NEW DELHI: The Army will remain the supreme arbiter in Pakistani Politics even if the general elections slated for Oct 24, are held, analysts here feel, PTI reports.
“The praetorian rule and the Army’s historical role in Pakistan will continue. It will continue to occupy the centre stage of power,” experts at the institute for defence studies and analyses (IDSA) say.
The Army will see to it that no political group gets an absolute majority in the polls to enable the generals to play a decisive role in Islamabad’s polities irrespective of the party in power, they say.
If the Islamic Democratic All ance (IDA) comes to power, it will be thankful and behold to the Army, they say. “There will be a kind of master servant relationship between them.”
If the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is ahead of the IDA but fails to get an absolute majority, its leaders will be considerate to the interests of the Army because of their past experiences, experts say.
“They will be very cautious in their approach and will never allow the August 6 situation, when Benazir Bhutto was dismissed from premiership, to be repeated.
But if the PPP wins an absolute majority on its own, “which is unlikely,” it can gradually afford to assert, an expert on Pakistan at the IDSA says. “In that case the army’s position will be somewhat correct and its relationship with the civilian rulers will be balanced.”
However, he says, as the poll day approaches, the clouds of uncertainty about holding of the elections visible from day one, have only thickened.
“There is a strong feeling in Pakistan that if the army and the bureaucracy feel they cannot stop the PPP from regaining power, they will not conduct the polls.”
“Besides the historical fact that sticking to the poll dates in Pakistan is an exception and not the
rule, what is creating uncertainty this time is the unpredictable mind set of the army leadership and the presidency, and the behavior of the caretaker outfit which is but a partisan creature of the former.”
Experts mention two factors here—the process of accountability and the attitude of the powers that be towards the PPP in the event of its projection indicating a bouncing back to the corridors of power.
The authorities in Pakistan, experts say, are having a testing time in case their calculations go away and the charges against Ms Benazir Bhutto do not stick.
In the run up to the elections, ‘one can discern broadly two opposing alliances, one led by the PPP and the other by the Ida Muslim League.
Though this is more or less a duplication of the 1988 elections, there are differences.
Firstly, experts say, this time the PPP has been pragmatic enough not to go alone and has roped in established parties like Tehrik Istiqlal of Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan and the TNFJ representing the influential Shia community. “The alliance should put the PPP in good stead.”
Some experts are of the view that the IDA and its alliance partners have failed to give the PPP a one-to-one fight, and the govt has failed to furnish irrefutable evidence of corruption against the ousted prime minister.
“A dismissed Benazir is going to the hustings as a martyr.”
If the PPP maintains its 1988 position in Sindh and improve upon what it got in Punjab it can get a good lead. In Movement (MQM) and IDA —worked in three different directions and votes were split.
But, some experts are of tie opinion that this time there appears to be an understanding between the IDA and the MQM which might consolidate the rightist votes. On the other hand, they say, the PPP’s rural base is likely to be eroded by the decision of the Sindhi nationalist groups to contest independently. “So the PPP is not going to repeat its 1988 electoral performance in Sindh.”
In Punjab, the fact that the caretaker govt and the army’s stake is high, it will help the IDA in gaining at the expense of the PPP by “hook or crook”, experts say
Article extracted from this publication >> October 26, 1990
