Islamabad, May 25: PML-N top leaders after rejecting Nawab Sanaullah Zehri as leader of the house in Balochistan decided to elect Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch, President of the National Party, NP, as the new chief minister of the troubled province Balochistan sources said.
Baloch’s name for the niche of chief minister was proposed by Mehmood Achakzai, the head of top Pashtoon Nationalist party Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party couple of days back.
“We have decided to support Dr. Malik as the Chief Minister of Balochistan as he is the deserving candidate of the slot,” senior leader PKMAP Muhammad Akram Shah told Balochistan Chronicle.
He said, Mehmood Khan Achakzai had made it clear before PML-N leaders that Dr. Baloch would be their choice as a leader of the house in Balochistan Province.
Baloch Nationalist Party, (NP) chief Dr.Malik Baloch has been elected third time as an MPA in Balochistan Assembly, and he has also served as a senator in the country.
Earlier when late Nawab Akber Bugti was chief minister in Balochistan Dr.Malik remained as a member of the cabinet and was provincial minister of education in Baluchistan .
Observers hoped that Dr. Malik will promote better understandings in coping Baluchistan issue and will streamline the mistrust between province and the federal government.
It may also be mentioned here that, the Baloch separatists had already rejected the elections in Baluchistan and the newly elected CM has survived several times in their assaults, latest of which took place on may 11th when Baloch was moving towards a Polling Station in Turbat .
Nawab Sanaullah Zehri and Mir Changez Marri were also candidates for the slot of CM, but due to current circumstances, they were dropped as the single largest wining party of Baluchistan PKAMP supported Dr. Malik as Chief Executive of the Province.
Early some Media reports also said that the PML-Nleadership wanted to nominate Changez Khan Marri as CM of Balochistan, however Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and other nationalist parties were not eager to see Changez Khan Marri as the CM.
Zehri was not ready to go out of the race for the chief minister’s slot but finally he agreed.
Zahra Shahid Hussain (Credit: thenews.com.pk)Islamabad, May 22: It was a cold, misty evening in Karachi some months ago. At a friend’s place, Zahra Shahid Hussain was trying to convince a motley group of PTI enthusiasts and critics from different social and professional backgrounds on why Imran Khan showed promise like no other political leader and why the PTI must be given a chance to run the country.
The criticism we offered was harsh at times. She took it with great poise and tried her best to answer the questions raised against the party, its politics and the choices made by her leader. She was receptive, gentle and accepting – qualities rarely found in PTI neo-converts. They usually neither take any criticism in good stride nor try to respond to your comments logically. They counter you with hate mails, write against you and snub you privately or publicly. Zahra Shahid Hussain was different – an elderly, mature, self-assured and polite woman. Her cold-blooded murder outside her residence in Karachi reflects the barbarity of the perpetrators and our growing insensitivity as a people towards such gruesome acts of violence. My heart goes out to her family and friends. May she rest in peace.
While the PTI leadership in Karachi was a little more cautious and asked for immediate investigation and demanded the killers be arrested, Imran Khan was swift in apportioning blame on the MQM chief Altaf Hussain. His justification was Hussain’s earlier threats to the PTI’s demonstrators who complained of rigging and asked for a fresh round of balloting in some polling stations in Karachi. Khan’s statement came on the eve of the re-election on a select number of polling stations in NA-250, the constituency where the polling process was challenged by his party. The MQM had already rejected the ECP’s decision and boycotted the re-polling while demanding that it should be done across the constituency. The PPP and the JI had also boycotted the process for different reasons.
The MQM leader was incensed after he was blamed for being responsible for Zahra’s murder. He was also unhappy with the local MQM leadership for letting that happen. As a consequence, the workers of the party roughed up the local leaders. The party then decided to hold protest demonstrations against Khan and the PTI. Tensions have escalated in Karachi and the two parties are at daggers drawn. The MQM says that the protests will be peaceful in nature. However, the politics of Karachi tells a different story if you take stock of what has happened on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of the city over the past 25 years. Since he is also a British citizen, British authorities had already received thousands of complaints about Altaf Hussain’s incitement to violence in a speech made just after the elections – even before the murder took place.
In fairness, no one can be charged of a crime unless proper investigation is carried out. However, there are lessons to be learnt by both the MQM and the PTI from the tragic murder of Zahra Shahid Hussain. The MQM is still perceived to be a party that takes to violence if its wish and will are not followed by all concerned. No doubt it has a popular base but the realisation has to come sooner than later that it is increasingly impossible to coerce the electorate, influence the electoral process by force or keep getting the number of seats that defy the changes that have taken place over the years in both demography and political opinion in Karachi and Hyderabad.
On top of that, the MQM chief makes indefensible statements from time to time and its second-tier leadership keeps busy for weeks in contextualising and clarifying what has been said. If there are no good or bad Taliban, there is no good or bad violence either. If violence in the name of faith or sect has to be rejected, violence in the name of ethnicity or political difference cannot be accepted either – even for short-term ideological or political gains.
Zahra Shahid Hussain could have been killed by a reckless criminal or any third force but the MQM has to reflect on why it has always been blamed for such acts by its political adversaries. The party has so much ammunition in stock and there is much circumstantial evidence from the past to support these assertions. The liberal, plural and inclusive politics of the MQM and the initiatives it has taken to serve its constituents suffer a huge setback by its political tactics rooted in the late 1980s and 1990s. It is time a party as big and influential as the MQM comes of age. It is time for its leadership to realise that their clout increases across Pakistan if their image changes. Their image changes if they change their old tactics.
For the PTI, the death of one of their veteran leaders, someone who believed in the party from day one and did not opt for it after being rejected by other political forces, or after the October 2011 public meeting in Lahore, is a great loss. She is the first victim of violence from among the PTI leadership. It is time that the party leadership, its workers and supporters understand what it means to be hit by death and violence.
For instance, in case of the ANP, rather than blaming the victims and holding them responsible for their own suffering, the PTI rank and file needs to realise what happened to Bashir Ahmed Bilour, Mian Iftikhar Hussain’s son and more than 700 party leaders and workers who were killed in the last five years, including more than 100 during the election campaign and on election day. Likewise, when Ali Haider Gilani, the former PPP prime minister’s son, was kidnapped and his two aides shot down in broad daylight just two days before the general elections, the response from PTI’s supporters on social media was callous, calling the entire incident a political stunt.
When Imran Khan said – before the elections – that militants should not kill political workers and bomb political rallies but wait for the PTI tsunami to come and sweep away the political forces they dislike, imagine how an ordinary worker belonging to the ANP or the PPP would have felt. If he had let out the statesman in him, Khan would have rather clearly said that all parties must get a level playing field and no party should be threatened and kept out of the campaigning race. Like the MQM condemns faith-based and sectarian oppression and persecution but does not shun its own coercive methods, the PTI has come down hard on the MQM while being soft and apologetic to the TTP.
Violence – religious or political, in any form or for any reason – has to be condemned. Violence begets violence and spares no one in the end. Those who think they can be saved live in a fool’s paradise. Here, I remember the famous lines of Martin Niemoller, the anti-Nazi German pastor and theologian:
“First they came for the communists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist/Then they came for the socialists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist/Then they came for the trade unionists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist/Then they came for the Jews/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew/Then they came for the Catholics/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic/Then they came for me/and there was no one left to speak for me.”
MQM leader Farooq Sattar (Credit: tribune.com.pk)Karachi, May 18: For the first time in 25 years, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement has been forced to retreat from a position of strength by another party. Political observers believe the retreat of the MQM is a major victory for the political forces struggling for a political change in Karachi.
After the election commission turned down the MQM’s request to hold re-polling in the entire NA-250 constituency, the Karachi-based party announced the boycott of re-election on May 19. The party’s decision to stay away from polling at 43 polling stations has left the field open for Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. The Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti, has already congratulated Dr Arif Alvi for winning the hotly contested seat.
Senior journalist Zahid Hussain said that for the first time, the MQM had faced public pressure on city streets and the party realised the situation and boycotted the re-election.
“It was the public challenge to the MQM that forced it to retreat from its position,” he said. “This is a major political change and can impact Karachi politics.”
The MQM won the seat in 2008 which was won by the JI in 2002. The rightwing party had also won this seat in 1993 while the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz emerged victorious in 1997.
This time, Imran Khan, the cricketer-cum-politician, has glamorised politics and attracted the upper- and upper-middle class to support the slogan of change.
On 11 May, after widespread complaints of rigging in all constituencies of Karachi, the JI had announced the boycotted of all elections in Karachi. So Naimatullah Khan will not participate in the re-polling. Under an electoral alliance, the PML-N withdrew its national assembly candidate against the JI in return of support for its two provincial assembly seats on PS-112 and PS-113.
The situation might change further, however, as Saleem Zia, the PML-N candidate on provincial seat, told The News that he was also an independent candidate on NA-250. But he added that he could withdraw if the PTI’s Dr Arif Alvi agreed to support him on the provincial seat.
The Pakistan People’s Party candidate Rashid Rabbani is also in the run for the national assembly seat. The PPP’s Waqar Mehdi announced the party would fully participate in the re-polling process both on national and provincial assembly seats.
Another senior journalist Babar Ayaz said the election commission must reconsider the MQM’s plea to hold re-polling in the entire NA-250 constituency. “The boycott of the MQM is not in the interest of democracy,” he claimed.
“The vote bank of the MQM has reduced indeed but the party still enjoys 18 national assembly seats in Karachi,” Ayaz said. “There will be no big political changes if the MQM loses out on one seat. I cannot see any major political changes in the near future despite the people being fed up with the law and order situation.”
The MQM had changed the political demographics in the 1980s when the party emerged as a strong political group after local body elections. Since then the party has won almost all the elections. While the people’s mindset had changed after the ethnic divide and then sectarian polarisation and the people supported the MQM, the call to change the political players attracted the people and they joined the struggle for a change.
But whatever the result of this re-polling will be, the political intensity will grow in city.
Independent observers believe that the threat for the MQM will grow in the coming days. The former coalition partners of the MQM, the Awami National Party and PPP, have also lost their popularity and support in Karachi and the re-polls will provide space for new players – a major setback for the old guards.
Pakistan is poised to be the largest recipient of UK aid with an expected 67 per cent increase, which will jack up the amount of aid to 446 million pounds next year. In a country blighted by a faltering economy and tumbling social care support, this magnanimity sparked a new debate. A disgruntled British parliamentary committee lamented that the increase in aid should be made contingent upon greater tax collection from the rich and clamping down on corruption in Pakistan. The chairman of the Committee, Malcolm Bruce, said that “we cannot expect people in the UK to pay taxes to improve education and health in Pakistan if the Pakistani elite do not pay meaningful amounts of income tax”.
Considering Europe’s economic recession, such vexation is likely to spiral in the coming years. Pakistan’s tax administration is debilitated by inefficiency, corruption and apathy by the elite. Except the salaried middle class who has no option, everyone else can easily escape the porous tax net. Pakistan has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios, with only nine per cent of GDP contributed by taxes, and trails behind other Asian countries, e.g., Afghanistan (11 per cent), Sri Lanka (13 per cent), India (16 per cent) and Thailand (17 per cent). The chairman of the FBR made a startling revelation at a meeting of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Finance, last year, by sharing that 84 per cent of tariff and duty rates have either been exempted or reduced to benefit certain influential lobbies. He aptly termed it a “Financial NRO”. This explains another flabbergasting fact that during the past five years, the government took loans of Rs604 billionfrom the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and vitiated the benefit by issuing tax exemptions of Rs719 billion during the same years. In a country of 180 million, only 3.5 million persons are registered taxpayers, 1.5 million of whom are dormant and one million are salaried employees. It is hard for anyone on earth to countenance this obnoxious perpetuation.
The UK — one of the largest social sector financer of Pakistan — is at the cusp of stagflation and soaring youth unemployment. Concomitant yawning economic disparities and suicides have dwarfed all past records in Europe. According to a research conducted in the UK, 30 per cent of income in 2005 remained with the top five per cent of earners. The Topical youth NEET (not in employment, education and training) has crossed 1.2 million in Britain, whereas, Greece, Spain and Italy are enduring a tailspin. May Day witnessed highly charged protest rallies in major cities of Europe. In this backdrop, a teeth-baring reaction to aid is plausible. Although geopolitical interests of the US and the UK have a perforce to ensure sustained flow of aid to Pakistan, this may, however, entail stringent conditions in future years.
Pakistan, as a surrogate battlefield for the US and its allies, had been receiving a generous dole-out for decades, though, at an exorbitant price of self-esteem and pride. Aid effectiveness is yet another conundrum. While billions of dollars are funnelled, citizens are still entangled in perpetuating poverty, terrorism continues to torments lives and the country endures perennial political instability. Demand for drastic measures to reform a dishevelled polity and economy cannot be parried any longer. In a rapidly changing economic vista, in the so-called developed world, Pakistan needs to device strategies to wean away from foreign aid and plug breaches in the national exchequer. Prosperity and dignity can never be achieved through begging bowls.
If there is a single message to be taken in Pakistan’s democratic transitional elections of 2013, it is that the voters have spoken loud and clear in favor of change.. not a Tsunami.. but the kind of experienced leadership that would address the complex task of handling terrorism and a mutilated economy.
For years, the writing was on the wall that come election day the suffering nation would take away the mantle of leadership from the default president – Asif Ali Zardari and his Pakistan Peoples Party government. Still the heavy mandate with which the twice elected, twice dismissed prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif has emerged, has taken all the talking heads by surprise.
The erosion of the PPP from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan is the kind that Benazir Bhutto attempted to avoid throughout her political life. In the 1991, when her spouse Zardari stayed in the background, I saw Benazir fret in Jacobabad, Sindh that her stay in a small town might reduce her image from a national to a provincial leader.
Given the PPP’s failure to hold rallies or even corner meetings — and its focus instead on advertisements of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto — has predictably confined the PPP into a Sindh based party. With PPP stalwarts defeated in all but its home province, the resignation of top party leaders has eroded much of the capital accumulated by the Bhuttos.
There is no disputing the fact that the Taliban militancy denied the liberal PPP, MQM and ANP a level playing field by killing their leaders and supporters ahead of elections. By sparing the Pakistan Muslim League and Tehrik-i-Insaf or even the JUI (F), Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan and Fazlur Rehman were allowed to hold major rallies without significant disruption.
The greatest injustice was committed against honest and brave leaders of the Awami National Party – who took the heat of the Taliban onslaught – but were still voted out of their offices from the electorate.
Ultimately, voters argued that political parties paid the price of failing to govern amid the deteriorating situation. They demonstrated less sympathy with how the secular leadership was being killed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban and a greater concern that the political leadership failed to find a way out to end terrorism.
It ended up being a situation where some argue that democracy was “orchestrated” by the establishment using the TTP to serve their ends.
Whether or not this may prove to be the case, the fact is that people voted in large numbers, and despite terror threats by the TTP to elect a leadership that they believe would bring Pakistan back from the brink.
Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif appears to be displaying the maturity and statesman ship that shows he is ready not only to give Imran Khan his right to form the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but also to allow representative leadership in Balochistan and Sindh.
Khan deserves the credit for giving a voice to the people… jostling complacent leaders into action… and in reaching out to the new head of government.
Bottom line. The people have spoken through their vote. It is now up to the leaders to represent all sections of society and in the best possible interest of the nation.
Nawaz Sharif with Imran Khan (Credit: Pakistan.com.pk)
LAHORE: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Wednesday vowed to cooperate with incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on terrorism and other major challenges following key elections.
Khan made the remarks from his hospital bed, where he is laid up with a fractured spine after falling at a campaign rally, after his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf polled third place, behind Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N).
“We have decided that despite severe differences that we have, we will work together to resolve major national problems including terrorism,” Khan said in a video message aired during a PTI press conference.
Sharif had earlier pledged to work with Khan for the good of the country, after visiting the former cricket star in hospital on Tuesday.
“Elections are over and we all as a nation want to move forward,” Khan said, adding he wanted all politicians and the military to sit down together and find a solution to domestic terrorism, which has killed thousands of people in Pakistan.
“We cannot ensure prosperity until we eliminate the issue of terrorism,” he said.
Khan also has vowed to put together a provincial coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and turn it into a “role model” for the rest of the country.
ECP should investigate rigging allegations
Expressed his reservations over the election process at some polling stations, Khan alleged Wednesday that vote rigging had taken place in 25 constituencies, and urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to immediately investigate allegations of rigging and irregularities and conduct a recount in four National Assembly constituencies.
“It is the responsibility of the Election Commission to satisfy the voters. We suspect polls have been rigged in 25 constituencies. Today we are giving the ECP four constituencies where recount should be carried out with the use of fingerprinting,” said Khan.
“We will submit an application today. The ECP has already ordered recount at one of these four constituencies, but without fingerprinting,” said the PTI chief, urging the use of fingerprints to make the process more credible.
“We have calculated that it will take two days for the ECP for the process of recount with fingerprints at four constituencies.”
Khan said that it was important to satisfy voters who were protesting in the streets of Lahore and Karachi. Khan also said that the exercise was also essential to curb rigging in the future, and to take the democratic process forward in a smooth and acceptable manner.
“This is the right of the people…and will ensure the democratic process grows stronger,” he said. “We expect the ECP to fulfill their responsibility.”
“These people who are protesting against alleged rigging…it is the ECP’s responsibility to satisfy them, otherwise these people will lose their faith on the democratic process and will not come out to vote in the future.”
MQM chief Altaf Hussain (Credit: nation.com.pk)LONDON, May 14: Scotland Yard confirmed on Monday that it had received a “substantial number of calls and emails” from Pakistanis after Altaf Hussain, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader, made a speech on Sunday and said that if the “establishment’ doesn’t like the mandate of his party, it should go ahead and detach it from the rest of the country.”
Referring to sit-in protest by Pakistani Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) at Teen Talwar in Karachi, Altaf Hussain had said that he had stopped his followers from confrontation but will allow them to go ahead if their patience is tested beyond limits. A Scotland Yard spokesman said on Monday: “We have received a substantial number of calls and emails from Pakistanis. We are aware of the comments and why we are being approached but no formal investigation has been started. We are looking into these complaints.”
The News is aware that Pakistani student groups, political activists and individuals approached the police and the Home Office to state that Mr Hussain had urged violence in the city of Karachi in the telephonic address. Lots of these calls were also made from Pakistan on a police number that was distributed on social media sites.
There is no chance that the British government would initiate a public inquiry as it would not like to be involved in a messy Pakistani affair, but it may quietly speak to Pakistani political parties in the UK not to say or do anything that disturbs law and order situation on its own soil.
The MQM’s Rabita Committee member Mustafa Aziziabad told The News that Altaf Hussain’s opponents were spreading “baseless and negative propaganda” about Hussain’s speech. “Altaf bhai only spoke about the continuous negative propaganda about elections in Karachi.
Analysts and anchors were continuously saying negative things about Karachi without any evidence, not mentioning anything about other parts of the country. He actually spoke in favour of Quaid-i-Azim and Allama Iqba’s Pakistan.”
Meanwhile, Pakistani students from various student societies and activists gathered outside Pakistan High Commission to register their protest against the alleged vote-rigging. Called on a short notice but attended by nearly 500, the protestors called for re-election in several constituencies and alleged that the MQM and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) were involved in effective vote-rigging and used dirty tricks to deprive the PTI of its mandate.
Several students said their relatives in Karachi and Lahore were not able to vote because obstacles were created for them. They said that opponents of Imran Khan were uniting forces against “change” and were shaken because the youth of Pakistan has become active.
Ayesha Khan, a City Law School student, said: “It is our democratic right to have a fair and transparent election. Our right to vote has been sabotaged by the powerful, some have been caught red handed, others not allowing the results to be announced and clear victories have turned in close margin defeats over night.”
Amna Hayat, a student at the University of Edinburgh, said due to examinations she was not able to go home and cast her vote.
“The unfair violation of this right by MQM and PML-N is absolutely unacceptable! This peaceful protest in London is an attempt by the overseas Pakistanis to voice our anger at the situation, and show the rigging parties, the ECP, the Pakistani Government as well as the world that we will not tolerate this injustice,” she said.
Vishal Shamsi said that he had helped organise the protest because “we feel extremely helpless here sitting and doing nothing while our families and friends are out on the street protesting in Karachi and Lahore”.
The National Union of Pakistani Students and Alumni (NUPSA) said that the 11 May elections were to decide the future of Pakistan, and it seems that despite a 60% voter turnout claimed by CEC of Election Commission of Pakistan Fakhruddin G Ibrahim, the people’s mandate was not respected.
“We demand the ECP to conduct an impartial investigation of riggings done across the country and conduct re-elections under the supervision of Pakistan Army senior officials and international observers,” NUPSA said in a statement, sent to The News
As Pakistanis head to the polls for general elections on May 11, something to watch among top candidates for prime minister is how they position themselves in relation to Pakistan’s powerful military establishment. The military has essentially ruled the country for more than half of the country’s 66 years. This election marks the first transfer of power from one government to another without any military interference.
Nawaz Sharif is considered the front-runner to become Pakistan’s next prime minister.
Mr. Sharif, a business magnate, jumped into politics as a protégé of the military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq during the 1980s, after the Sharif family lost much of their business under the nationalization policy of the previous civilian government.
While he was Pakistan’s prime minister from 1990 until 1993 he was popularly known for his economic liberalization policies. After taking office again in 1997 his government was upended in a coup in 1999 when Sharif tried to remove the army chief, Pervez Musharraf, from office.
He was tried on terrorism and corruption charges in a military court and given a life sentence. But Saudi Arabia, where his family did significant business, came to his rescue. And under an agreement with the Saudi government, Sharif was exiled from the country.
He returned to Pakistan in 2007 to participate in the last elections, this time as a heavy critic of the military that once brought him to power. His party, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), a center-right, pro-business party, came into power in Punjab Province under his leadership.
Sharif continues to run the family steel business, making his family one of the wealthiest in the country, and favored among business elites.
He’s been long criticized for suspected covert support of Islamic extremist groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has links with Al Qaeda and is headquartered in Punjab. Sharif’s party denies alliance with extremists; however, while the Pakistani Taliban have pledged to attack the Awami National Party (ANP), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and the liberal Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) parties, no extremist groups have threatened to disrupt campaigning by the PML-N or Sharif.
He promises to take Pakistan out of many challenging crisis, including bringing an end to crippling power shortages, improving law and order, and reviving the economy. No one is quite sure how many seats his party will win, but analysts say he may have to form a coalition. Still, unlike the PPP-led government which just left office, A Sharif government is likely to be more proactive in responding to issues, and thus more popular.
On Wednesday, doctors at the hospital where the 60-year-old was being treated said the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) would have to remain in bed for several days to come after falling 4.5 metres (15 ft) from a makeshift lift and damaging his back.
His campaign was supposed to end with a final rally of supporters on Thursday, with polling then taking place on Saturday.
Khan, who sustained three fractured vertebrae and a broken rib, is now unlikely to take part and has ruled out going to vote in his home constituency of Mianwali, in north-west Punjab.
Faisal Sultan, his doctor, said the politician would recover if allowed to rest. He said: “The most important and reassuring thing is that the spinal canal is intact and Mr Khan is in full control of his limbs and body functions. There was no neurological compromise.”
Khan has benefited from a wave of public concern and sympathy from supporters and opponents alike, with other leading parties cancelling many campaign events on Wednesday.
The PTI has turned an interview recorded with Khan as he lay in a neck brace in a hospital bed just hours after the accident into a party political broadcast repeatedly aired by various TV channels.
The shaken looking Khan said it was up to voters to elect leaders “in the name of ideology” rather than on the basis of personality, adding: “I have done whatever I could do. Now you have to decide whether you want to make a new Pakistan.”
Mohammad Malick, a prominent journalist, said the images in the broadcast would more than compensate for the loss of time on the campaign trail. “This really resonates because people like the image of a fighter, of a warrior,” he said. “He took this terrible fall and he’s recovering quickly – that is a powerful image.”
Malick said it could also help boost voter turnout, which analysts believe will benefit Khan more than the frontrunner, Nawaz Sharif, the head of his faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).
A poll published by the political magazine Herald on Wednesday showed the PTI and PML-N were virtually tied, with the latter leading by less than a percentage point among the 1,285 people surveyed.
Khan’s frenetic campaigning in recent weeks, which has seen him do as many as four rallies a day, appears to have galvanised the public and given the PTI momentum.
But because of the first-past-the-post, constituency-based system used in Pakistan, it is possible that Khan will win many more votes than seats. Most analysts anticipate a hung parliament, with the former cricketer turned politician holding the balance of power or leading the opposition.
Khan has in the past insisted he would never enter into a coalition with either the PML-N or the Pakistan Peoples party (PPP), which has been in power for five years.
“We are in totally uncharted waters,” said Malick. “He could get maybe between 40 to 50 seats, but we just don’t know.”
Governments require 172 seats to form a majority in parliament.
In an interview to a local television station, Khan revealed that his injuries could have been worse if he had not been wearing a bulletproof jacked under his shirt, which doctors believe protected his spine.
Pictures that have emerged of the incident show a man in a black T-shirt appeared to have accidentally pushed Khan, who lost his balance and fell to the ground along with at least three of his aides.
Bilawal on campaign trail (Credit: dailystar.com.lb)
THE battle lines have been drawn as polling day closes in. The outcome of these elections, now less than a week away, is perhaps the most difficult to predict since the 1970s. There may be many surprises waiting as the battle at the hustings intensifies.
It is no more a traditional fight for the crown between the two long-term rivals, the PPP and PML-N. The meteoric rise of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has completely changed the country’s electoral scene. A quintessential outsider is now challenging the domination of the two established parties.
Seemingly, the elections have essentially become a contest between the PML-N and PTI with the region along the Grand Trunk Road in the Punjab becoming the main battleground. Various opinion polls vindicate the widespread perception.
While the two front runners are jostling it out, the PPP seems to be out of breath. Its lacklustre election campaign does not give much hope to party loyalists. Is this the twilight moment for the party which has been at Pakistan’s political centre stage since its inception some four decades ago? Maybe, or not as yet. But the decline of the PPP’s political base is shocking.
Leaderless and rudderless sums up the current state of the PPP, as it struggles to stay in the critical race. There are no big election rallies nor is there any central leader to galvanise the electorate. For the first time, the party has gone into the election campaign without a Bhutto to lead it. Therefore there is no Bhutto charisma to revive the party’s fast-diminishing populist credibility.
Not only was Benazir Bhutto there to start the party’s 2008 election campaign, her assassination drew sympathy votes bringing back the party to power after a hiatus of 11 years. But now a critical peg to hang on to and a fight-back to regain the ground lost during its not so enviable five-year term in office appear to be missing. The party’s TV campaign advertisements reflect its desperation to clutch on to the past and resort to the politics of martyrdom.
It is largely a negative campaign targeting the past record of the PML-N. There is nothing about its own performance or what the party will offer to the electorate in the future. This illustrates the defeatist mindset of a party that is unable to defend its incompetence and corruption-ridden rule. It is a sad commentary on the state of what was once the most formidable political force in the country.
Over the past 40 years, the PPP went through many ups and downs, but it has never seen its fortunes plummeting so rapidly. It is a party now trying to live off its past without any hope for the future. One of the greatest assets of the party that kept it alive through the worst of times was its contact with the masses. That seems to have been completely lost due to the party’s new ethos of political wheeling and dealing and buying loyalties.
Not surprisingly, this new political culture is manifested in the emergence of people of the ilk of Manzoor Wattoo, Anwar Saifullah, Faryal Talpur and Owais Muzaffar ‘Tappi’ as the faces of the party. The jiyalas have long disappeared, leaving the party soulless.
The attempt to launch Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to infuse some life into the party’s dead election campaign seems to have failed because of his reported falling out with his father and paternal aunt. In any case it would have been very difficult for an untested young man with little understanding of the realities and complexities of the country’s politics to boost the flagging morale of the party and to win votes.
For long, the party’s support base in the urban areas particularly in Punjab has been shrinking, but it now seems to be heading to an expulsion there with the PTI and PML-N now fighting for the urban middle-class votes. The party’s only hope is to scavenge some seats because of the divided votes between the two main contestants.
The PPP has largely become a rural-based party with its support mainly concentrated in feudal-dominated Sindh and south Punjab. Yet, it seems hard to predict whether it can maintain its hold in those regions too in the elections. While the party is most likely to retain its domination in Sindh, it may not get the same margin of victory. The failure of the PPP government to deliver on its promises to its constituents has also eroded the party’s vote bank in its stronghold.
Having said that, the PPP may be down but it is certainly not completely out of the race. Even with a far fewer number of seats, the party will remain relevant in an expectedly fragmented house, though it is likely to not be in a position to lead the coalition.
In a scenario where the PTI gets close to the number of seats as the PML-N, it would become much more difficult to form a viable and effective coalition government. In a hung parliament the PPP with its majority in the Senate will hold the balance.
But the real issue is whether a rudderless PPP with a declining mass base is able to emerge united after a possible electoral setback or whether the situation would lead to the complete unravelling of a party that still claims to espouse liberal credentials.
The May 11 elections are indeed important for the party, but a more critical issue is whether it can ever regain its lost mass base. This is only possible if the party reforms itself in a changed political, social and cultural environment. It is certainly an uphill task for a party that depends on its past and does not seem to be looking towards the future.
