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PAKISTAN: By-election Test for Musharraf’s Afghan Policy

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Jan 9 2007 (IPS) - A parliamentary by-election in the Bajaur agency, scheduled for Wednesday, is turning out to be a test for Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s policy in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan and subjected to missile attacks by the United States military for harbouring al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Posters plastered all over Bajaur are calling for a boycott of the elections. ‘’Oh brave tribesmen of Bajaur! Taking part in the fraudulent election will be a great injustice to the madrassa (Islamic seminary) martyrs who were killed in the Oct. 30 missile strike,’’ says one poster.

While the origin of the missile is still a matter of dispute, most people in the tribal areas believe it was launched from a U.S. army drone against top al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who was believed to be sheltering in the madrassa.

The missile did not get Zawahiri but killed 83 students, and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party legislator representing the area in the National Assembly, Haroon-ur-Rashid, resigned in protest necessitating the by-election. The JI has warned that it would disrupt the polls, now a contest between Syed Badshah backed by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and Malik Shahabuddin of the Awami National Party.

Importantly, the posters also warn women to stay home on election day or face punitive action. This would mean that most of the 55,000 women, out of a total of 131,700 registered voters in the agency, would not be participating.

Both candidates, Badshah and Shahabuddin, have endorsed the call to ban the participation of women in the by-election. ‘’It is against tribal traditions to allow women to cast votes,’’ said Gul Afzal Khan, Shahabuddin’s campaign manager.

Concerned at the development, Pakistan’s federal minister for political affairs Amir Muqam has said that the government would make ‘’all out efforts to ensure the participation of women in the election and no one will be allowed to bar women from casting votes.”

An official of the Election Commission of Pakistan said that separate polling stations would be set up for women despite the ban. Tribal leaders have, in earlier elections, effectively prevented women from casting ballot.

During last year’s local body polls, a jirga (tribal gathering) had banned women from filing nomination papers and contesting the elections. The provincial women’s wing of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had then staged a demonstration against the bar.

Pakistan’s chief election commissioner, Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar, has also warned that “barring women from taking part in the electoral process is a crime” and that action would be taken against offenders.

What has been particularly embarrassing for the government is a call given on Saturday by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, president of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a powerful coalition of Islamist parties that rules the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), to cancel the polls.

“The government may face a serious law and order situation in the Bajaur area if it goes ahead with the plan of holding by-election,” the Qazi said addressing a news conference.

According to the Qazi the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) were openly interfering in Pakistan’s affairs while the Musharraf government neither had the courage to protest against the missile attacks nor was it ‘’owning up to crimes committed by foreign forces.’’

A debate in the National Assembly in November on the Bajaur bombings saw opposition leaders rejecting government statement that the missile attacks were carried out by the Pakistani army and not by the U.S. or NATO forces.

Haroon-ur-Rashid, who was present at the debate, rejected government allegations that the madrassa was being used for terrorist training and said innocent religious students were killed there. He handed in his resignation from the assembly soon afterwards.

Some opposition members said that the U.S. had carried out the attack in Bajaur to sabotage Musharraf’s policy of diluting Pakistan’s role in the ‘war on terror’ by signing peace accord with tribal leaders sympathetic to the Taliban in the areas bordering Afghanistan.

Also debated was what is believed to be a reprisal suicide bombing that killed 42 army recruits on Nov. 8 at a regimental centre in Dargai in the NWFP.

Government spokesmen have insisted that the missile strike was carried out by Pakistani forces but based on intelligence reports provided by the U.S. army that the madrassa was being used to train militants operating in Afghanistan.

The attack on the madrassa was the second carried out by drones in Bajaur last year. On Jan. 12, 2006 an attack on the Damadola village resulted in the death of 18 people, most of them women and children.

Both attacks drew widespread condemnation and protest demonstrations were held in many parts of Pakistan by religious parties opposed to Musharraf’s support for the ‘war on terror’ as well as by human rights groups.