Khaled Ahmed - Pakistan: A Poll Outcome Foretold
No PM in Pakistan has
been allowed to finish his five-year term. When a Pakistan PM falls foul of the
deep state, the Opposition, senior bureaucrats and the judiciary get together
against him. Nawaz Sharif knows that the electoral minefield has been laid
against him by causing defections in his party, scaring the media into
lambasting him as a corrupt man and kidnapping and torturing bloggers who
“blaspheme” against the deep state. The caretaker government has bowed to the
policy of “mainstreaming” of terrorists by allowing Hafiz Saeed to field his banned
Milli Muslim League under the banner of Allah-of-Akbar Tehreek. It has also
“mainstreamed” the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba by allowing it to contest the polls in
South Punjab.
Nawaz Sharif has
accused the deep state of rousing central Punjab’s shrine-connected feudal
PML-N loyalists to rebel against him. He alleges that his government was nearly
toppled by a foul-mouthed, wheelchair-riding imam of a masjid heading the
Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Khadim Husain Rizvi. Rizvi staged a violent
encounter with the police near Islamabad because “the PML-N govern-ment had
insulted the Holy Prophet”. Suddenly the Barelvi mystics of Punjab, once
ignored because of their non-jihadi faith, have come into big money and
mobilise violent mobs. The TLP is fielding 150 candidates — each constituency
normally soaks up Rs 2 crore in pre-election campaigns.
The caretaker
government is not supposed to take big decisions, especially those relating to
security and foreign policy. But by allowing two internationally condemned
terrorist organisations to partici-pate in elections, it has challenged the
world community, including its “all-weather friends” China and Saudi Arabia.
Imran Khan’s party Tehreek-e-Insaf seems the frontrunner in the election.
Nawaz’s younger brother Shahbaz was never accepted as a leader by the PML-N,
which is now rudderless.
The media has been by
and large tamed through threats of violence. TV channels have been converted to
PML-N’s opposition. Writing about the newspaper, Dawn, journalist-author Ahmed
Rashid wrote on the BBC website: “Dawn has faced intimidation, harassment of
its journalists, a ban on hawkers distributing the newspaper… cable operators
have been told to take its TV channel off air… advertisers are warned not to
promote their goods in Dawn. Last year, in the province of Balochistan, the
newspaper was unavailable for weeks on end.”
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