Comment by Riaz Haq on May 3, 2013 at 10:36am

Here's an AFP report on Pak election campaign on the airwaves:

RAWALPINDI: As Taliban bombs curtail campaign rallies, Pakistan’s political parties are ploughing millions of dollars into TV and print adverts to sway voters ahead of next week’s historic polls.

Competition is fierce but it’s a cash market and those with the biggest bucks get the most air time ahead of the historic May 11 polls, set to mark a key democratic transition, say television executives on condition of anonymity.

Bursting with colour, promising to fix the nation’s myriad ills, bust corruption and bring prosperity to voters, the “paid content” ads are broadcast day and night accompanied by the upbeat, nationalist jingle of campaign songs.

Unlike Internet access, which is still limited, more than 60 per cent of the 180 million population have access to TV, according to the Pakistan Advertisers Society.

For medium-sized channels, an average minute of advertising costs $460-500 during 6pm to midnight prime time or $250-300 earlier in the day, according to one television insider speaking on condition of anonymity.

There are around 80 channels in Pakistan, although the market is dominated by little more than a dozen with rolling 24-seven news coverage.

“On average a television channel airs up to five minutes of political ads an hour,” said the television insider.

The outgoing PPP gives prominence to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, showing footage of her 2007 assassination and anointing her son Bilawal – still too young to contest the vote – as the country’s future.

The main opposition and frontrunner PML-N lionises its leader Nawaz Sharif as a statesman and a developer, the man who knows how to fix the economy, the man beloved by a sea of flag-waving crowds.

Ads for cricket star Imran Khan – looking to make a breakthrough at the May 11 polls – offer voters a “new Pakistan” with his PTI party symbol – a cricket bat – swiping away the corruption and jettisoning the country into the future.

With Taliban threats against the main outgoing parties, Khan and Sharif are the only party leaders to address traditional public rallies in person.

Ad men consider the election a two-horse race in which the PPP – rudderless without Bhutto and her son too young to run for parliament – has deliberately taken a backseat, consigned to a stint in opposition.

“It’s PTI and PML-N who are the highest spenders,” said Bilal Agha, general manager for Dawn News television.

He said the Pakistan Broadcasters Association raised ad prices by 25 per cent and made political advertisements cash only. But the PPP is not doling out big money....

http://dawn.com/2013/05/03/pakistan-parties-channel-millions-into-ads/

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 7, 2013 at 11:32pm

Here's a Guardian report on a wave of sympathy for Imran Khan:

Imran Khan, a leading candidate in this week's general election in Pakistan, was rushed to hospital with a skull fracture and injured back on Tuesday after falling off an improvised platform attached to a forklift truck at one of the final rallies of his campaign.

The images of the dazed and bloodied leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) being rushed to hospital with a skull fracture and back injuries has added another element of uncertainty to an election that even seasoned observers are hesitating to call.

But just hours after falling from an overcrowded platform attached to a forklift truck, Khan was recording video messages from his hospital bed, urging his countrymen to vote for his party in the coming polls on Saturday.

"I did whatever I could for this country," Khan said while lying flat on a hospital bed, his neck partially restrained by a brace. He went on to urge people to vote for the PTI.

"Now I want you to take responsibility. If you want to change your destiny, I want you to take responsibility."

Earlier yesterday the 60-year-old politician had been pulled off the platform used to raise him to a stage at a political rally in the city of Lahore after one of his guards lost balance and toppled over the side.

The accident triggered a flood of concern and support on social media, where Khan already has a passionate following.

Crowds gathered outside the Shaukat Khanum hospital, a private cancer hospital named after his mother that Khan established, after he was transferred there.

When news came through that a scan had shown Khan had not suffered internal bleeding, the gathered supporters cheered and waved cricket bats, the official symbol of the PTI which will appear on ballot papers next to candidates' names.

The extraordinary twist to an already drama-filled election complicates the guessing game over how many seats the PTI, a relatively young party that has only ever held one seat in the past, will win.

Although most analysts do not think the PTI will emerge as the biggest party, Khan had appeared to be gaining momentum in recent days with a frantic schedule of back-to-back campaign events that have helped to galvanise a young, middle-class fanbase with huge numbers of supporters flocking to his events.

The more seats he wins, the harder it will be for frontrunner Nawaz Sharif, a two-term prime minister who heads a wing of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), to win an outright majority or even enough seats to form a strong coalition.

Sharif's campaign was quick to respond to events, announcing the cancellation of all campaign events on Wednesday and the dropping of all ads attacking Khan. The country's interim prime minister, Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, also expressed concern over Khan's injury and wished him a quick recovery.

Khan's political rallies have been full of energy but also chaotic at times, with security guards powerless to prevent the PTI leader throwing himself into heaving crowds despite the terrorist attacks that have cast a shadow over the election....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/imran-khan-accident-sup...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 9, 2013 at 9:31pm

Here's a News story on Jewish vote in Pakistan:

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, there are around 800 Jewish voters registered in Pakistan out of which 427 are women and 382 men. This statistic seems odd because there are almost no Jewish people in the public sphere in Pakistan and they are not even considered as a minority group during policy discussions.

Historically, thousands of Jews were part of Karachi’s population at the time of Independence. Pakistan hasn’t treated its minorities well and Jewish people were not the only group to be neglected by the state.

Another factor that needs to be considered regarding not just the Jewish voters but our political and intellectual culture as a whole is the prevalent anti-Semitism (here it is strictly taken to mean anti-Jew) in the country.

Mehdi Hasan, a former editor of a British newspaper, recently wrote about the “banality of Muslim anti-Semitism”. He mentioned how Lord Nazir Ahmad blamed a traffic accident that he was involved in and his subsequent conviction on a Jewish conspiracy during an interview with an Urdu channel. For the political right, in Pakistani, blaming the ‘Jews’ is an established norm.

According to Bernard Lewis, the anti-Semitic ideas of the Christians first entered the Muslim world because of Islam’s conquest of Europe, which resulted in many Christians converting to Islam. Prejudices existed in the Islamic world, as did occasional hostility, but not what could be called anti-Semitism, for there was no attribution of cosmic evil to the Jews. Greek Orthodox Christians who found themselves living under Ottoman rule are said to have introduced the notion of the blood libel into the Middle East.

One of the most notorious books cited by people believing in the ‘Jewish’ conspiracy theories is the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. It is a collection of articles concocted in 1895 by the Russian Czar’s secret police in order to depict the growing strength of Marxists as a Jewish conspiracy.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-169038-The-Jewish-vote

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 2, 2013 at 12:22pm

Here's a Christian Science Monitor report on Pak talks with Taliban:

Despite the Pakistani Taliban’s recent deadly attack on 10 foreign climbers, many Pakistanis still want to hold talks with the group to end a decade long conflict that has killed more than 50,000 people, mostly civilians.

Pakistan has a broad consensus in favor of talking to the Taliban. A May 2013 Pew survey found only 35 percent support using the military against the Taliban, and 64 percent saw the US as more of an enemy than a partner. Anecdotal evidence since the attack indicates that’s still the view.

“Both sides are interested in peace due to the reason that the government wants to improve its rating among people,” says Mansur Khan Mehsud, research director at the Fata Research Center.

But the question is: How?

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s new president, has repeatedly expressed his desire to sit down with the Taliban, also known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), but analysts say the hurdles are tremendous. It is highly unlikely that the TTP would ever recognize the current government as legitimate, or that the rest of Pakistan would accept the group's particular interpretation of sharia (Islamic law). Others say ending the US alliance – a major demand from the TTP – is untenable.

...some peace talk supporters say the TTP draws support from Pakistanis who resent their country's involvement in the US “War On Terror,” and talks won’t have any effect until Pakistan ends its alliance with the US.

“[If] this war keeps going on, [the TTP] wont stop,” says Sami ul Haqq, an influential cleric who runs Dar-ul-uloom Haqqania, a seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa whose alumni include several of the Afghan Taliban's leaders.

The anticipated 2014 US withdrawal from Afghanistan will have a significant impact on the TTP, says Mehsud. The TTP exploits grassroots resentment of the US presence in Afghanistan, arguing the Pakistani state, as an ally of the US, is also a legitimate target.

Others say getting the TTP to stop fighting won’t be as simple as ending the US alliance, even if that were possible.

“There are apologists in Pakistan who say the Taliban are involved in terrorist activities because we are in league with the US ‘war on terror’,” says Asad Munir, who headed Inter-Services Intelligence in the tribal regions until 2005. “There is no confusion in the armed forces ... they have no doubt the Taliban are anti-Pakistan,” he says.

Even if the TTP's demands are untenable, some experts say simply getting them to the table might help stem violence in Pakistan.

“The process itself is important,” says Amir Rana, who heads the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies.

“When [the TTP] make demands, the government will be prepared to understand their mindset,” he says.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0702/Pakista...

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