Hold on and pause: Where are we headed?

Pakistan has had a roller coaster history of elections. Powerful interests initially prevented and distorted constitution-making with a view to preventing a free election being held. The first national election did take place a quarter of a century after Pakistan's independence. Dictator Gen. Yahya Khan wanted to achieve a certain objective through those elections. Since the desired results could not be achieved, the foolish dictator rejected them. The price of that folly was terrible: Islamabad achieved a decisive military defeat at India's hand, political defeat at the hands of a rebellious East Bengal and the country was dismembered; there were other humiliations.

Three immediate lessons are obvious: First, allowing special groups to become vested interests, with the ability to take over the state, created strong political resentments in wide sections of deprived citizenry. Not holding elections for long to prevent free expression of popular resentments made passions run high. And when the first free elections were held in 1970, all hell broke loose. East Pakistan voted solidly for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League that was being carried along the crest of a popular tsunami. Yahya Khan's bad faith and use of mindless force led to the emergence of Bangladesh that demonstrates to this day that Islamic rhetoric alone cannot be the salvation of any Muslim nation. Experience in western wing was slightly different.

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The second is that democracy is the only road to a nation's unity and a state's survival. Allowing military dictators to stage repeated coups d'etat is inviting disaster. The third is more profound: dictators either don't hold elections as Ayub Khan carefully stage-managed peculiar polls several times or he is forced to disown his own election -- the way Yahya Khan acted after a gross miscalculation. A dictator can only “manage” elections to obtain “positive” results for his own survival. He has no other option.

A free election has not been repeated in Pakistan since 1970. Z.A. Bhutto held the March 1977 election and needlessly rigged it. Its blow back effect was Ziaul Haq's military takeover and Bhutto's own judicial murder. Zia chose to nominate a Majlis-i-Shoora and later exercised the Article 58-2-b powers to dismiss his own chosen Premier, Mohammad Khan Junejo. But after his 11 long years of dictatorship, his successors in the Army chose to be more sophisticated.

They did not openly take over. But conscious of their power -- that by then had become the expected order of things -- they kept the elected 'democratic' system firmly under the COAS' thumb. They evolved a neat way of 'managing' elections through intelligence agencies to produce the desired results. They could boast to unwary foreign journalists and American Administration: Look; they have all the paraphernalia of a parliamentary democracy -- all the institutions that India or Britain has. They held as many as five general elections during the last 18 years and each under a caretaker government they nominated.

And yet all the five elected PMs were prematurely dismissed by two Presidents (each of whom was, more or less, a political nobody). It was claimed that all elected PMs committed crimes of corruption and mis-governance. One PM was briefly restored by the Apex Court. But he had to go when the COAS of the day insisted he should go, with his service revolver showing on his person. That incident gave away the game. Presidents, with hardly any constituency of their own, could fire five elected PMs in a row. How, could they do it to a PM who and his party had managed to garner millions of recorded votes? The COAS, in each case, stood behind the President. The military was in control of ultimate power by making the President to use the axe when COAS desires. That power to dismiss the PM and the whole Parliament under Article 58 (b)(2) was written into the organic law at a dictator's behest for just the purpose of ensuring that nothing should stand in the way of COAS' desires.

Pakistan today has had seven general elections behind it. It saw the military keep the country's nukes programme safe from the untrusted eyes of at least Benazir. Each of the last five elections has had its results conform to what the Army desired. How that was achieved can be inferred from a range of steps the agencies took at different stages of an election that later found their way into newspapers. Isn't there a price to be paid for this tamasha? It would be odd if there isn't any.

People of Pakistan, after 1972, have had a variant of the experiences the East Bengalis had made before 1971: earlier there was the spectacle of a bogus Basic Democracy of and for the military establishment by a bunch of elected marionettes. Later, a form of democracy sans its spirit or power, was observed. The common citizen has continued to be cheated. Look closely: what has this resulted in?

All the faultlines -- ethnic, linguistic, religious (sectarian) and ideological -- are not only active but have become explosive. Politics in each province is distinctive. A Taliban takeover of FATA and even NWFP is now a possibility. Balochistan is exploding; let's not forget the tragedies often have small beginnings. Sindh is polarised and extremely unhappy. Punjab of course has yet to make up its mind about where to go. President Pervez Musharraf's admission that building the Kalabagh Dam is his aim in life can only inflame Sindhi and NWFP opinion. Pakistan may have to pay dearly for this tawdry piece of electioneering to court Punjabi opinion.

After Pakistan has provided all the data, why does it squirm at being told that it is 9th in the list of failed states? Well may Islamabad value the certificates of good health from those who say Pakistan has to do (much) more? But few citizens pay much attention to such certificates while the credibility of negative assessments is high.

The occasion for these pessimistic thoughts is the approaching election in January 2008. Would it be a repeat of 2002 one? Commonsense says they will have to achieve what the 2002 one did: confirming the power of Gen. Musharraf and to carry on his 'good work'. Just think: what would happen if the new election ushers in the enemies of Musharraf. It will be too messy a situation; President may have to reject the election results. The generals cannot but want 'positive' results. The 'good work' has to be carried on. The polls will have to be managed as hitherto. As for the longer-term consequences, well, one who rides a tiger has no time for philosophising.

As for the detail about the caretakers, one notices the lobbying efforts of some technocrats already. A caretaker government is no safeguard at all. Will the caretakers be free to ignore the General's preferences? Those who appoint them will call their tune for them. Let's not talk about caretakers. Pakistanis have been here before.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.