Currently an election is imminent in Pakistan. This election is being held on 18^th February 2008 for the national and provincial assemblies

The two main parties contesting the elections are the Peoples Party and the Muslim League of the Nawaz Sharif faction.

Concerned Pakistanis who are knowledgeable about Pakistani politics view the whole scenario with great consternation. There is good cause for this consternation; both these parties have had two stints each to be in government. First it was the Pakistan Peoples Party or the PPP in 1988 which was popularly elected but this government was sacked after about two years by the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on charges of corruption and inefficiency. This was followed by Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League forming the government after being ‘popularly elected’ but this government too was sacked in 1993 by the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan for corruption and inefficiency. The courts declared the sacking as incorrect but said that in view of the fresh elections having being called, they must be allowed to be held. So fresh elections were held as a result of which once again Benazir’s Peoples Party won the elections and formed the government with a party stalwart, Farooq Leghari, as the president. But this PPP government too was sacked, this time by a party stalwart who had been elected president by the party, Farooq Leghari on charges of extra-judicial killing and corruption. Once again elections were held and this time the Nawaz Muslim League came to power with a two third majority in 1996. But soon after he sacked the Army chief General Musharraf when he was out of the country [mind you, sacking an army general when he is out of the country is illegal according to Pakistani laws] and appointed the chief of Inter Services Intelligence [who was his loyalist] as the new army chief. But when he was about to make this announcement on national television, the army took over. It sacked the government and handed over power to General Musharraf when he landed in the country.

Since then i.e. since 12^th October 1999, Musharraf and his team have been running the country and they have worked a sort of miracle by turning around Pakistan from a failed state condition to a country with 7 percent annual growth rate.

But there has been pressure on Musharraf domestically by the opposition parties, led mainly by the two parties named above i.e. the PPP and the PML-N to bring western style democracy in Pakistan as removed from military rule, however benign it may be, and by the western powers who are the major donors as well as the major investors. Musharraf withstood both pressures successfully for so long while he and his team turned the country around towards prosperity although he was trying in the meanwhile to bring about a real democratic order in Pakistan in phases.

In order to make the upcoming elections, Musharraf was forced by international pressure to go for national reconciliation by allowing Benazir and Nawaz to return to Pakistan and contest the elections even though he had previously declared that he would not allow both these personalities to contest elections in Pakistan.

But why are knowledgeable Pakistanis expressing concern? They are doing so because both PPP and PML-N governments have been tried not once but twice but within a few years of their coming to power both have been found to be corrupt, inefficient and self serving rather than serving the masses. The shenanigans of both these governments had taken the country to the brink of default.

Now they say that they are sorry for their past mistakes and if they come to power once again they will ‘behave’. Third term in power is very, very difficult to acquire but Pakistanis worry that if any of these two parties came to power as a result of this election or if any of them leads a coalition government then the future of the country may be jeopardized!

Their apologies are hardly credible because their behavior and that of their cronies after they have returned to Pakistan is anything but conciliatory or reformatory. Therefore, trying once again the political parties that have each been tried twice in government in the past is a big folly. Unfortunately, the majority of the Pakistani population is illiterate and very easily persuaded to follow any line.

The only saving grace is that Musharraf is there as the elected President to sack any government that works against the national interests. It is true that a two third majority in the parliament can impeach the president but the prospect of any party getting a two-third majority or forming a coalition with two-third majority seems very difficult because despite what the party leaders claim they will do after coming to power once again, the people of Pakistan are quite knowledgeable about their past performances and will not be fooled by their hollow claims. Ends.

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Tags: Elections, Government, PML-N, PPP