting with Musharraf and his services intelligence chiefs. But his convoy was intercepted on the way, his driver replaced by a senior security official, and the chief justice’s protestations notwithstanding, he was driven home instead. And more or less confined there. The paper’s banner headlines the next day read: ‘CJ suspended, escorted home’.

This, to my mind, set the tone for things to come. The anger at how arrogantly the military chief and his intel chiefs had tried to stamp out what was a rare and perhaps solitary act of defiance by the chief justice brought together a ‘rainbow’ coalition against Musharraf.

The bulk of his brother judges stood by him, the lawyers rallied behind him as one, opposition parties such as the PPP and PML-N saw an opportunity to damage the strongman and made full use of it. Before long, the entire edifice painstakingly erected by Musharraf over several years started to crumble.

One only need see how comfortably ensconced he was in power from October 1999, and particularly following 9/11, to March 2007 and how he accelerated to his exit from centre stage after that. His recent return to Pakistan and the events of the past few days have been equally dramatic.

Some observers have termed his recent travails as a triumph of democracy, of the rule of law. Others have said that whether or not the former general is tried and jailed for treason ie for subverting the Constitution, his current troubles will be enough of a damper on the ambitions of another like him.

This may or may not be true. But aren’t there far more fundamental issues still unresolved? Perhaps, another general may not be so foolhardy as to step in blatantly and take over. Simply because the royal mess at home, the state of the economy and the international environment may leave little room for it.

But let there be no mistaking the fact that civilian supremacy remains an elusive dream. What’s the most vital challenge facing Pakistan today? Terrorism, intolerance, bigotry. Corruption is an equally serious issue but not the only one as some would like you to believe.

And who holds the key to the security policy? Are those who take decisions answerable to parliament or even to the judiciary when elements of their national security policy come into conflict with the fundamental rights of the citizenry? I don’t think so.

When faceless decision-makers, sitting in inaccessible basements, accountability-proof bunkers, decide which brand of Islam best motivates what they see as the second line of defence, the militant, the so-called non-state actor to deliver us our national security goals, do we really need to be ‘ruled’ by a general?

When the country is being torn apart and many of us have hit the depths of despair, some still mindlessly pursue strategic depth as a goal no matter what current nomenclature is the fad, are we really in charge of our destiny? Has the rule of law triumphed?

Yes, Musharraf should face the music for having broken the law, for having acted against the Constitution and for illegally detaining the judges. Make an example of him if you wish and more significantly if you can.

But to me change would be meaningful when national security policy (with its internal fallout) moves from the backroom boys to parliament. Hand on heart tell me how close we are to that.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

It is no less a concern that when the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) first threatened to disrupt the campaign of ‘secular’ parties and now that it has actually started a campaign of bombings and assassinations to deliver on its threat, all other parties in the fray kept and are keeping mum.

Wouldn’t you expect democrats such as Mian Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan to condemn the TTP for carrying out these attacks? Whether their silence is indicative of fear of annoying the Taliban or they are quiet merely because they see a political advantage accruing to them it is quite disgusting, if you ask me.

Although legitimacy of electoral wins in the past has meant nothing to winners of engineered elections, this time round one would have hoped that given the manner of naming the chief election commissioner and almost the entire the caretaker set-up, transparent polls were every party’s priority.

How fair would be the polls if a sizeable chunk of contenders is hamstrung in campaigning while others enjoy full freedom to share their programmes and ideas with the electorate? No one is saying this is, in any way, the problem of parties that aren’t being targeted.

It is squarely the responsibility of the caretaker governments to provide protection but we also know that there is no iron-clad security especially in a country where lack of ‘consensus’ on action against the militants has meant they have drawn blood at will, attacked the state and gone unchallenged.

What remains surprising is the total lack of empathy among leaders for their fellow politicians when even the ideological difference between all of them remains so blurred most of the time that you struggle to tell them apart. Perhaps, the TTP is better at identifying these than some of us.

While the TTP now appears to be a runaway monster, which even the military seems to be struggling to contain, one would have thought that Akhtar Mengal’s return to the country indicated a change of heart on the part of those at the helm of the state’s Balochistan policy.

But did it? The disappearances may have declined in number but they continue, with bodies now being dumped even in Karachi. Akhtar Mengal’s home district headquarter Khuzdar is under control of armed bands who have been allegedly given the task of sorting out separatists using whatever means needed.

These hostile armed men, who seem to enjoy total immunity from the law and, in fact, act as allies of the Frontier Corps, decide who can and cannot enter and move about in the area. Little wonder Akhtar Mengal has repeatedly asked the government to ensure the ‘no-go’ areas are made accessible.

His decision couldn’t have been easy in the first place. On the one hand he has had to defy separatist militant leaders such as Dr Allah Nazar whose Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) is active in and around Mengal’s constituency.

Allah Nazar has already criticised the BNP (Mengal) chief’s decision to contest the elections and accused him of collusion with those who have oppressed the Baloch, killed them in large numbers and denied them their rights.

The state would be foolish not to put its own surrogate militiamen on a tight leash. If leaders such as Akhtar Mengal cannot campaign freely, they might feel constrained to withdraw from the elections and that would be tragic.

Yes, tragic. One saw how much credibility the ‘strong and formidable’ Raisani government had in the province and especially with the separatists. Leaders such as Akhtar Mengal and Hasil Bizenjo are the safest bet for opening a line of communication with separatist groups.

This is very significant simply because whilst the armed nationalist struggle in yesteryears was led and dominated by tribal sardars and the manpower for it was based on tribal loyalties rather than ideological commitment, the BLF phenomenon is different. In fact, while the authorities seem to have clamped down on areas of resistance where Bugti (Dera Bugti) or Marri (Kohlu) tribes were up in arms and largely controlled them, the spread of the separatist movement to areas not dominated by sardars in the western parts of the province is far more alarming.

This is mainly because the militant cadres are formed by ideologically motivated youth who are politically far more educated than the tribals who pick up arms on the call of their sardar. Therefore, it would make eminent sense to facilitate ‘nationalist’ leaders who are contesting the elections.

If they can move freely in areas which are now some of the worst-hit by insurgency without being impeded by the pro-military militias, perhaps they can make inroads during the campaign into the separatist strongholds.

Balochistan watchers are keenly looking out for signs of sanity in the state’s policy towards the province. The authorities may be smug, thinking they have mostly crushed the separatist movement whose leadership is based abroad but they’ll need to take a hard look at how effective their campaign is, for example, against the BLF.

With its leader directing cadres from somewhere within Balochistan, despite having been targeted by hundreds of disappearances, this separatist group doesn’t seem to have been weakened and retains its ability to strike at security forces.

The state can enforce its will through force of arms but also needs to keep in mind the fact that sometimes a two-track approach works better. It is incumbent on all to make sure every possible avenue of restoration of peace is not left unexplored. A free and fair election is one way of achieving that goal.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Photo shows former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto moments before she was assassinated at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh.—File Photo

THE turboprop Fokker came to a stop on the tarmac. The tall brigadier, the commander of the Airport Security Force in Karachi, shouted to a subordinate: “Have Benazir Sahiba’s car brought here. Hurry up.”

As the PPP leader took the few steps down the ladder to the tarmac, the brigadier smartly saluted her: “Madam, we have opened the VVIP Lounge for you. A battery of foreign journalists is waiting for you. Would you like to talk to them?”

A beaming Ms Bhutto turned to confer with an aide and, with the tall officer showing the way, headed towards the lounge to address the first major press conference after leading her party to emerge as the largest single winner in the 1988 election.

This was the evening of Nov 17, 1988. When a journalist asked her: “Can we call you prime minister”? Ms Bhutto responded: “We can’t be that arrogant,” adding after a deliberate pause and a big smile, “yet”.

This was an unbelievable sight for some of us who had reported on at least some of the travails of the frail-looking but steel-willed young woman who went from being the apple of the eye of a powerful prime minister to someone who braved long years of solitary confinement during which she grieved in isolation as her father was executed.

Until then, the uniformed presence around Ms Bhutto had meant that she was either being escorted to confinement or exile.

The 1988 election was set when military ruler Gen Ziaul Haq couldn’t bear to coexist even with a handpicked civilian prime minister who assumed office after the 1985 party-less polls. The date for the new election had been set to coincide with the anticipated birth of the PPP leader’s first child.

Zia’s intelligence apparatus had let him down and baby Bilawal was born several weeks before polling day. By that time the dictator had perished in an air crash. But his pathological hatred for the PPP appeared to have been inherited by his institution as well as the caretaker set-up.

Among other nasty pre-poll rigging measures, an alliance was cobbled together by the ISI to ensure the anti-PPP vote went en bloc to one entity; the PPP was denied its election symbol (sword) from the earlier two national, and one local body election. The party was forced to accept the arrow as the symbol but responded heartily. Thus was born crooner Shazia Khushk’s Dila teer bija, the iconic campaign song, which electrified PPP cadres and whose tune is the one thing everyone recalls from that campaign.

The election was fought in the Bhutto name. The perceived martyrdom of the father and the steadfast defiance of the military regime by the daughter were the central planks.

Slogans such as “roti, kapra aur makaan” were revived and BB, though having become a mother just a few weeks earlier, embarked on a hectic campaign which took her to every nook and cranny of the country. Her constant refrain to her teeming supporters whether she was on the road, on the campaign train or in rallies was driving home the need to stamp the arrow.

The ISI under Lt-Gen Hamid Gul may have been surprised at the result but to those who travelled along the campaign route of the PPP leader it wasn’t difficult to see the defiant adulation of the dispossessed in Sindh and elsewhere. The disappointments, the poor governance, the corruption allegation were all in the future.

After the feverish campaign to the beat of Dila teer bija, polling on Nov 16 and the results that started to arrive by midnight, many of us thought change had arrived.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn

In the last parliament, one would be hard-pressed to find a politician as upright and non-controversial as Raza Rabbani, the PPP stalwart, who has stood by his party through thick and thin, who has never sought nor acquired riches, and who represents that rare breed of politician which is ideologically motivated.

One fine gentleman he is and a great person. He was bypassed for high office, simply because the PPP leadership was said to have been ‘uncomfortable’ with his principles and, thus, felt unable to trust him with a position next in line to the president.

Weren’t we right to have high hopes in the man then? Indeed we were. It was because of Raza Rabbani’s acceptability across the aisles that he was named to head the parliamentary committee tasked with constitutional reform.

After endless sessions and painstaking discussion, one could argue the reform committee went even further than the 1973 Constitution in terms of the rights and resources of the provinces and, therefore, did a great service to the cause of keeping the federation intact.

This would have been enough on its own. Sadly, it wasn’t. As the committee finalised its recommendations for the constitutional amendments the JUI-F is understood to have made its support conditional to retaining Articles 62 and 63.

Reportedly in the quest for a ‘consensus’ with an eye on posterity (for I am told the amendments would have passed even without JUI-F’s support), Raza Rabbani made a compromise that would come to nullify the secular values and commitment to free speech he has cherished all his political life.

Yes, we are justified in slamming some of the returning officers (ROs) who, I believe, are undermining the democratic process by playing to the gallery (what else is quizzing someone on their faith on live TV?).

But on a more serious note some of the questions being asked by the ROs also show how much leeway they have been given to bring into play their personal biases and myopic worldview. If only Raza Rabbani and his committee had not left Articles 62-63 intact.

My favourite columnist Ayaz Amir, an unequivocal voice of sanity in the fast-becoming wilderness that is the Islamic Republic, wouldn’t have had his nomination papers rejected. And on the grounds that he questioned the ‘ideology’ of Pakistan.

It was left to the RO to decide what the ideology of Pakistan was and also adjudicate on how committed Ayaz was to it. Yes, by an official who demonstrably lacked the acumen to even probably understand what the celebrated columnist was trying to say.

Ayaz and I may have had serious disagreement in the past but I remain a loyal reader, a fan of his writings, for the simple reason he writes the truth and writes it in a way that others rarely do. And he can’t run for parliament when those propagating sectarian murders can. If only 62, 63….

Don’t you earnestly hope a more enlightened, better informed judge of a higher court will overturn the decision on appeal? It is so ludicrous, it has to be overturned. But this particular RO and many like him across the country will have had their moments of glory and fame particularly in the electronic media.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has come in for a fair bit of stick on different grounds, some of which were totally and utterly spurious. But its statement that it can do nothing about how the returning officers are interpreting the rules will lay it open to justified opprobrium.

Friday’s Dawn quotes the ECP as saying that ROs are judicial officials who do not report to the Election Commission but to the superior judiciary. So if the ECP is so helpless about who can or cannot run in the elections, how can it ensure the staging of free, fair polls?

We all know rigging takes many forms. The first kind of pre-poll rigging is denying someone, while giving others, the right to run. At no stage is it being suggested that those convicted of financial, moral crimes be allowed to pass through the sieve. However, the grounds for rejection have to be valid and not based on bias.

Over the past 25 years one has heard a number of times the argument, particularly from PPP leaders, that, while in government, their hands were tied, leaving them very little freedom of movement to implement their manifesto and agenda.

Whenever they have been asked why they didn’t resign in order to protect their credibility and support base, the responses have been so convoluted and delivered in such a tone and volume that one could barely follow what was being said.

Let me tell you when Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim was appointed the chief election commissioner (CEC) by consensus, there may have been some doubters but I was definitely not one of them. Even when one feels the whole system is rotten, personalities such as his at the helm inspire confidence.

He has stood up to authoritarian rulers like few have, sacrificing a seat on the apex judiciary. He has joined and left governments of his own accord to protect his integrity. A humanist and a democrat, he has never minced words when it comes to fundamental rights and free speech.

Now he is tasked with holding free, fair and impartial elections. Whether one looks at bloody Balochistan, poverty-stricken Sindh, divided Punjab or terrorism-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one cannot stress enough the need for an electoral exercise that heals wounds. Not one that inflicts new ones.

The country cannot afford more turmoil. Already critics are bringing in his age and decision-making capacity into question. So, the CEC must demonstrate he can stem this nonsense decisively. If he can’t or isn’t being allowed to, he should be open and say so. There is no other option.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

A picture pieced together by conversations with a number of politicians and officials present at the Chief Minister’s House at one point or the other in those final hours, underlined the distance the PPP has journeyed from its ideological moorings.

The few ideological lines that remained to be crossed during the lifetime of Ms Benazir Bhutto were also obliterated and, it seemed, politics was no more about serving the electorate and all about corporate-type greed with not a ‘regulator’ in sight.

A year or more into the PPP government’s 1988 term in office, I was working as a reporter in the monthly Herald magazine and looking at the performance of the incumbents. An old-school PPP MPA came to our cramped reporters’ room at my invitation to offer his thoughts.

Responding to my question of whether all the corruption stories were true, he said, “Masla ye he ke humain paanch din kaa Test match khelne ko mila hai. Lekin humare bohot saare dost one-day ke aakhree over ki tarah khel rahe hein. Har gaind pe balla ghuma dete hein.” (We have been asked to play a five-day Test match but the problem is many of our friends are playing like they would in the final over of a one-day match, swinging wildly at every ball.)

Although this cricketing analogy had me in stitches, it became embedded in my mind.

The final days of the just ended tenure of the Sindh government makes this description even more poignant but not surprising. How could the last moments have been different from the five years during which lawlessness in Karachi or developments in interior Sindh got so little attention?

The Sindh chief minister was made to sign an endless number of papers put before him by ministers and legislators, but the most surely by those acting on behalf of the man who is said to wield the real power in Sindh, the adoptive brother of the president, one Owais Muzaffar Tappi.

At one point, the hapless Qaim Ali Shah is reported to have been so harassed that he stormed out of his office saying he had had it. Only, of course, to return soon after to resume his signing frenzy before the hourglass emptied totally.

Some of the summaries he was made to sign, a witness said, he probably hadn’t even read. Otherwise, given the interest the activist Supreme Court has taken in PPP decisions, he would have thought better.

If some civil servants, perhaps with self-preservation foremost on their minds, hadn’t dragged their feet over these “outrageous” matters, the apex court would have surely hauled over the coals the chief minister and all others involved.

It is already in the public domain how some influential ministers wanted last-minute illegal appointment orders passed and even allegedly roughed up the civil servants; others reportedly wanted criminals released as they needed their help in the elections.

When all these instances were related to a friend, who happens to be close to the current PPP hierarchy, he was very open about party strategy. “Look, we tried ‘ideology’ in the 1970s and to an extent even in the 1980s. Where did it get us?”

“To implement our programme we need to be in power. And all the issues you raise including the winning over of the electables regardless of the means are in aid of that end. Otherwise, we can sit in our homes in embrace of ideology.”

Is the irony of that statement lost on anyone? Seeing the narrow, intolerant brand of Islam gaining ground in the country, can you count how many times you have heard the phenomenon described as Gen Ziaul Haq’s all-enduring legacy?

He sowed the seeds of this intolerance and our generations will have to live with the consequences. But the success of Zia’s ideology has only been made possible by the success of the political system he crafted and the abject abandonment of a counter-ideology.

Having realised the consequences of allowing “party-based” elections as early as the 1979 local bodies polls when, despite all obstacles, an “ideologically driven” PPP performed rather well, Zia committed himself to creating an alternative political narrative.

This was based on identifying people of “potential and talent”, then nurturing them as junior partners in power and enabling them to fill their war chests with infinite state patronage. The set-up that came to be after the party-less elections in 1985 was a result of this.

By the time Zia’s carefully crafted system collapsed because he couldn’t even share minimal power with the civilians and he died in a plane crash in 1988, the PPP felt it was on a steep learning curve.

For Ms Bhutto, her father’s politics still had some resonance and relevance. After her death, the new PPP leadership embraced Zia’s core principle ie all avenues of capturing power were legitimate and must be travelled down on.

Whether measures such as the well-received Benazir Income Support Programme is indicative of a hangover from the “roti, kapra, makaan” days or merely seen as bringing a new dedicated voter into the net isn’t clear.

As it heads towards another election, the one question the party leadership ought to ask itself is that given its abysmal governance record of the past five years, why would a significant number of voters still vote for it.

Has the party done enough to make the ideological worker buy into a corporate party which operates on a profit no matter on what basis? And is that going to be the PPP’s only claim to fame in the coming days and years?

If at all the PPP has reached this conclusion, it must also realise it’ll be up against other players far more adept at playing the corporate game and with a far better delivery record than the PPP.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com