Voters’ dilemma

IT says much about the moral bankruptcy of Pakistan’s insurgents that yesterday one of their fanatical bigots sought to blow up a minibus containing children on their way to school. Five innocent children were wounded in the depraved attack in which only the suicide bomber died. On Sunday two more children were among six slain in a suicide attack on a checkpoint in Swat. Terrorists who believe that killing children can advance their cause have nothing whatsoever to offer the human race. These twisted and demented attacks come at a time when Pakistani politics is itself in flux as political leaders jostle for position. Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif threatened last week to boycott the Jan. 8 poll but Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) later changed its mind. Sharif, who as a convicted criminal is barred from running for office, was insisting until Sunday that his Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) would boycott the elections but then performed an about face. Clearly others in his party feared that they would be ceding their political ground to the rival PML-Q party, which broke away after Pervez Musharraf toppled the Sharif government in 1999. The interim administration appointed by President Musharraf in the run up to the election is largely made up of PML-Q politicians who Sharif and his people fear will use their strong political position to bolster their support among voters. The boycott option, however, would have left the PML-N in the political wilderness.
More importantly, it would have left the way open for the PPP either to win power in January or form the parliamentary opposition. In the final analysis Sharif’s strong dislike of Benazir is greater than his equally strong dislike of Musharraf. From Musharraf’s point of view, events are shaping up nicely. On Oct. 6 he won a landslide, in part because the PPP and PML-N chose to boycott the election. Now he has stepped back and watching others play out the drama. The Muslim League is divided and as their short-lived deal to boycott the elections proved, so too are Sharif and Benazir. The fourth party, Imran Khan’s Movement for Justice, has marginal support and poses no threat. There is a fanatical hard core of PPP and PML-N supporters who will back their leaders regardless of their current policies or the dubious past records of the two terms of government that each has enjoyed. However, leaving these aside, ordinary voters will be looking with some despair at the political options. If they are opposed to Musharraf, their choice is between two politicians whose push for power and visceral rivalry appears to push the fundamental interests of Pakistan into the background. Whatever the demerits of Musharraf, he at least represents a degree of stability and continuity and will continue to do so as long as he maintains the confidence of the army he used to lead. With fanatics now murdering children to further their cause, can Pakistan afford a return to the venal old political knock-about?
 

Protests in Teheran

SEEN in isolation, there is little significance to the anti-government protests by students at Teheran University, which turned violent on Sunday. Seen, in the overall context, they however sound a warning signal to President Ahmadinejad and his dispensation, also for the fact that universities in Iran are a barometer to read the political temperature in the country. There is considerable justification in seeing the protests as being part of a build-up for the legislative polls set for March, in which Iran’s powerful opposition, the Reformists, are trying to turn the tables on Ahmadinejad. The mood for the polls has already been set, with former presidents Akbar Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, both moderates, seeking to stage a comeback. To Ahmadinejad’s discomfiture is also the fact that the conservatives too are hitting him hard at this critical juncture. Consider, for instance, the clerical establishment’s ranting, targeting the president, that, “a lawful country does not deserve an individual in any position to become plaintfiff, judge and executor”, an obvious reference to Ahmadinejad’s virulent personal attacks on rivals in recent days. No doubt, the president should have refrained from statements like calling his political rivals as being “less intelligent than a goat”. Ahmadinejad has his flaws, not the least of them being his less-than realistic response to the threat of more UN sanctions, or of dismissing them as being “just pieces of paper”, or his refusal to see the seriousness of a possible US military action on Iran. There might even be merit in the reformists’ view that the president should be more realistic when it comes to threats hovering over the nation and its people.
While the president has taken a tough stand in respect of Iran’s right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, the fact is that there is strong support both within his country and outside for the bold way he pursued his nuclear policy. The coming elections will be a pointer to assess how Iranians think of his leadership of the nation. Reformists are getting an opportunity to present their case before the public. In the meantime, however, protests of the kind that rocked Teheran University are only to be expected. The obvious aim is to swing the balance in their favour. No doubt, Ahmadinejad has stood up to the West, and with great ease. At the same time, this, or the nuclear take in particular, cannot be his one-point programme to win support for the upcoming polls. Predictably, other factors come into play in such elections. They will have largely to do with the ground realities, like, whether or not a dispensation has made the life better for the people, in economic and other aspects. We will know by March which way Iran will move in the coming years and whether Ahmadinejad can stand his ground against odds.

—Khaleej Times