The Dust Settles, Somewhat
It is only now beginning to dawn on the people of Pakistan that despite themselves they have managed to pull off somewhat of a miracle by not even giving a “heavy” (Mian Nawaz Sharif-type) mandate (10% of the available vote) to any of the political parties. With the Election Commission reporting 40% plus of voting percentage, PML (Q) and PPP-P got almost an equal number of votes, nobody got more than 10% of votes that could be cast. Claiming a “revolution” to anyone who will listen, MMA’s vote tally amounts to a grand 4%. The number of seats does not truly reflect the reality on the ground in the “first-past-the-post-system”. The MMA constituent parties got almost the same number of votes they normally get in any general election, this time their votes were counted together in a Qazi engineered “alliance”. With the main PML split into PML (Q) and PML (N), and both PPP and ANP also split in NWFP, MMA swept them aside in close races. A low turnout in any election always helps the more organized political machine, whose rank and file is more likely to turn out to vote en masse. The anti-American factor helped solidify the MMA vote in the border areas of NWFP and Balochistan but not as overwhelmingly as given out to be. Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI (F) may strut his stuff as a potential PM but with less than 60 votes (including the ones reserved for women) in the National Assembly out of 340, or less than 20%, Maulana Sahib’s expectations are rather over-ambitious. At best his posturing is a bargaining position, meant to get maximum benefit for himself, his party and the alliance, MMA, and in that order. As a close ally of Ms Benazir, he managed that to his benefit in the last PPP regime.
The Making of the President
One does not have to be clairvoyant to predict that barring a major upheaval, natural of man-made, the next President will either be a PML person or a PML nominee from one of the smaller provinces. Less than two days before the filing of nominations, the PML leadership has yet to declare the candidacy of what should have been a certainty in the minds of the PML hierarchy, given their happy position as regards the game of numbers. Being a democratic party heading a “rainbow” coalition of smaller, regional parties, one assumes the PML hierarchy is leaning over backwards to ensure that their partners do not feel left out of the decision-making process, articulating their preferences and given suitable advice as to who would make a good President. The concept of a Federation requires that the smaller provinces must play an active part in the coalescing of consensus, democracy enjoins that the voices of all the constituent units be heard and taken into account.
PML has no party leader from Balochistan for the Presidency, the only person having some credibility being Zafarullah Khan Jamali but till very lately he has not shown any great political consistency with the mainstream PML. Balochistan at least finds representation through the Deputy Chairman of the Senate and Sindh has the National Assembly (NA) Speaker’s Sarhad has nothing. Therefore, the province having the greatest claim for representation among the ruling hierarchy is Sarhad. There is a lobby that feel that the post of Speaker NA is not enough for the Sindhis and that to assuage Sindh’s qualms there should be a President from Sindh and that in return Sindh should leave the NA post for Sarhad. The factors thus taken into account in the making of the President are, viz (1) whether the potential candidate to be supported be from Sarhad or Sindh? (2) whether a credible PML nominee is available from Sarhad? And if so (3) whether it makes sense to move the NA Speaker to the Presidency and find a suitable NA Speaker from Sarhad?
Ordinary People, Real Commitment
The PIA flight from Jacobabad to Karachi is usually not an event of any note. On Feb 12, 1996, PK 546, on way from Nawabshah, aborted landing at Jacobabad at 4:30 pm because of aircraft tire pressure falling “below the permissible limits”. PK 546 went back all the way to Karachi, 40 passengers on board, 40 aspirants for PK 547 waiting on the ground at Jacobabad. Noor Lashari, Manzoor Ahmad and Mahesh Kumar are ordinary people but they are respectively PIA’s District Sales Manager (DSM), CAA’s Airport Manager and PIA’s Station Manager (SM) at Jacobabad. As 4:50 p.m. passed (the PK 547’s scheduled departure), at least a dozen or so of who were not resident of Jacobabad or the surrounding area, had reason to worry, John Henry Jacob’s town is not so comfortable a place for “accidental tourists” to spend the night, at least without proper notice.