The second phase of pre-poll rigging
is over
Fauzia
Wahab
The set target of the second phase has been achieved.
Those leaders, who commanded country wide respect and popularity
have been ousted even before they could enter the electoral arena.
Benazir Bhutto, Kulsoom Nawaz, Shahbaz Sharif and many of our
leaders have been declared as disqualified, while candidates belonging
to the religious alliance and the king’s party faced no
problems.
Living
in permanent fear of the popular leadership, and to pre-empt any
possible challenge from the political quarters, it was decided
by the Army from day one to eliminate popular and strong leadership
from the politics of the country. For this a well thought-out
and comprehensive pre-poll rigging machinery was set in motion
to accomplish the agenda. Tailor made laws one after another,
that would suit the Army’s vested interest, were promulgated
and “made to order courts and tribunals” were formed
to carry out those laws.
Phase-I
Electoral
roll is the basic instrument for holding a free and fair election.
Constitutionally the authority to prepare the electoral roll lies
with the election commission, only. But this provision was bypassed
and a separate organization was formed by the name of National
Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) headed by a serving
Army Brigadier, to prepare the electoral rolls. The earlier ones,
under which four elections had taken place, were called “flawed”
and not “reliable”.
But
when the first list prepared by NADRA was put up for verification
in Larkana, the hometown of Benazir Bhutto, it was found that
the name of Pakistan’s twice elected Prime Minister and
her mother’s name were missing from the list, while another
political leader’s name was found in the female list. The
flaws in the list were so outrageous that there was a public outcry
against NADRA, demanding the task of preparing the electoral list,
be given back to the Election Commission.
Instead
the regime further entrusted NADRA the task to revoke the earlier
NIC’s and computerize them (National Identity Card) and
made it mandatory that only new NIC’s holder will be allowed
to vote. In Pakistan without NIC one is not entitled to vote.
This program, however, could not materialize as news leaked out
that around 70,000 NI cards had been
stolen from NADRA’s office, and thus the matter of casting
vote through the
NADRA based NIC’s were shelved.
However,
we have information from reliable sources that around 150,000
NIC’s are lying in various post offices of the city, and
specific instructions have been issued not to dispatch them to
their intended recipients. There is a possibility that those ID
cards might be used in
the forthcoming elections.
Similarly was the case of re-demarcation the constituencies. Under
a highly biased military regime, which had been “denigrating
and lampooning politicians every now and then and has never shirked
away from demonizing them”, the re-demarcation smacked of
foul play and amounted to “gerrymandering” the pocket
votes of political parties. This task should have been left to
an elected government.
The
sudden large scale transfers and postings after the presidential
referendum in the interior of Sindh is another sequence to the
manipulative pre-poll rigging plan of the regime. In this connection,
a highly politicized civil servant was appointed Chief Secretary
of Sindh and a special cell was formed in the Governor's House
to “find solutions for the sensitive districts where the
PPP is popular”(Dawn July 24th, 2002). In Larkana alone
43 senior officials within 3 weeks were arbitrarily transferred
or made OSDs without any prior intimation.
“Were it not an election year, this exercise could have
been overlooked, but as it began from the districts, where authorities
failed to get results in the presidential referendum, the transfer
and postings have become tainted amounting to pre-poll rigging
measure.” (Dawn, July 7th, 2002).
Phase-II
(Post referendum)
The
second phase of the pre-poll rigging started on May 21, 2002,
when an Accountability Court declared Benazir Bhutto as a “Proclaimed
Offender” on non-appearance before the court and sentenced
her to three years imprisonment and the confiscation of her property.
The decision was arbitrary and was taken in unnecessary haste.
The judge, whose promotion was due for many years, was suddenly
rewarded by a promotion and paid arrears of 14 years.
After
that followed a series of Presidential Orders which vested more
and more powers into the President’s Office and carried
the specific aim to prevent Benazir Bhutto’s “return
to the parliament and subsequently to the highest office of Pakistan.”
(The News, July 8th, 2002). Despite the fact that a law had already
been decreed in August 2000 "by which a convicted person
or who is otherwise disqualified to be elected as a member of
the parliament, will not be able to hold party office”,
the regime brought amendment in Article 63 of the constitution,
making absentee sentence a part of the disqualifying laws.
Further
the regime ordered that to ensure good governance and sustainable
and genuine
democracy “a person who, at any time, has held the office
of the Prime Minister, or Chief Minister or a combination of these
offices for two terms will not be qualified to hold these offices
for the third term.” It is called the ‘Qualification
to Hold Public Office Order 2002’.
Next
in line was the Political Parties Order, under which parties were
asked to hold intra party elections. It was promulgated on the
July 28, 2002, calling for strict compliance and ordering the
submission of the election result by August 5, 2002 to the Election
Commission, “otherwise no political party will have the
legal status to contest the general poll”. Six more ordinances
on similar lines were promulgated.
On
the July 30, another law calling the Amended People’s Representation
Order 1976 was introduced by which Returning Officers were vested
with Suo Moto powers “to reject nomination papers of any
candidate on the basis of information received about his possible
disqualification from any “source”, bringing, thus,
every provision in conformity with the military government’s
agenda.(DAWN, July 31, 2002). The world has seen how indiscreetly
this power was misused against public leaders preventing them
from participating in the general elections.
Phase-III
Though
the devolution plan was announced with much fanfare, claiming
that it will usher the country on the road of development and
prosperity, but the country remained as under developed and poverty
ridden as it always was, because all the funds were cleverly kept
under the control of the military regime. But to the astonishment
of every one, funds have been released in all those constituencies,
where the regime’s blue-eyed are contesting.
Suddenly
we are seeing road repairs, sewerage works being done in all those
areas. So much so the Chief Election Commissioner had to take
notice and in one case asked the provincial government and the
district mayor of Jhang “to submit report on the allegations
that the latter was using his positions for getting his son-in-law
elected as MNA from the area” (Dawn, September17th, 2002)
On the other hand, candidates of the PPP (Parliamentarians) are
being harassed, intimidated by the administration against the
workers and supporters of the party. Criminals are being patronized
through whom the party election offices are being forcibly shut
down.
Besides
the dubious vote count and the announcement of the final result
of constituencies, where one expects “many a slip between
the cup and lip”, it is expected that on the election day
means of transportation in the strongholds of the PPPP would not
be allowed to commute. All modes of transportation would be whisked
off from the roads, to insure a low turn out of people. The recent
announcement of the Interior Minister General Moin Haider, to
bring in the army on the polling day to supervise the law and
order has further aggravated our concern for massive rigging.
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