Pakistan election: A charade masquerading as democracy
George Bush has said that he wants to export democracy and here we witness one of his main allies in the war on terror subjecting himself to the democratic process.
Perhaps, if one had recently landed from Mars, one could honestly claim that one had just witnessed a free and fair election, but all of the rest of us know a sham when we see one. But why? Why are Washington and London prepared to allow such an obvious undermining of the democratic ideals that they claim to be wanting to export?As a spectacle of democracy in action, it was stillborn even before it began. Called one by one in alphabetical order yesterday, Pakistan's parliamentarians walked to a screened-off booth, where they marked their ballot papers and then dropped them into a large plastic bin. As General Pervez Musharraf was elected by an overwhelming majority to serve another five years as President, the intended message could not have been clearer: this process is fair, free and transparent. In reality, it was none of these things.
The voting process began at 10am on a hot, breezeless day and concluded five hours later. Shortly after the ballots closed at the National Assembly building in Islamabad and four regional assemblies across the country, it was announced that General Musharraf had secured an overwhelming victory. The Election Commission announced he had won 252 of the 257 votes cast in parliament, and he was poised to win by a similar landslide in all four of the regional assemblies. Inside the National Assembly the general's supporters cheered and waved, as though they had feared the outcome might have been in doubt.
In fact, it was never in question. Ever since the country's Supreme Court nine days ago cleared the way for General Musharraf to run for the presidency while remaining head of the armed forces, it was clear there would be only one winner. Neither the resignation last week of 86 opposition members in protest nor the boycott of the vote yesterday by members of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto was going to change that.
Nor were the military leader's supporters going to be distracted by the Supreme Court, which in an 11th-hour decision allowed the election to proceed, but declared that the result could not be officially validated until it had ruled on yet another legal challenge to General Musharraf's candidacy. "This result shows the people want continuity of policy," said the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz. "It's a very good omen that the election was fair and transparent."
The answer lies in a cave in either North or South Waziristan from where bin Laden recently released a tape in which he declared war on President Pervez Musharraf and urged Pakistanis to rise up in "armed rebellion" against him in revenge for the assault on the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
In recent Pakistani opinion polls bin Laden has been found to be more popular than Musharraf. So what's little George going to do? Allow a proper election in nuclear Pakistan in which bin Laden has called for the overthrow of one of George's main allies in the war on a noun?
It's unthinkable.
I. A. Rahman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said while standing in front of Parliament: “This election is a farce; it is a bid to perpetuate authoritarian rule. All those who are voting and taking part today, they are just trying to prop up an undemocratic regime.”Of course, it's a farce Mr Rahman. If we have learned anything from the boycotting of Hamas after the elections in the Palestinian Territories it is this: George doesn't believe in elections in which the "wrong" side wins.
So we watch Musharraf romp home with a landslide of 98%, the kind of election result that we used to routinely condemn as evidence of illegality when it was won by the likes of Saddam Hussein.
But this is "our" man. So let's celebrate the beauty that is democracy!
Click title for full article.
No comments:
Post a Comment