As the things stand till these words are penned, there is no likelihood of an even playingfield being offered to the contestants in the elections. The parties challenging the incumbents will be lagging far behind in ‘advantages’. They will start with the knowledge that the caretaker governments in the Centre and the Provinces happen to have been appointed by President General Pervez Musharraf who is on record to have campaigned for the success of the ruling alliance.
Adding to it will be the fact that the Local Governments are dominated by the PML-Q loyalists, and they are not expected to refrain from using their authority and influence to promote the cause of the ruling alliance’s candidates. Meaning thereby that the strong arm of the administration will very much be operative to the greater and greater advantage of the ruling party’s nominees. Regarding the Election Commission, the less we say the better, because what America’s Secretary of State Madam Condoleezza Rice has said is meaningful enough. “We don’t find the chances of fair elections bright under this Election Commission which does not enjoy the confidence of all of the participants.” It can be said here that American opinion should not be any yardstick in our national affairs, but isn’t it a known and acknowledged fact that American Administration is forcefully committed to the objective of General Pervez Musharraf’s “continuity in command” in the so-called war on terror?
Why should then Americans express ‘apprehensions’ against the General’s interests, if the issue in question doesn’t involve the ‘fundamentals’ of fairness? As if all of the above advantages enjoyed by the rulers were not enough to guarantee their ‘imminent’ success, the ‘arsenal’ of ‘electoral firepower’ has been further enforced by the introduction of the Emergency factor because of which almost all the probable and potential challengers to the incumbents already find themselves behind the bars. It is argued that the so-called Emergency is required essentially to fight terrorism. But when one looks at the ground realities, one finds that those charged, booked and held under the ‘terrorism act’ are the likes of Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Munir Malik and Imran Khan etc. Are they the ones behind the insurgency in the north? Let us not try to sell the Farce being written in the corridors of power, as a remedy to the ills that have seized our political morality.
29-3-2014
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