Elections and referendums in Pakistan are a watershed for traditionally wrong reasons. As India's estranged progeny goes to another election tomorrow, there are rising apprehensions whether power will be transferred from one civilian government to another. I say that because this is a freak scenario for the country in its 70 years of turbulent existence. Between and behind successive governments, the Army has played the ventriloquist with its proven flourish.
For a country with more than 200 million people, Pakistan continues to grapple with its animation in a land constantly trapped in war compass. Having sacrificed every bearing of national progress in a frenzy to acquire nuclear weapons out of its India-phobia, Pakistan seems mired in perennial confusion about safety at home or security from perceived external threats. There have been enough indications in the past that the country's incompatibility towards itself is much less than its antipathy towards the US and India.
The pro-democracy euphoria that precedes every election in Pakistan evaporates with suppression of information, maneuverings by the military and rise in religious fundamentalism. That is bizarre when you consider that it is a nation without any pluralism. I have been making out a case that Pakistan will get crushed under the weight of its own problems. The war drums that the country keeps beating periodically is a silly but time-tested rhetoric to divert its own attention from issues at home towards those that they claim from their perceived enemies. The killing of more than 150 civilians in the run up to tomorrow's elections is ample testimony.
Eking out a desperate subsistence from the mess it has created for itself in all these years, its politics has routinely toggled between elected governments and army dictatorships. It is not my case to tell you that none of the prime ministers has ever completed his or her tenure, but this time round the Army has bent backwards to nudge out the earlier party -- Nawaz Shari's Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and to pack its patriarch to political oblivion. For cricketer-turned politician and thrice married Imran Khan, it is now or never. Although his latest ex-wife has been using every possible brush to paint her husband as a compulsive philanderer, Khan's political fortunes have been rising steadily since he petitioned the country's supreme court to disqualify Sharif on corruption charges.
Some of the methods that Khan has used to promote himself are not exactly honorable even if you concede that politics is a game of scoundrels. He has been polarizing people with a poisoned-tongue campaign. In an earlier blog, I had written how Khan balances between religious dogma and liberal economy to pander to contrasting audiences. The Oxford-educated cricketer has transitioned from a compulsive playboy past when he partied with the likes of Mick Jagger to now denouncing the Westoxified Pakistani liberals. It is fairly evident that he has so far successfully manipulated the military in his ambitious quest to ascend the prime ministerial throne.
In political terms, Khan has a number of incentives to seek out shortcuts. The black out of supportive media and the defections engineered from PML with the help of the Army are a case in point. Sharif, who has had a roller coaster in Pakistan stands the risk of being eliminated the same way as some of his predecessors. Political turf in Pakistan was never prepared for fair matches.
It is amazing how hope springs up from the most desperate and hopeless situations in Pakistan. In all the manipulative politics, there seems to be a reasonable sense of optimism that the elections would serve as some kind of referendum on the most crucial issues facing the country. That optimism turns into a joke when you finger-count those crucial issues. Pakistan's economy faces the tricky predicament of which way it should be inclined: Western or Chinese. Will the so called democracy under Khan, presuming he become the PM, be robust enough to include or discard extremists, and can the military and the courts be trusted to be impartial and objective? Both have their pitfalls and the answers can be only guessed in a country where instability and conflagration are the only stable factors. So if Pakistan has served as a strategic base for the American forces in Afghanistan, it has also been an obstacle to the same troops in secretly offering aid and safe harbor to militant groups like Taliban and Al Qaeda.
It would be naive to think that Pakistan's complications are just about regional security. They are more about misgovernance, corruption and environmental stress. The reluctant US ally has done little in curbing Afghan Taliban and other sundry militant groups. It may have turned to China for aid and support but it must realize this will happen with the Chinese extracting their pound of flesh. Already, Pakistan has debts that they look in no position to repay. And that makes both dangerous customers for India and US. All parties contesting the election have grandiose manifestos promising voters the moon but political bottom line is the running feud between PML and the Army. Sharif's future seems fairly predictable at this stage but Khan would be deluding himself that the field is clear for him. His problems will start when he is voted to power.
That Pakistan has always lent itself to status quo is loud and clear from its history. Either its politicians don't understand or love to play suicidal games.
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