RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Raja Zafar ul-Haq, a candidate in parliamentary
elections scheduled for Thursday, says he has reason to be skeptical of
claims by President Pervez Musharraf that the contest will help pave the
way for the restoration of "real democracy."
Three times in the last month, he said, the electricity has
mysteriously failed just as he prepared to address campaign rallies,
plunging the crowd into darkness. And even when things do go smoothly, he
complained, state-run television limits its coverage to shots of him
speaking from the podium, ignoring cheering throngs of supporters.
"It is not a level playing field," said Haq, a former religion minister
and a leader of the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was
ousted by Musharraf three years ago this month. "A kind of atmosphere has
been created so that those who oppose the government have no chance to
reach parliament."
Such cynicism is a hallmark of elections in Pakistan, which for roughly
half of its tumultuous 55-year history has been governed in some fashion
by un-elected men in army uniforms. In the view of many candidates and
voters, Musharraf -- aided by the Bush administration -- is merely
prolonging this dreary tradition, embracing the form of democracy but not
its substance.
They note, for example, that whatever the outcome of Thursday's voting,
Musharraf will have the power to dismiss parliament and sack the prime
minister under constitutional amendments he imposed by fiat several months
ago. The amendments also call for the creation of a new National Security
Council that legitimizes the army's role in governing.
The two biggest opposition parties, meanwhile, have been crippled by
the exile of their principal leaders -- Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim
League and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People's
Party -- both of whom face arrest on corruption-related charges if they
return. Still other potential challengers have been barred from running
because they do not hold four-year college degrees -- a new requirement
that disqualifies an estimated 98 percent of the population -- have
defaulted on loans or have fallen behind on their utility bills.
"Pakistan appears to be the only country in the world where candidates
can be disqualified for unpaid utility bills," said an interim report by
the European Union, which has dispatched a large observer team to monitor
the elections. "Several of the financial eligibility criteria are not only
applicable to the potential candidates themselves, but also their spouses,
dependents and business associates."
An afternoon in Rawalpindi, a teeming commercial hub about 10 miles
southwest of the capital, Islamabad, suggests that many Pakistanis share
the EU's doubts. Despite high-profile races involving Haq and other
prominent leaders, interviews with shoppers and store owners in the city's
old bazaar elicited little beyond expressions of disdain for the entire
proceeding.
"The general controls everything and he will engineer the results, for
sure, for his benefit," said Zamir Ahmad Shah, 50, looking up from his
workbench in his closet-size gold smithing shop. "The lists of winners are
already being prepared by army headquarters."
But the widespread view that the elections will change little in the
way the country is governed does not seem to have seriously undermined
Musharraf's standing among ordinary Pakistanis.
Many Pakistanis appear to regard military rule as a necessary evil
given the dismal track record of Pakistan's civilian leaders, who are
widely seen as corrupt and incompetent. And although militant Muslim
groups were angered by Musharraf's embrace of the U.S. war on terrorism
and his subsequent cutoff of support for the Taliban in neighboring
Afghanistan, many Pakistanis appear to have accepted the policy as the
price of restoring the country's economy through closer ties with the
West.
Last week, for example, an opinion poll commissioned by the BBC --
based on interviews with 2,827 Pakistanis in 200 towns and cities -- found
that 69 percent of Pakistanis thought Musharraf had done a "good" or
"somewhat good" job since coming to power in October 1999.
Similar results emerged from a survey released Thursday by the Pattan
Development Organization, a Pakistan-based nonprofit group whose research
was sponsored by the British government. The survey of more than 6,000
voters found that 58.9 percent support Musharraf as president, while an
"overwhelming majority . . . seem to consider politicians and political
parties principally responsible for [the] failure of democracy," according
to a summary of the results.
Although few analysts expect an overwhelming turnout on Thursday, some
hold out hope that the contests could produce an incremental improvement
in the nation's political life, providing at least a forum for discussion
and some degree of accountability.
"Even a sham, bogus democracy is better than a totalitarian regime,"
said a Western-trained academic in Islamabad who asked not to be
identified. Musharraf, this person added, "will have to have consensus of
some kind. He can't be as arbitrary."
Government officials note that all the major opposition parties --
including Islamic parties hostile to Musharraf's pro-Western agenda --
have chosen to field candidates for the 272-seat parliament and four
provincial assemblies rather than boycott the elections. "The perception
that people are apathetic is not true," Nisar Memon, a former IBM
executive who now serves as the country's information minister, said in an
interview last week.
The new eligibility requirements, he added, are aimed at screening out
undesirables who have previously looked at elected office as an
opportunity to fatten their wallets. "How can you be a representative of
the people when you are not even willing to pay your own bills?" he
asked.
But some diplomats and analysts see another motive behind the
government's professed desire to clean up the nation's political life. In
particular, they say, the government has used a special anti-corruption
unit, called the National Accountability Bureau, to intimidate and in some
cases sideline potentially troublesome political opponents, including
Javed Hashmi, a senior leader of Sharif's party who was jailed this year
on corruption charges.
In a similar vein, Haq and other candidates charge that the government
has used the threat of investigation to coerce political opponents into
joining a new pro-government party known formally as the Pakistan Muslim
League and informally as the "King's Party." At the same time, analysts
say, Musharraf has co-opted the major religious parties by shelving plans
to regulate madrassas, religious schools seen as breeding grounds
for extremism. By most accounts, such tactics increase the likelihood that
the elections will produce a "hung parliament" incapable of mounting a
serious challenge to Musharraf's leadership -- and in particular, his
constitutional amendments, which would require a two-thirds majority to
overturn.
The State Department has expressed concern over the amendments, but the
Bush administration has generally avoided direct criticism of the military
leader. President Bush's comment in August that Musharraf is "tight with
us in the war on terror, and that's what I appreciate," angered many
Pakistanis.
"As long as General Musharraf is their pocket watch, they will love
him, because he's going to deliver," said Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, a former
parliamentarian now standing for election as an independent in
Rawalpindi.
Ahmad, 50, said he is running because "there is no other option," but
he admits to doubts about the degree to which the elections can truly
change anything in Pakistan. "Here, institutions are not important," he
said shortly before lighting up a cigar. "The man behind the gun is
important."
