Very Real Possibility That Early Polls Could Call Leaders to Account in Turbulent Pakistan | Democracy, elections and voting at Democracy Chronicles

Agreeing that current rulers have outlived their usefulness is increasing possibility of early election at the decision of the PPP-led government

Early polls could call leaders to account

Author: Ankur Choudhary

Nawaz Sharif has tried to make inroads into the PPP stronghold of Sindh province

Pakistan’s next general election is due in 2013 when the present Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition government will have completed its five-year term. The dates for the polls have not been announced yet, but the country is already in the grip of an election campaign.

Big public meetings are being staged, demands for updating the voters’ lists are made on an almost daily basis and the formation of electoral alliances is already underway. There has been speculation that the election could be held prematurely this coming October, but the ruling parties aren’t giving away that secret yet, so the opposition will be caught by surprise.

The major political parties have started positioning for the polls by forging alliances and holding public meetings. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has taken the lead by entering into an electoral alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Likeminded, a group of law-makers who defected from the PML-Q. The PML-Q was the so-called ‘King’s Party’, created by General Pervez Musharraf during his military rule to strengthen his government. However, the party split after Musharraf lost power and has become weak. Its mainstream faction, led by the Chaudhry brothers, Shujaat Hussain and Pervez Elahi, has joined the PPP-led coalition government of President Zardari.

Under the terms of the alliance between the PML-N and the PML-Q Likeminded, the two parties would jointly contest the next general election and support each other’s candidates. Another faction of the PML-Q is already part of the PML-N-led government in Punjab province and its law-makers would also be accommodated for contesting the next polls.

Nawaz Sharif has also tried to make inroads into the PPP stronghold of Sindh province by persuading former governor and federal minister Mumtaz Bhutto — an uncle of the late Benazir Bhutto — to merge his party into the PML-N. Mumtaz Bhutto is an elderly politician who has been pursuing the politics of Sindhi nationalism from the platform of the Sindh National Front, and wants Pakistan to be turned into a confederal state.

What is more, Nawaz Sharif is making efforts to woo other Sindhi and Baloch nationalist leaders in Sindh and Balochistan to join the PML-N in a bid to form a strong alliance against the PPP. He is also wooing a few Islamic parties with a view to making an alliance against the PPP and its allies.

The ruling PPP, for its part, already has alliances with the mainstream PML-Q led by former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the Awami National Party (ANP) headed by Asfandyar Wali Khan, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) of London-based Altaf Hussain, the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) of Pir Pagara in Sindh, and a couple of small Baloch nationalist groups. The PPP has been trying to strengthen these alliances by appeasing its allies as part of President Asif Ali Zardari’s so-called ‘policy of reconciliation’. Zardari, who hasn’t given up his position as co-chairman of the PPP even after becoming President of Pakistan, has been obliging his party’s allies at every step by accepting their political demands, granting them a sizeable share in power and allocating development funds, job quotas and other favours to their law-makers.

The newly-emerged third force in Pakistan’s politics is cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s PTI. In the words of its leaders, it is presently on a solo flight, but forming electoral alliances with likeminded parties hasn’t been ruled out by the party leadership. Many analysts believe the PTI will be the proverbial dark horse in the polls and could cause some upsets. It has been able to organize huge public meetings, beginning with its landmark rally in Lahore on October 30 last year, followed by the one in Karachi and, recently, rallies in Quetta and Rawalpindi. The public meeting in Quetta, capital of Balochistan, was hailed as the first of its kind after a long time in the troubled province, where the mainstream political parties were afraid to stage meetings due to the threat of terrorist attacks.

The Islamic parties could also make an impact in the polls if they form an alliance, as they did in the 2002 general election, or by joining hands with one of the mainstream political parties. Disunity in the ranks and a boycott of the 2008 polls by the Jamaat-i-Islami, one of the main religio-political parties, resulted in defeat for the Islamists.

With an eye on the upcoming general election, all the political parties have been pursuing populist policies and espousing patriotic causes. Already, the government has promised that no new taxes will be imposed in the annual budget being presented in parliament on June 1, in a bid not to further antagonize the common people, who are already angry with their rulers due to the energy crisis and perennial power cuts, inflation, lawlessness, high levels of unemployment and corruption.

One important example of the populist policies being pursued by both the government and the opposition is their demand that the US must offer an apology for the November 26, 2011 NATO airstrikes in Pakistan’s tribal region, Mohmand Agency — in which 25 soldiers were killed and another 15 were wounded — and put a halt to the missile attacks by CIA-operated drones in the Pakistani tribal areas, particularly in North and South Waziristan. The PPP-led federal government had, until now, been following a pro-US policy in the war against terrorism in the Af-Pak region, but it too had to take a tough line after the Mohmand Agency incident, in keeping with the will of the people.

One indication of the hardening of the ruling PPP position on the issue became obvious when the party\’s chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the 23-year-old son of President Zardari and the late Benazir Bhutto, issued a statement on the occasion of the recent NATO summit in Chicago, in which he dared President Obama to show courage in the face of the forthcoming US presidential election, and offer an apology to Pakistan for the sake of success of the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Though he didn’t elaborate, Bilawal Bhutto’s statement clearly meant that an apology by the US could enable Islamabad to bring its stand-off with Washington to an end and reopen the two overland routes through Pakistan for transporting supplies to the coalition forces in Afghanistan. All the allies of the PPP have backed these demands by supporting the recommendations of parliament for resetting Pakistan’s uneasy relations with the US. The opposition parties, led by Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, Imran Khan’s PTI and the Islamic JUI-F and Jamaat-i-Islami, have gone a step further and opposed reopening the NATO supply routes through Pakistan.

At the other extreme is the Defence of Pakistan Council, comprising about 40 Islamic groups, which is threatening countrywide protests if the NATO supply routes are reopened. And then there are the armed groups such as the TTP, which has taken up arms against the state and would again attack the NATO supply convoys, as it did in the past. The issue has become quite emotive in Pakistan and the government would be hard pressed to ensure protection for the oil-tankers, trucks and containers transporting supplies for the Afghanistan-based NATO forces driving the length and breadth of Pakistan.

In the long run-up to the general election, the frayed relationship between the ruling PPP and the opposition PML-N has deteriorated, following the latter\’s demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani due to his conviction in a contempt of court case by the Supreme Court. Pakistan\’s two major political parties started openly confronting each other when the PML-N launched a movement by holding protest rallies to demand the Prime Minister\’s resignation. Gilani rejected the demand and asked the opposition to wait for the next general election. The government reacted by asking the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to start legal scrutiny of the $32 million money-laundering case against Nawaz Sharif. It is an old case and has been dug up from the past to harass Nawaz Sharif. It is a common practice in Pakistan to register cases against political opponents and use them to victimize anyone daring to challenge the government.

The Prime Minister has become increasingly controversial after the release of the detailed Supreme Court order explaining why he was convicted in the contempt of court case, and has been briefly imprisoned till the rising of the court. More and more political parties, lawyers\’ bodies, civil society organizations and sections of the media are demanding Gilani\’s resignation. Gilani, on the other hand, got support from the National Assembly Speaker Dr Fahmida Mirza, who belongs to his party, when she ruled that the question of the Prime Minister\’s disqualification didn\’t arise and refused to forward the Supreme Court\’s verdict against him to the Election Commission for starting proceedings to unseat him. Encouraged by her ruling, Gilani decided not to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against his conviction. This could trigger a new round of legal wrangling between the government and the superior judiciary.

In such an uncertain situation, many opinion makers are arguing that the general election should be held before time to elect a new government and enable voters to judge the performance of the ruling political parties. There is growing belief in the country that the present government has outlived its usefulness, lost credibility and is unable to do anything meaningful for the benefit of the people. Prime Minister Gilani has also lost the moral authority to continue in office. All this is putting more pressure on the PPP-led government to call an early election, but the ruling elite isn\’t giving away any secrets about the timing of the polls.

Article Source: https://www.articlesbase.com/journalism-articles/early-polls-could-call-leaders-to-account-6118496.html

About the Author

Ankur choudhary is working with rubicon publicer pvt.ltd (https://asianaffairs.in). Asianaffaris.in publish news and articles from all  over the world, Islamic country news, Pakistan news, Articles on current affairs, world affairs.

Fall from grace for Pakistan’s political elite

Author: ankur

A DESERVING DYNASTY?: The Bhutto clan\’s domination of Pakistan politics is based on family ties rather than merit

Pakistan’s National Assembly on June 22 elected a new prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, in place of Yusuf Raza Gilani, who lost his job after being disqualified by the Supreme Court for defying court orders to pursue old corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari.

All three belong to the ruling Pakistan People\’s Party (PPP), founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the late 1960s and now the country’s biggest political party.

Gilani had refused to write a letter as directed by the Supreme Court to reopen money-laundering cases of $60 million against President Zardari in the Swiss courts. The money has been kept in Swiss banks and was allegedly stolen in Pakistan on account of kickbacks and commissions during the rule of Zardari\’s late wife, Benazir Bhutto. The removal of Prime Minister Gilani, who served for more than four years in this job, has been described as a judicial coup, but the Supreme Court insisted it waited for two and a half years for the PPP-led coalition government to implement its orders.

Ashraf, a senior leader of the ruling PPP from Punjab province and a former

minister of water and power, received 211 votes in the election for the prime minister. With backing from political parties such as the PML-Q, ANP, MQM and BNP-Awami allied to the PPP, he defeated Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan of the opposition PML-N who received 89 votes.

The 61-year old Ashraf too has been accused of corruption as Minister of Water and Power when he tried to give contracts to private rental power companies to produce electricity to meet Pakistan\’s growing energy shortfall. He is now commonly referred to as ‘Raja Rental’ by his detractors. Besides which, he has failed to solve the power sector crisis despite publicly making promises to do so.

Earlier, federal textiles minister and a senior PPP leader from southern Punjab, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, was tipped as the candidate of the ruling parties as prime minister, but he too faced accusations of misuse of power by the army-run Anti-Narcotics Force and had to step aside. In fact, a court issued warrants for his arrest on June 21, the day he was to be nominated as candidate for the prime minister\’s office and the case involved importing a banned drug, ephedrine, during his previous office as Health Minister.

Like all previous prime ministers, governors and chief ministers affiliated to the PPP, the first thing that Ashraf did was to pay a flying visit to Garhi Khuda Bakhsh near Larkana in Sindh province to pray by the graveside of late party leaders Benazir Bhutto and her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and show loyalty to the Bhutto family.

The PPP was founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and nurtured by Benazir Bhutto and one of the favourite party slogans is that ‘Bhutto is hero, others are zero.’ It meant that nobody except the Bhuttos mattered in the party. The PPP is a dynastic party run by the Bhuttos. Zardari took over the leadership after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007. He later appointed his only son, Bilawal Zardari, as the chairman of the party and changed his name to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to capitalize the name of the Bhuttos. No decision in the PPP can be made nowadays without President Zardari\’s approval and it was he who picked up first Gilani and then Ashraf as the prime minister. Even after his election as President of Pakistan, Zardari refused to give up his position as the co-chairperson of the PPP as it empowers him to run the affairs of the ruling party and play a major role in all the decision-making.

The most frequent question being asked after the election of Ashraf as Prime Minister is whether he too, like his predecessor Gilani, would defy the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court convicted and disqualified Gilani for contempt of court due to his refusal to write the letter from his government to the Swiss authorities to reopen the money-laundering cases against President Zardari. A lively discussion is going on in the Pakistani media speculating when the new Prime Minister will be asked by the Supreme Court to write the required letter and how he will respond to it.
If senior PPP leader and federal minister Khurshid Shah is to be believed, no Prime Minister of their party will ever write such a letter as it would amount to betraying the party leader, President Zardari. The stance taken by the PPP and its allies is that President Zardari enjoys presidential immunity and therefore no criminal case should be instituted against him. The Supreme Court has been arguing that the $60 million stashed away in Swiss banks by Zardari during Benazir Bhutto\’s rule is owned by the people of Pakistan and should be returned. If Prime Minister Ashraf doesn\’t write the letter to the Swiss authorities as is widely believed, it could lead to confrontation between him and the Supreme Court and prompt the latter to disqualify him as well as perpetuating the ongoing political crisis.

One by one, the scions of Pakistan\’s ruling elite are being exposed for their involvement in cases of misuse of power and corrupt practices. Former Prime Minister Gilani\’s son, Ali Musa Gilani, who was elected Member of the National Assembly some months ago in a by-election in their hometown Multan, is facing charges of using his influence to secure a permit for two pharmaceutical firms to import the banned drug, ephedrine. His warrants of arrest have been issued by a court along with the Textiles Minister Shahabuddin, who secured bail from the Peshawar High Court beforehand. The case against them is being pursued by the Anti-Narcotics Force, which is managed by serving army officers.

Former Prime Minister Gilani\’s eldest son, Abdul Qadir Gilani, has been accused of involvement in a corruption case over arrangements for pilgrims to Mecca and in a scandal at a state-owned insurance company. His only daughter, Fizza Gilani, is being groomed for a political career and is already presiding at official functions without holding any formal position.

President Zardari\’s only son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is still in his early twenties but has already been appointed as Chairman of the ruling PPP. Sections of the media have reported his colourful life as a playboy in the UK, where he has been studying.

Former Punjab chief minister and soon to be Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi\’s son, Moonis Elahi, was arrested in a corruption case and is still facing trial in a court of law. Aimal Wali Khan, the lone son of the ruling Awami National Party (ANP) President Asfandyar Wali Khan, was reported to have started business operations in Dubai and Malaysia with money that his father made as head of a political party now in power as any ally of the PPP in the federal and provincial governments in Khyber, Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh provinces.

The latest to come under scrutiny is Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who has led a campaign against corruption and even taken to task the powerful Pakistan Army and ISI officers. In the latest scandal, real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain accused Chaudhry\’s son Dr Arsalan Iftikhar of accepting almost $3.6 million in bribes from him in exchange for favourable verdicts in cases involving his businesses. He also accused Iftikhar Chaudhry of knowing about the bribes and not doing anything about them until the case sparked media frenzy. Malik Riaz hasn\’t presented examples of such verdicts and Dr Arsalan Iftikhar, the chief justice\’s son, denies any wrongdoing.

With stories of corruption and abuse of power increasingly making media headlines in Pakistan and such cases now heard almost every day in the superior courts, the election of Ashraf as Prime Minister is a stop-gap measure and it won\’t resolve the serious problems facing Pakistan. He can only stay in power for the next eight months as the five-year term of the government will end early next year when the general election is due to be held. In fact, the demand for early election has grown louder and more widespread since the change of government.

Besides the opposition political parties, the influential Supreme Court Bar Association has also demanded a new general election to overcome the political instability in the country. In a recent meeting, the Supreme Court Bar Association noted that political instability was harmful for the country and its economy and bringing in a new prime minister wouldn\’t solve the many problems and challenges facing Pakistan.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (leader of the main opposition party, PML-N), Imran Khan\’s PTI, and a number of other parties have been demanding fresh polls for quite some time, but they became more vocal when Gilani had to quit after being disqualified by the Supreme Court. The PPP-led ruling coalition, however, hasn\’t accepted the demands as it wants to use the last eight months in office to approve development projects, give jobs, dole out favours and fulfill some of its election campaign promises in the hope of influencing the voters before the next polls.

Article Source: https://www.articlesbase.com/journalism-articles/fall-from-grace-for-pakistans-political-elite-6118316.html

About the Author

Ankur Choudhary is working with rubicon publicer pvt.ltd (https://asianaffairs.in). Asianaffaris.in publish news and articles from all  over the world, Islamic country news, Pakistan news, Articles on current affairs, world affairs.