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Pak election scene – Opposition threat to boycott |
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Harjit Singh
Pakistan President Musharraf’s difficulties seem to have no end. In spite of his huge concessions like shedding his Army uniform and promising to end the emergency imposed on Nov. 3 before the January 8 parliamentary elections, he has failed to make the mainstream Opposition parties to welcome his actions and end their stir. While PML[N] chief Nawaz Sharif, is bent on boycotting the elections, PPP chief Benazir Bhutto is still keeping her options open. A meeting between the two leaders last week failed to produce an agreement on the boycott, but the fact that they agreed to set up an eight-member committee to consider the issue is a clear proof that Ms Bhutto would continue to put pressure on Musharraf until the eve of the elections. So far, Ms Bhutto’s argument in support of participation in the elections has been that if they boycott, it will give a walkover to other parties.
After Musharraf’s promise to end the emergency, the main Opposition demand which would restore the country’s constitution and nullify the Provisional Constitutional Order [PCO] under which Supreme Court judges were made to take oath and those who did not were dismissed, would be met. But, keeping in view the opposition of civil society and the lawyers who have emerged as a new political force in the country Nawaz Sharif seems to be seeking to court them. He has now linked his party’s participation in the elections to the release of the sacked judges like Iftikhar Chaudhry and Rana Bhagwan Das, who had refused to take oath under the PCO, and is demanding their reinstatement. A big march that Sharif led to the residence of Iftikhar Chaudhry which included his party supporters and lawyers, was stopped by police who had barricaded the former Chief Justice’s home in Islamabad.
Musharraf himself is partly to be blamed for provoking Nawaz Sharif, who could have been courted after the PPP chief suspended her negotiations on power-sharing with the Government. The electoral authorities not only rejected the nomination papers of Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif but also reopened a murder case against Shahbaz. It strains one’s thinking as to why the Sharif brothers were allowed to enter the country at all if difficulties were to be created in their way to enter the political arena. Musharraf has publicly promised level playing field for all those in the race. But, while pardoning Ms Bhutto, who faces much more serious charges of corruption and even passing a decree to withdraw all court cases against her, and hounding the Sharif brothers is not a wise step. It is worth noting that the so-called National Reconciliation Ordinance passed by President Musharraf which facilitated the return of Ms Bhutto was not one politician-specific and the option is there for giving reprieve to all the tainted politicians.
If both the PPP and the PML(N) chiefs who lead two alliances of democratic parties, keep away from the poll, it would be robbed of legitimacy. Musharraf will once again have a puppet regime and a puppet Prime Minister whom he would select rather than allowing him to be elected by members of a National Assembly. This was not the scenario the US had thought of when it brought the PPP chief and Musharraf to the negotiating table to work out a power-sharing agreement. It is possible that a last moment US intervention may encourage the PPP and the PML(N) to take part in the elections, but given the captive judiciary and the very short time given to the political parties to prepare, questions will continue to raise doubts about the elections being free and fair in Pakistan.
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