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चैत्र कृष्ण पक्ष, गुरूवार, तृतीया, संकट निवारण चर्तुथी

Bloody Beginning To Elections In Pakistan

- Bloody Beginning To Elections In Pakistan




K N Pandita  

It is the Army that has always called the shots in Pakistan. Come the General Election, it will derail the entire democratic process to emerge as the arbiter of the destiny of that nation

Writing about last week’s bloodshed in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistani daily, Dawn, wrote, “If there were any doubts tha t Pakistan still remains vulnerable to terrorism, the past week has put an end to them.” This is a polite but an irrefutable admission that willy-nilly terrorism is allowed to remain entrenched in Pakistan. Three separate attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have claimed 150 lives, leaving 200 wounded. Among the dead were Awami National Party leader Haroon Bilour and Balochistan Awami Party candidate Siraj Raisani.

Notably, both political parties have been protesting against the suppression of the rights of their people and the hegemony of ethnic Punjabis. In Pakistan, ethnic Punjabis are predominant in the Army, civil administration, police force, intelligence organisations and Foreign Service. Though so far no terrorist attack of the magnitude of the three under discussion has taken place in the Sindh Province, nevertheless, Sindh does not lag behind in any of the non-Punjabi Provinces in having faced brutal terrorist attacks. Terrorist attacks of this magnitude on the eve of General Elections carry more meaning than what meets the eye.

The Baloch nationalist movement is now a decade-old and under each military ruler in Pakistan, the Baloch people have suffered untold suppression and oppression. Some of their outstanding nationalist leaders have been liquidated mostly under fake encounters. Many of them suffered incarceration in false cases and biased judiciary had no qualms of conscience in being inimical towards them.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistani Army decimated the brave Pukhtuns, accusing them of complicity with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Through carpet bombing, drone attacks and military operations like Zarbe Azab, the Pakistan Army got the credit of killing thousands of Pukhtun and destroying their habitats. The cry for a separate Pukhtun homeland, though suppressed brutally for some time by state authorities, has now resurged and the young Pukhtuns are swarming to the new movement in drones.

The crux of the matter is: Who are the people or organisations that undertook such bloodshed and for what purpose? People in Pakistan need not be told who the perpetrators of such ghastly killings are. Terrorist organisations, like TTP, Daesh (militant Islamic State group), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and others associated with them have a history drenched in blood. Whatever the frame and operational tactics of the organisation, they are ideologically same.

This July 25, General Elections in Pakistan will be the third such under the existing Constitution. The Constitution has been amended twice or thrice by military dictators and one civilian dictator. The last amendment made so far was by former military General Pervez Musharraf who was made the President after his term as Army Chief was over.

It was known to knowledgeable circles in Pakistan that the Army would manipulate the impending General Elections because it was under compulsion to do that. Senior echelons in the Pakistani Army understood that the world community no longer supported coup d'état and martial laws. Pakistan, now known for harbouring terror, is at pains to retrieve credibility as a law-abiding state and not as a rogue nation. It has become a compulsion for the Army to succumb to the democratic process.

The new game-plan of the Army is to accelerate terrorist onslaught, particularly on such political parties and candidates that are known to oppose the Army’s supremacy. Former Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif and his party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML (N)) have been targeted. Nawaz Sharif had forcefully demanded that in the light of the Constitutional provision, the Pakistan Army had to be subservient to the authority of the elected dispensation. This was nothing less than red rag to the bull. The Army played a masterstroke: It roped in the judiciary to bring a case of corruption against Nawaz Sharif under Article 61 of the amended Constitution.

The judiciary in Pakistan has never enjoyed credibility with the civil society. Thus, the Army acting as proxy — a game in which it is adept at — managed to impose life-long ban on Nawaz Sharif from fighting the election. Not satisfied, the judicial authority sentenced him to 10 years in jail and his daughter, Maryam, who the Army apprehended might step into the shoes of her father, has been sentenced to seven years in jail.

This was the Army’s first plan to forestall the return of PML(N) and it had been executed meticulously, thanks to a judiciary bankrupt of fair deal and fair conscience. The second safety valve manufactured by the Army was the creation of the Pakistan Tahreek-I Insaf (PTI) led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

dharnas and protest rallies or the feigned long march which Imran Khan led in the past year could not be possible without the covert support of the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Today, Imran Khan is enjoying the favour of being the head of the King’s party.

A close study of the history of the Pakistan Army will show that it has been the fiercest enemy of the democratic process in that country. Whenever it felt that democracy was on the verge of getting rooted in Pakistan, the Army played a game usually soaked in blood only to prevent the democratic process and intimidate those who dared to work towards the strengthening the roots of democracy in that country.

The policy of United States President Donald Trump in directly accusing Pakistan of spreading terror in the region, especially in Afghanistan and Kashmir, has demoralised the Pakistan Army. Withholding of 300 million dollars of military and development aid has taken the wind out of the sails of the Pakistan Army. This has indirectly intensified the Army’s fears of being ultimately dominated by an elected Government in Islamabad. No wonder, the Pakistan Army will play a masterstroke at the end of the day and derail the entire election process to emerge once again as the arbiter of the destiny of the beleaguered nation.

(Sh. K N Pandita is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University)

DISCLAIMER:

The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article.

Courtesy: Pioneer:  Jul 23, 2018