Pakistan Elections 2013: Impact of Youth Vote and Taliban

There are reports of Taliban targeting candidates of ANP, MQM, PPP and other political parties in the country, including in Karachi, the economic hub of the nation. There's also talk of millions of new young men and women voters who may tip the balance in PTI's favor if they do turn out to vote. Who will be the winners and losers in the coming elections? Watch the show to find out!

Election 2013 Symbols of Major Political Parties in Pakistan


Viewpoint from Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discusses with Riaz Haq, Sabahat Ashraf (iFaqeer) and Ali Hasan Cemendtaur upcoming Pakistani Elections 2013, Taliban in Karachi, and rejections by Election Commission of Pakistan.

This show was recorded at 12:30 pm PST on Thursday, April 4, 2013.

Pakistani Elections 2013, Taliban in Karachi, Faraz Darvesh, Riaz Haq, Sabahat Ashraf, iFaqeer, Ali Hasan Cemendtaur, WBT-TV, Viewpoint from Overseas, Pakistanis in the US, Silicon Valley Pakistanis, San Francisco Bay Area Pakistanis

پاکستانی انتخابات ۲۰۱۳، طالبان کراچی میں، اے این پی کو خطرات ، فراز درویش ، ریاض حق، صباحت اشرف، آءی فقیر، علی حسن سمندطور، ڈبلیو بی ٹی ٹی وی، ویو پواءنٹ فرام اوورسیز، امریکہ میں پاکستانی، سلیکن ویلی، سان فرانسسکو بے ایریا

पाकिस्तान, कराची, विएव्पोइन्त फ्रॉम ओवरसीज , फ़राज़ दरवेश, रिअज़ हक , सबाहत अशरफ , ई फ़क़ीर, अली हसन समंदतौर, दब्लेव बी टी टीवी, सिलिकॉन वेली, कैलिफोर्निया, फार्रुख शाह खान, फार्रुख खान



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Comment by Riaz Haq on April 26, 2013 at 5:35pm

Here's a Washington Post report on PPP campaign still led by late Benazir Bhutto:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The most popular politician in Pakistan's largest party won’t be staging any rallies or participating in debates as May’s historic national election nears.

The reason: She's dead.

Yet Benazir Bhutto, assassinated more than five years ago, is still the standard-bearer of the Pakistan People's Party. In its TV commercials and banners, she has been pushed to the forefront of the party’s uphill campaign to return to power in Parliament after a widely criticized five-year term.

Hers is the face of the party on its official manifesto. She looms over smaller photos of her widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, and their son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who lead the party but are rarely seen in public.

The PPP’s campaign in the run-up to the May 11 vote has been proscribed by security concerns. The Pakistani Taliban, which asserted responsibility for Bhutto’s death, has warned the secular party that its candidates and rallies will be attacked. In recent weeks, the militants have killed several leaders and workers in the parties that formed the PPP government’s ruling coalition.

That may be part of the reason that Bhutto, who served twice as prime minister and was Pakistan’s only woman premier, has become a constant presence in the race.
-----------
Bhutto Zardari, 24, is too young to run for a seat in the May 11 election — the minimum age in Pakistan is 25.

In a video released Tuesday, the party heir reassured voters that he “wanted to launch the election campaign in the streets of my country alongside my workers,” but he said it was too dangerous.

“Once again the enemies of peace and prosperity are standing in front of us,” Bhutto Zardari said.

So the party is left with only ghosts to burnish its image.

In campaign ads and on placards, Benazir Bhutto is always clad in a fashionable head scarf — in some photos merely casting a serene gaze, in others raising an arm forcefully, as if at an eternal rally. The latter image has been paired with one of her son giving a victory sign.

In placards hung around the capital, Islamabad, touting one of the party’s National Assembly candidates, Bhutto takes the top position — usually reserved for living candidates for prime minister in other parties’ signs.

The PPP’s signage and literature also rarely fail to invoke the memory of her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who founded the party and later served as Pakistan’s premier and president.

Both of them are bestowed the title “shaheed,” or martyr, whenever mentioned in party speeches and materials.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was deposed in a 1977 military coup and hanged two years later. Today his stolid visage is also an election-season staple, as the party makes a direct photographic appeal to his legacy as a socialist reformer.

“You would hear people say, ‘I will vote for his grave, even, because of what he did for me,’ ” said Usman Khalid, a former Pakistani army brigadier general who resigned to protest Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s execution.

Khalid, 78, runs a one-man Pakistani political party — based in Britain and existing on paper only — and comments on events. He said he knew both Benazir Bhutto and her father and understands the point of the current ads.

“She has got a cult status, and the Bhutto name has got a cult status,” he said. “Martyrdom and martyrs matter.”

As the old PPP slogan goes: “Bhutto is still alive today and Bhutto will still be alive tomorrow.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistans-late-ben...

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 29, 2013 at 4:49pm

Here's an FT report on Pak Army officers' unease over Musharraf's treatment:

Pakistani military officers have complained about the way the armed forces are being treated by politicians and the media ahead of the May 11 general election, stoking fears of renewed military interference in politics after five years of civilian rule.

“Obviously, there is unease among them [army officers],” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who chairs the Senate defence committee. “They see the army being maligned or attacked.” He was commenting on a meeting he had in Islamabad on Friday with 75 mid-career army officers from the Command and Staff College in the western city of Quetta.

According to one serving army general, army officers are unhappy, among other issues, about the treatment of Pervez Musharraf, the former army chief and military dictator who returned from exile to contest the polls but was arrested on charges of treason and other offences.

Officers were particularly irked by images on Pakistani television news channels showing lawyers beating some of Mr Musharraf’s supporters while shouting insults against the man who ran Pakistan for nearly a decade until 2008.

“This treatment has triggered tensions,” the general said. “People are worried about this situation spinning too much out of control.”

Public criticism of politicians and civilian institutions by army officers has been rare in recent years, but the complaints aired at the meeting between the officers and Mr Sayed have been extensively reported by the Pakistani media.

Mehmood Durrani, a retired Major General and former national security adviser, said there was a belief that “the army has become everyone’s favourite whipping boy. When anything goes terribly wrong in Pakistan, it’s because of the army.”

Mr Sayed, the senator, said officers thought the sacrifices they were making in fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the regions bordering Afghanistan were not sufficiently appreciated. “The feeling is that while middle ranking officers are fighting on the front lines, the institution is getting attacked,” he said.

On Monday, eight people were reported killed in Peshawar by a suicide bomber. Human Rights Watch, the international pressure group, meanwhile urged the Pakistani military to provide security for the election in a “non-partisan manner” following numerous Taliban attacks on democratic politicians.

For the moment, analysts say, there are no signs of the army preparing to seize power under General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the chief of staff who has consistently favoured keeping the army out of politics. But the mood could change if army officers believe Mr Musharraf is being badly treated.

“One of the telling indications of things to come will be Musharraf’s trial. If the army concludes that he will not get a fair trial, they will make their resentment known further,” says Hasan Askari Rizvi, an analyst and author of a book on the Pakistan army.

“The army can react by communicating messages discretely to judges and politicians and they can launch a media campaign by leaking information on key politicians to journalists.”

Pro-democracy activists, however, want Mr Musharraf put on trial on a range of charges. He is accused of involvement in both the killing of a prominent tribal leader from Baluchistan province and the arrests of judges and protesting lawyers during his time in power.

The army has ruled Pakistan for almost half its life as an independent state since 1947.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0167cd10-b0bb-11e2-80f9-00144feabdc0.html

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2013 at 1:21pm

Here are excerpts of COAS Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani on Martyrs Day today as reported by News Tribe:

.... The conduct of General Elections is not an end per se, but is surely an important means towards delivering us from our present sufferings. To bring an end to our tribulations, it is also imperative to foster a profound understanding of our national ethos and aspirations. The General Elections will provide us the foundation. To build on this foundation, we would have to find answers to many questions; war against terrorism being one of these questions.

The menace of terrorism and extremism has claimed thousands of lives, including those of the Army, Rangers, FC, Police, Frontier Constabulary, Levies and innocent people of Pakistan. If we include the injured and affected family members of the martyrs, the numbers increase manifold. Our external enemies are busy in igniting the flames of this fire. However, despite all this bloodshed, certain quarters still want to remain embroiled in the debate concerning the causes of this war and who imposed it on us. While this may be important in itself but the fact of the matter is that today it is Pakistan and its valiant people who are a target of this war and are suffering tremendously. I would like to ask all those who raise such questions that if a small faction wants to enforce its distorted ideology over the entire Nation by taking up arms and for this purpose defies the Constitution of Pakistan and the democratic process and considers all forms of bloodshed justified, then, does the fight against this enemy of the state constitute someone else’s war? Even in the history of the best evolved democratic states, treason or seditious uprisings against the state have never been tolerated and in such struggles their armed forces have had unflinching support of the masses; questions about the ownership of such wars have never been raised. We cannot afford to confuse our soldiers and weaken their resolve with such misgivings. Every drop of blood, shed in the national cause, is sacred and no one can better understand its value than the families who are present here today; because their dear ones have already made the ultimate sacrifice. We must not hurt the sentiments of these saviours of the Nation through our words and deeds.

We sincerely desire that all those who have strayed and have picked up arms against the Nation, return to the national fold. However, this is only possible once they unconditionally submit to the State, its Constitution and the Rule of Law. There is no room for doubts when it comes to dealing with rebellion against the state. Towards this end, while truly acknowledging the national aspirations and value of our martyr’s blood, we as a Nation need to forge consensus towards evolving a clear policy through mutual consultations. Considering this war against terrorism as the war of the armed forces alone can lead to chaos and disarray that we cannot afford...

http://www.thenewstribe.com/2013/04/30/pakistan-army-chief-general-...

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2013 at 7:15pm

Here's BBC's Lyse Doucet on Pak elections 2013:

Pakistan can be an unpredictable place. But in a chequered history that has kept lurching from crises to coups, one event has kept coming back, with reassuring certainty - elections.

I've covered almost every one of them since 1988 when martial law abruptly ended and a people who fought for democracy directed their energies and enthusiasm towards the battle for ballots.

What boisterous campaigns there've been - massive rallies that packed stadiums and fields, convoys of vehicles snaking, horns blaring, through villages and down highways - a chaotic carnival in every constituency.

But elections in Pakistan can't be like that anymore. It's simply too dangerous. Not a day goes by without a report of an attack by one of many armed groups on a politician, or a public space, or the police.
“Start Quote

Social media provides the safest of places to argue and analyse”

I'm back in Pakistan to find out what it's like to campaign in "Elections 2013", and what it takes to win.

The crush of massive crowds has mostly been replaced by "corner rallies". Politicians travel across the land in helicopters on carefully guarded schedules, rather than spontaneously weighing into the fray.

Something has been lost. But something else has been gained. A different kind of explosion has transformed the political landscape here.

There's a dizzying array of television channels in all the languages spoken here. And social media provides the safest of places to argue and analyse, and of course to jockey for influence and joke. It wouldn't be Pakistan if they didn't.

Another chance

Many worry about "saving Pakistan" - from the blight of official corruption, growing violence and extremism, deepening divisions. That's on top of the age-old problems of poverty and illiteracy.

Everyone talks of "change". Everyone has waited a long time for it to happen. Will it come, this time, from within the parties which traditionally dominated politics or will it usher in the rise of new political dynamic?

Yet again, this is an election where people warn that Pakistan "at a crossroads", is facing a "last chance".

Despite all the threats and disappointments, every person I have spoken to - so far - told me: "Yes of course I am voting!"

Pakistan always seems to get another chance. And yet again, you sense that at least the people want to seize it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22356845

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2013 at 9:27pm

Here's the link to Youtube video of Gen Kayani's speech today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jqh8uDNyEeY

http://youtu.be/jqh8uDNyEeY

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 1, 2013 at 8:20am

Here's a Reuters' report on Musharraf's situation:

Pakistan's powerful army chief has suggested the military is unhappy with how authorities have treated former army chief and president Pervez Musharraf since his return from exile.

A Pakistani court on Tuesday imposed a lifetime ban on Musharraf from contesting elections, undermining his efforts to regain influence by winning a seat in parliament.

The former army chief returned in March after nearly four years of self-imposed exile to contest a May 11 general election, but election officers disqualified him because of court cases pending against him.

In what newspapers described as a veiled reference to Musharraf's legal troubles, Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani said: "In my opinion, it is not merely retribution, but awareness and participation of the masses that can truly end this game of hide and seek between democracy and dictatorship."

Kayani, arguably the most powerful figure in Pakistan, was delivering a Martyrs' Day speech at army headquarters. Newspapers carried his comments on front pages.

The military has ruled Pakistan for than half of its 66-year-history, through coups or from behind the scenes. It sets security and foreign policy, even when civilian governments are in power.

Current commanders have meddled less in politics, letting civilian governments take the heat for policy failures.

But Kayani has had an uneasy relationship with civilian leaders, as well as an increasingly interventionist Supreme Court, which has questioned the military's human rights record.

The chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, was embroiled in a confrontation with Musharraf, who removed him from office in 2007 after he opposed plans to extend the general's stay in power. Chaudhry was later reinstated.

Musharraf's has been embroiled in legal issues since his return.

He became the first former army chief to be arrested in Pakistan when police took him into custody at their headquarters last Friday, breaking an unwritten rule that the top ranks of the military are untouchable, even after they have retired.

On April 20, a court remanded the former president in custody for two weeks, a term set to expire on May 4, as judges pushed ahead with plans to put Musharraf on trial for a crackdown on the judiciary during his time in office.

On Tuesday, an anti-terrorism court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi put Musharraf on 14-day judicial remand for charges of failing to provide adequate security for former prime minister Benazir Bhutto before her 2007 assassination.

Musharraf ousted then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a coup in 1999. Sharif is seen as the front-runner in the election.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/01/us-pakistan-musharraf-mil...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 1, 2013 at 10:34am

Here's an excerpt of a Pew Survey on Shariah in Islamic countries:

Acceptance of sharia as the revealed word of God is high across South Asia and most of the Middle East and North Africa. For example, roughly eight-in-ten Muslims (81%) in Pakistan and Jordan say sharia is the revealed word of God, as do clear majorities in most other countries surveyed in these two regions. Only in Lebanon is opinion more closely divided: 49% of Muslims say sharia is the divine word of God, while 38% say men have developed sharia from God’s word.

Muslims in Southeast Asia and Central Asia are somewhat less likely to say sharia comes directly from God. Only in Kyrgyzstan (69%) do more than two-thirds say Islamic law is the revealed word of God. Elsewhere in these regions, the percentage of Muslims who say it is the revealed word of God ranges from roughly four-in-ten in Malaysia (41%) to six-in-ten in Tajikistan.

Views about the origins of sharia are more mixed in Southern and Eastern Europe. At least half of Muslims describe sharia as the divine word of God in Russia (56%) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (52%). By contrast, three-in-ten or fewer hold this view in Kosovo (30%) and Albania (24%).

Overall, Muslims who pray several times a day are more likely to believe that sharia is the revealed word of God than are those who pray less frequently. This is the case in many countries where the question was asked, with especially large differences observed in Russia (+33 percentage points), Uzbekistan (+21), Kyrgyzstan (+20) and Egypt (+15). Views on the origins of sharia do not vary consistently with other measures, such as age or gender.

http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 1, 2013 at 4:24pm

Here's an excerpt of Myra McDonald's Reuters' blog post on Pak elections: The TTP have been remarkably clever; they have sown fresh tensions in the country between Punjab and elsewhere. They have shown themselves able to attack almost at will with a single-minded determination to influence Pakistan’s elections. The TTP spokesman was even quoted by Pakistan’s Express Tribune as citing European philosophers, when he said elections were contrary to Pakistan’s Islamic values. “The two are contrary to each other because Islamic laws and values come from Allah Almighty, while the secular doctrine comes from Rousseau, Kant and Bentham.” They are not just angry tribesmen riled up by drones. They have a plan. And Pakistan, no matter how many nameless children among the dead, does not. http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2013/04/30/pakistans-brutal-elect...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 2, 2013 at 7:59pm

Here's Daily Times on a pro-democracy fatwa by a Pakistani cleric:

Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, a secular and liberal scholar of Islam, using his influence as chairman All Pakistan Ulema Council (APUC), has issued a Fatwa (edict) through a consensus among 27 different religious organisations in Pakistan on the ‘right’ to vote. He has been hailed internationally for this effort. In the 40-page booklet philosophising the importance of democracy and elections, he has proved ‘voting’ to be a compulsory act enjoined by Islam on the Muslims, both man and woman. In other words, he has backed democracy and rejected militarism or dictatorship. However, he does believe that Pervez Musharraf has been a good dictator, who should have been given an opportunity to prove his innocence either by allowing him to contest the polls or putting a neutral judiciary overlooking his cases.

The question is that is it appropriate or for that matter ‘democratic’ for a religious organisation or body to represent the ‘will’ of the people through law-making. If they were to define laws, independently, than how the role of parliament, and the entire judicial system is explained in a constitutional democracy that Pakistan claims to embrace. Unless subordinated to parliament, an edict unequivocally is an attempt to add power to the militants already at war with the state. The edict issued by the APUC, broadly speaking, is being viewed as a legal position to facilitate polling in the face of the militants’ resistance to elections. That explains the power the religious organisations hold in the national polity and indicates the direction to which the country is headed.

Being a constitutional democracy where parliament is held supreme and constitution is taken as a contract between the people and state any resolution, law or policy should flow from the parliament represented by the people of Pakistan. Especially in the presence of Pakistan Ideological Council, of which now Maulana Tahir is one of the 20th member the issue of voting as considered un-Islamic by the militants could have been debated, vetted and declared legal and Islamic by this able body. The effort of the APUC to give a befitting response to the militants’ propaganda against the right to vote, especially for women and generally for Muslims, is appreciable, however, it can best be taken as a recommendation and not as a verdict. But the way the edict is issued through elaborative conferences in nearly every large city of Pakistan, followed by celebrations, including the media hype, smacks some deliberate attempt to add volume to the militants’ narrative of Islam.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013%5C05%5C03%5Cstor...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 2, 2013 at 11:03pm

Here's an excerpt from an ET Op Ed by Ejaz Haider on TTP's motives:

The TTP knows it cannot capture political power directly. It is also too early for it to expect, despite the denominational conservatism of an average Pakistani, to have him or her reject the idea of elections or democracy. The average Pakistani may do abominable things on certain issues of religion, including murder, but is not unidimensional.
So, if elections cannot be prevented at this stage in the game, what’s the best alternative? It is to ensure that those parties whose presence in the socioeconomic and political life of Pakistan is threatening to the Taliban ideology must be pushed to the sidelines.
The strategy then becomes twofold. On the one hand, the TTP will use terror tactics to instill fear in the parties that it wants out of the game, and on the other, despite its opposition to the institutional mechanisms that define Pakistan today, support those political elements that it thinks will be more amenable to negotiating with it. Within this, there is a third minor strand too — parties like the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jama’at (ASWJ), which are primarily the political face of terrorist groups affiliated with the TTP.
These parties, more like groupings, link up with the right-of-centre and right-wing parties to capture enough political space to become useful in pushing for legislation that is regressive. Of course, there are local compulsions that both restrict and facilitate their operations, but that is in the nature of the game which, as noted earlier, is far from linear.
The TTP has one thing going in its favour — the fear factor. It knows that the state, despite multiple operations, has not been able to either make it irrelevant or dislocate it from the context that strengthens it. It has also played on the great confusion that runs through Pakistani society: is this our war? While it is possible to criticise American policies in the region and yet be anti-Taliban, this being a desirable course of action in fact, the problem is that the Pakistanis, for the most part, have chosen to lull themselves into thinking that with the Americans gone from here, the TTP will automatically demobilise and accept the writ of the state.
This is certainly the view of Imran Khan and has filtered down to his party leaders and supporters. One could perhaps laugh it off for its naiveté if the consequences of this linearity weren’t so threatening. Be that as it may, the TTP knows that this confusion plays to its advantage. At the minimum, it has precluded the state from developing a proper response to the TTP threat. Military operations in general and counterterrorism strategies in specific cannot be fully successful without a public buy-in, and the public’s acceptance of what the state must do is heavily contingent upon a clear understanding of the threat.
Of course, there is the matter of how successful the state has been. There is, for instance, the example of the ANP choosing to talk to the Taliban. The ANP did this because it realised that it is alone and the state cannot secure it. To that extent, the ANP’s reluctant decision to call an All Party Conference to this end is not the same thing as when the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (Fazl) calls for one.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/542543/ttp-strategy-and-our-naivete/

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