Terror makes first marks on Pakistan ballot
By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
KARACHI - The Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) has called off an April 4 rally that was intended to kick-start its election campaign after the Pakistani Taliban threatened to attack its public meetings.
The PPP had scheduled the rally for April 4, the anniversary of the death of its founder and former prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,
in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh village, Sindh province, as the first rally for the upcoming May 11 general election, but on Tuesday switched to a hall and closed the meeting to all but representatives of state media.
"We are not organizing a big national-level rally this time," PPP spokesman Ghulam Mustafa Leghari was quoted by Agence
France-Presse as saying. "Meetings are being held at district level separately. Only official media will be allowed to cover this meeting."
Pakistani Taliban last month threatened to attack election rallies and public meetings of the country's liberal and secular political parties including the PPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and the Awami National Party (ANP). Two people were killed and six others, including ANP candidate Adnan Wazir, were injured on Sunday in a remote-controlled bomb blast near an election rally in Bannu district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for which the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility.
Of Sunday's attack on a convoy in Bannu, where an election rally was organized, TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said: "He (Adnan Wazir) has affiliation with Awami National Party and that is why he was the target. It was the beginning of what we promised - attacks on the ANP. ... "We are against ANP and Adnan Wazir was a part of the ANP government for five years."
The situation has become worst in northwestern tribal areas, the stronghold of Taliban, where the ANP and PPP find it hard to hold big gatherings for electioneering due to the seriousness of the threats. The parties are even unable to hold corner meetings due to the increased influence of Taliban.
A report on plans for polling on the May 11 election in northwestern tribal areas, recently released by Democracy Reporting International (DRI), called for additional security arrangements for voters, candidates and polling staff, and also for special measures for women voters to ensure that the vote in the tribal areas is credible and participatory. The political parties are confronting challenges due to militancy and the poor law and order situation in the tribal belt. The report, however, revealed that religious parties have more support than other parties in these areas.
The Daily Times in its editorial said:
In a grim reminder that the shadow of militant ire looms large, the run-up to the elections has been tainted by its first terror attack. This particular attack occurred in the restive north west of the country near Bannu district, a place that has seen its fair share of violence in the last few months. The target was the convoy of Adnan Wazir, a former member of the dissolved Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. ... Adnan Wazir is a member of the ANP, a party that has been in the crosshairs of the militants for years due to their secular policies and anti-Taliban ideology. Along with the ANP, the TTP has loudly declared that the PPP and MQM also have plenty to worry about because they too are on the Taliban's hit list.
This is, undoubtedly, the first of what may be many such attacks on the pre-election trail, a time when politicians from all three parties will be focusing on public appearances and gatherings for their campaigns. This time is like a lottery ticket for the TTP, which has been waiting for an opportunity to make good on its promise of attacking prominent politicians. In a pattern that is all too telling, the attack on Adnan Wazir seems nothing less than a warm up, unless stringent steps are taken to prevent a complete breakdown of security.
In another incident last week in Karachi, terrorists attacked a girls' school in the Ittehad Town area of the southern port city, killing the school principal, Abdul Rasheed Khan, and injuring six children. Khan was politically affiliated with the ANP and he had been receiving threats for years. The Taliban militants have bombed hundreds of girls' schools in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but this was perhaps for the first time that a girls' school in an area of Karachi, where Taliban has increased its presence over past few years, was attacked.
This week, caretaker governments in Islamabad and in the four provinces have been formed to take control during the political campaigning. Caretaker Prime Minister Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso on Monday finalized the 15-member interim federal cabinet that took oath on Tuesday. The political parties have submitted nomination papers of candidates to the election commission of Pakistan (ECP), which is currently scrutinizing the nominees.
Their biggest challenge is to maintain the law and order in the run up to the elections after the Taliban intensified its threat to target political gatherings by taking action.
The growing religious extremism and violence is perhaps the biggest point of contention in the election campaign. The ballot papers are expected to demonstrate a clear-cut line between pro-Taliban and anti-Taliban line political parties, amid the sense that the May 11 poll boils down to the decision as to whether Pakistanis own the war on extremism or reject it as an American war. The newly elected leadership in Islamabad after the May 11 polls will be critical to the US plan to end the more than decade-old Afghan occupation on its own terms as it prepares to withdraw forces from Pakistan's war-torn neighbor by the end of next year.
Syed Fazl-e-Haider ( www.syedfazlehaider.com) is a development analyst in Pakistan. He is the author of many books, including The Economic Development of Balochistan, published in 2004. E-mail, sfazlehaider05@yahoo.com
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