Let's Play Election Election
ALL RIGHT, I give up. There's nothing you, nor I, nor anyone else can do either about Madam Benazir Bhutto or the PDA , which has gone and demanded fresh elections because the present Parliament "is bogus where such people are sitting who don't have the right to sit there."
This is a quote from the PDA White Paper on the 1990 elections, a summary of which was released to the Press in Islamabad on Wednesday. Present on the occasion were Madam Bhutto , Air Marshal Asghar Khan (but who else), Malik Qasim (poor thing), and the redoubtable Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri. One wonders why Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan wasn't there.
Some time ago, the American National Democratic Institute had reported that electoral malpractices had been resorted to in 32 National Assembly constituencies. The PDA upped them on to 70.
All right, let us accept that the 1990 elections were massively rigged and that, as the PDA White Paper put it, "Neither the Prime Minister nor his brother are entitled to sit in his House."
Well, if the house is "bogus" (not my description, may it please be noted. I am afraid of privilege motions), anyone can sit there. Madam Bhutto included.
The present House, being allegedly bogus as news reporters put it across the land to save themselves from possible libel charges; the PDA has demanded fresh elections under a neutral government .
How neutral does the PDA want the caretaker government to be? The President can sack the Prime Minister . Does the PDA want the President to resign because he can't be sacked?
The kind of neutrality the PDA has in mind can't be expected of administration headed by Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan , who has been accused time and again of partisanship by Madam Benazir Bhutto . So who will assure a neutral interim government ? The armed forces or the judiciary? The Constitution does not allow either option even if the President quits; the Chairman of the Senate will step in as acting President. So, if we have to play election election, let us do it every 90 days, with the permission of the President, of course. For instance, if Parliament is dissolved today, a new one-as the Constitution lays down-must be inducted within 90 days. This is June 14, elections must be held on or before September 12.
Let us have a gruelling election campaign in blinding heat, and let us all be as violent and vituperative and vindictive and vicious and vainglorious and venomous and vile and vengeful and vulgar as we possibly can.
With election held on September 12, let a government be installed under a mutually agreed rigging formula. Let us take terms at rigging and other electoral wrongdoing. Do you appreciate the brilliance of my proposal? Look at the amount of money that will flow and percolate down to the poor voter.
But hold on. After the new government has been installed, let there be a mutually agreed truce, say, for 90 days. After the expiry of the truce period, let the party now in opposition begin a campaign and shout how it had been rigged out of office. This should be somewhere in December.
Let the government be dismissed by the President , and let the caretakers come in again. And let there be fresh elections in which the voters can return the same faces belonging to the same old clans.
Even as I write these lines, there is a procession moving up The Mall towards the Assembly Chambers. " Hai hai! Hai hai! " they are chanting. Under my wonderful formula, these processions will become a daily routine. Prices will fall; farm and factory production will pick up; educational standards will improve; income per capita will lap to American standards; democratic institutions will be strengthened; exports will jump; smuggling will end; smugglers will give up their calling; health care will match Western standards; dacoits will disappear; sectarianism will vanish, and in short, there will be great progress all round.
Let us, then, play election with interest. I tell you, I love the PDA . But in the next to next elections, I'II go over to the IJI . If the politicians can do that, why not the voters?
Madam Benazir Bhutto , as I predicted some time ago, is becoming a leader of Nasrullah Khanian proportions. The National Assembly cafeteria is her favourite haunt these days where she holds almost daily Press conferences.
A few days ago, she said that Mr. Nawaz Sharif could not be expected to serve democracy because he was a product of the Martial Law . The least one can say is: een gunahaist ke dar sher-i-shuma neez kunand. This is a sin committed in your town also.
I am not naming names, but Dalip Mukerjie's Quest for Power should be of considerable interest to Madam, this "made by martial law" product has been very popular and can be found in almost all feudal havelis . Glasshouses and stones?
Brother Salman Taseer of the PPP has just been adding to my knowledge. And why not? He is the new Information Secretary of his party.
The IJI gendarme in Rawalpindi , Sheikh Rashid , Mr. Taseer tells me, sports a wig. Mama Mia ! I hope to goodness Rashid Bhai never loses his wig, because I don't want him to become a latter-day Samson because when Samson's hair grew again, he regained his lost strength. Let him keep away from all Delilahs because wigged strength, once lost, can never be regained. This is the bold truth, I swear.
June 13, 1991
