Pakistan poll campaign gains momentum

As the winter chill sets in across Pakistan, political parties are making a concerted pitch to come to power in next month's general election despite fears expressed by several leaders that the polls would not be free and fair.

With a little over three weeks to go for the January 8 polls, leaders like former Premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have hit the campaign trail, trying to woo voters with promises of ushering in genuine democracy and ending military rule.

Observers believe that the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q has an edge over Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Sharif's PML-N as it began working to woo rural voters much before the poll schedule was even announced.

The PML-Q could, however, be hit by two factors -- its support for the increasingly unpopular President Pervez Musharraf and the lack of any charismatic leaders.

Former federal minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a confidant of Musharraf, recently joked that Sharif's PML-N had 'good jockeys but no horses' to run the electoral race while the PML-Q, which ruled Pakistan for the past five years, had 'good horses but no jockeys.'

The PML-N has the added disadvantage of entering the election arena only after failing in an attempt to get all political parties to boycott the polls. The attempt fell by the wayside as the PPP refused to join the boycott and only a handful of smaller parties, including Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Jamaat-e-Islami, decided to abstain.

The issue of the boycott also led to a split in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the alliance of religious parties. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam faction led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who harbours ambitions of being the next prime minister, was adamant about contesting the polls and this led to the fragmentation of the MMA.

Most analysts also believe the polls will throw up a fractured verdict, forcing the key players to form a coalition to come to power. The PML-Q is already wooing Rehman's JUI faction and has agreed to seat adjustments with it in Sindh and North West Frontier Province. The two parties are also expected to work together in the politically crucial Punjab province to keep the PML-N at bay.

PML-Q insiders readily admit that Sharif's return from exile, albeit at a late stage in the election process, would hit their party's prospects in the politically crucial Punjab province, which holds the key to gaining power in the National Assembly.

"The PML-N may take away up to 30 per cent of our votes in Punjab," a top PML-Q leader who did not want to be named told PTI.

Despite allegations by Bhutto and Sharif that the polls would be rigged, Musharraf has insisted that the election will be free, fair and transparent.

During an address to the nation on Saturday night after withdrawing the six-week-old state of emergency, he repeated his assertion that the polls would be impartial and again warned political parties that he would not tolerate 'agitational politics.'

Musharraf has said he will work with any one who wins the polls, and Bhutto indicated yesterday she would be willing to serve under him if the election is free and fair.

Sharif, who has made the reinstatement of judges sacked during the emergency the 'number one item on his agenda,' has vowed to end Musharraf's 'dictatorship.'

Pakistan's parliamentary polls since 1988 have been characterised by low turnouts, ranging from 36 per cent in 1997 to 46 per cent in 1990. Though the country has 80 million registered voters, the poll percentage in the upcoming election too is expected to be low, as none of the opposition leaders appear to have captured the imagination of the electorate.

Observers noted that Bhutto's campaign speeches focusing on allegations of rigging have not made much of an impact on the masses, especially in backward areas like Balochistan, where she is currently campaigning.

Her secret parleys with Musharraf on a power-sharing arrangement, suspended after emergency was imposed, are also expected to affect her chances.

Sharif, who himself has been disqualified from contesting polls, has been focussing on Punjab, a stronghold of his party, but his PML-N is not very strong at the grassroots level as both he and his brother Shahbaz were in exile for nearly seven years and did not have a strong second-rung leadership to fall back on like Bhutto's PPP.

The election campaign, which is expected to register a lull during the Eid-ul-Azha holidays later this week, will pick up momentum again by the end of this month and the last week of December is expected to throw up a clearer picture of the position of the key players in Pakistan's turbulent political scenario.