Free media for credible elections

NATURE and man seem to be in league in protecting the Pakistani electorate from catching the desired heat commonly called election fever. With less than a month to go before the polls, there is hardly a noticeable electoral activity excepting the ubiquitous presence of computer-designed posters portraying younger-than-real faces of candidates tenuously hung from the electric poles? Of course, harsh winter greatly restricts outdoor movement during this part of the year in most of the country. But there is something more to this rather cool reception accorded to the much-awaited elections, and that is the all-encompassing sense of déjà vu. Whatever little idealism the civil society had added to the electoral process by pledging its support to the erstwhile political opposition is now being whittled away brick by brick. While the media is in chains and the legal fraternity is losing the battle to the brutality of the police, those who had pledged their political future with the civil society are facing desertions. In fact, such has been the frequency of desertions from the ranks of boycotters that the remnants have acquired the unenviable parallelism to quixotic travellers to an unknown destination. Shorn of idealism, the forthcoming elections are fast going to be business as usual, albeit at a low pitch. Already, there are reports from various places in the country that former rivals are busy making seat-adjustments. But what are really disturbing are the guesstimates about the numerical texture of the coming National Assembly. Various sources, including one who was till recently part of the presidency, have forecast a hung parliament. The fact that an election threw up a hung parliament is not too uncommon in working democracies. Budding democracies tend to nurture a mushroom of political parties who when they go to polls invariably produce hung parliaments. Not that they produce less representative governments, but quite often, as in Pakistan of today, they produce weak governments.
And it is the bane of a weak government that it cannot take hard decisions, like the ones that the future government of Pakistan will have to. Over the last one year, particularly since early March when the judicial crisis erupted on the scene in the wake of suspension of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the government of Shaukat Aziz deferred taking some crucial decisions. For instance, fuel prices that needed to be readjusted in view of the steep rise of oil prices in the world market, were maintained and a decision repeatedly put off. Ironically, it is not being given serious consideration even by the caretaker set-up, which, on the face of it, has no political stakes and therefore should have no hesitation in re-fixing them. The emergence of a hung parliament may be of great annoyance to President Pervez Musharraf as well, in that he would like to seek indemnity of his post November 3 actions. The assertion by Attorney-General Abdul Qayyum that the present Supreme Court has done the needful may not gel with the new parliament, forcing passage of the presidential actions by a two-third vote which may be difficult to muster from a hung house. All this providing the backdrop, there may be certain credence to reports that another general election may follow the one on January 8. The conspicuously absent election fever is bound to result in a low turnout at the polling booths - a situation often equated to lack of support for the democratic process. The boycotters are apt to term it as a vindication of their stand and cite it as a phenomenon of the electorate having voted with their feet by not turning out to vote. But presently in Pakistan it may be attributed to lack of people’s trust in the electoral system, which, in turn, may help the cause of those who would like to reject the election results. This is a serious situation and that which must be averted. It brings to the fore the role of free media in creating an ambience of electioneering which is so much necessary to make the electoral process credible. Given the reach the electronic media has acquired over the last couple of years, it can generate the desired heat that is part and parcel of elections. It can bring the entire game to your drawing room.

 

Terror strikes Algeria

TERROR has raised its ugly head yet again; this time, in Algeria, killing 52 people in twin suicide attacks. This is a condemnable act, just as any other attacks targeting innocent people, whose only fault is they happened to have been caught in a wider militant engagement with the establishment, shall be. Irrespective of who the perpetrators of this attack are, Algeria is at the receiving end, as this is only part of an ongoing series stretching over the decade or so, that has taken a toll of no less than 200,000 lives. The needle of suspicion points to Muslim extremist groups, which, over the years have been fighting the dispensation there. If things went seriously wrong in the early 1990s, it had largely to do with the calculated negation of a people’s verdict there in the parliamentary elections that brought victory to the Islamists. What began as an alternative movement to grab power has over the years formed part of Al Qaeda, drawing support in larger numbers in recent years from across North Africa. If the violence that marred the September 6 visit of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to the eastern city of Batna had taken a toll of 22 lives, that was swiftly followed by a suicide bombing two days later on a coast guard barracks in the town of Dellys, killing more.
Those who pray for peace now are perhaps right in saying that the group that had won the country’s first multi-party elections should have been given a chance to govern; rather than subverting a people’s verdict. Militants are known to change for the better when power is in their hands. The reason is not far to seek. They are more face-to-face with the realities of life and governance; and take the responsibility on their head to maintain law and order. Terror is a hydra-headed monster. Once we contain it at one place, it raises its head at another unsuspecting place. North Africa might have had a reprieve for a while. But not for a long while. The problem is reckoned to be aggravating there of late. Which should not be the case. The problem with governments is also that, who does one negotiate with? Terrorists are faceless people, and are not ready to sit around negotiation tables. All the same, while the threat from Al Qaeda in the region must be taken seriously, it is also important that lasting solutions are found to restore normality in Algeria. Simple fire operations will not help.

—Khaleej Times