Pakistan’s Historic Elections ‘Not Perfect,’ but a Start

Holding a “tiger,” their party election symbol, supporters of Pakistan’s 

prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif celebrate PML-N’s victory at the party’s 

Brooklyn office on Coney Island Avenue. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

By Jehangir Khattak
This article first appeared in Voices of NY

As Pakistan makes a historic transition to its second democratically elected government in a row, the Pakistani community in New York, mirroring the political divisions back home, is having mixed reactions to the results of the landmark May 11 parliamentary elections.

While supporters of prime minister-elect Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party celebrated their victory in Pakistani community enclaves in Queens and Brooklyn, supporters of parties that garnered fewer parliamentary seats expressed disappointment. In the wake of the elections there have been widespread allegations of vote-rigging, and voting was suspended for a week in one electoral district, or constituency, in the southern port city of Karachi.

Sharif, an industrial tycoon who was twice prime minister in the 1990s, has promised to control lawlessness, end the crippling electricity crisis and revive the sinking economy of the South Asian country.

“It’s a big relief for the people of Pakistan after historic misgovernance,” says Rohail Dar, president of U.S. chapter of the PML-N. Dar, a long-time supporter of Sharif, is hopeful that his party will restore people’s confidence in the government.

“Pakistani people have been through a lot of turmoil. God has given our party the opportunity to clean the rot,” Dar, an engineer by profession, told Voices of NY.

So far results for 267 of the 272 directly elected National Assembly seats, the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament, have been announced. The PML-N leads the tally with 126 seats. It needs 137 seats to win a simple majority. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of President Asif Ali Zardari has emerged as the second largest group with 31 seats followed by former cricket hero Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with 29 seats. Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) retained its 18 parliamentary seats.

New York-based PTI supporters who allege election fraud in the central Punjab province – home to most of the parliamentary constituencies – question Dar’s optimism. “People have multiple proofs of massive rigging in the Punjab province and urban centers of Sindh such as Karachi,” said Yasir Ali, a PTI supporter since 2009.

Pakistani social media has gone viral with amateur cellphone videos showing supporters of competing candidates stuffing ballot boxes with bogus votes in many constituencies in Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

European Commission observers who monitored the polls have reported electoral fraud at 10 percent of the 69,801 polling stations across the nation. Free and Fair Election Network, an Islamabad-based non-profit that monitored over 8,119 polling stations, reported more than 100% voter turnout in 49 polling stations. In some instances, according to Pakistani media, the turnout was more than 300% of the registered votes in an electoral district.

The PTI has identified 25 National Assembly districts where it alleges rigging and is demanding a recount of votes. Many analysts call the electoral fraud reports a bad omen for Pakistani democracy.

“I think we are moving too quickly on interpreting the election results. The vote rigging scandal is just emerging and is looking dangerous,” says Arif Ansar, the founding CEO and chief analyst at Washington DC-based think tank PoliTact.  He foresees a “scary situation” if these allegations are proved.

Ali argues that leading experts on Pakistan’s politics had predicted before the elections that a high voter turnout would help Khan’s PTI. “The disappointing results despite high turnout is one more reason to believe that results were doctored,” says the 41-year-old Bronx-based businessman. Pakistan’s election commission says that despite violence, turnout was 60 percent, the highest the country has seen since the 1970 elections.

PTI’s New York-based supporters are planning a protest against election rigging in front of the Consulate General of Pakistan on May 16. Its angry supporters have been protesting in the port city of Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and capital of the Punjab province, ever since the results were announced.

Agha Saleh, a Jackson Heights, Queens-based PPP supporter blamed vote fraud, PPP’s own poor governance record and its failure to mobilize its voter base as the reasons for its defeat. “There was a clear disconnect between PPP supporters and the current leadership,” he said. Saleh, who ran for the National Assembly in 1990 elections, believes that the party has deviated from its ideals of political and economic empowerment of Pakistanis. “It pains me to see the PPP evaporating on Pakistan’s political scene.”

ANP's Rahimullah. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

Brooklyn-based supporters of secular Awami National Party (ANP), which draws its support from ethnic Pashtun population in northwestern Pakistan, blame Taliban-driven violence against their party candidates as the main reason for its trounce.  The party won only one National Assembly seat compared to the 13 it captured in the 2008 elections.  The anti-Taliban party has lost 700 of its leaders and supporters in extremist attacks in the last few years.

“We are not surprised by the election results because we were never allowed to reach out to our voter base,” says Rahimullah, the information secretary of  the U.S. chapter of the ANP who goes only by one name. The party’s supporters in New York staged a noisy protest in front of the UN headquarters on April 26 against Taliban-instigated attacks on its leaders.

Optimism About The Future

Despite all their reservations and disappointments, critics of the May 11 elections agree that it is a step toward a more transparent democracy. “Eventually the results will be positive,” agrees Ali who hopes PTI’s candidate Khan, a charismatic advocate for political change and dialogue with the Taliban to end violence, will make a comeback in 2018 elections.

Whether the new government can reach a peace deal with the Taliban or not, the Pakistani community in New York is looking forward to a more determined and unified approach from their newly elected leaders to tackle the country’s complex security and economic challenges.

In Pakistani enclaves across the city, supporters of political parties that emerged victorious in the election celebrated in traditional style.

Supporters of Muttahida Qaumi Movement celebrate their party’s victory at a restaurant 
in Jackson Heights, Queens. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

A show of optimism was on display when Dar and his fellow supporters of the PML-N danced to the drumbeats of Boota Dholi, Brooklyn’s famous Pakistani drummer, at their party office on Coney Island Avenue. Same was the sentiment at a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, where supporters of MQM celebrated.

The Pakistani elections may or may not mitigate the challenges in the lives of its 180 million citizens, but it did bring some business to the six bakeries selling Pakistani sweets on Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue. Traditionally Pakistanis distribute sweets to celebrate an occasion.

Rana Kashif, manager of Gourmet Sweet on Coney Island Avenue, displays the 
extra ladoos he prepared for the elections. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

“The sweet shops had made extra ladoos [a ball-shaped sweet made of flour, sugar and other ingredients] in advance to cater to the expected higher demand after the election results were announced,” said Mohsin Zaheer, editor of Brooklyn-based Urdu weekly Sada-e-Pakistan. “Coney Island Avenue’s sweet shop owners were the biggest winners of Pakistani elections in the U.S.,” quipped the veteran Pakistani journalist.

A New York-based attorney of Pakistan origin best summed up the results.

“A day to celebrate the progress of democratic process in Pakistan: The current electoral transition is certainly not perfect but at least it moved forward on its own strength and dynamics despite horrendous odds,” wrote Saleem Rizvi on his Facebook message.

“Regardless of our party affiliations, commitments, connections and activism, we must not lose our hopes to build a progressive, prosperous and pluralistic Pakistan,” Rizvi wrote and added that Pakistanis must not allow the Taliban and their partners in crime to hijack the country for their hateful ideology.

Pakistan Election Violence Reverberates in New York

By Jehangir Khattak
The story was originally published in the voicesofny.org 

Supporters of ANP protesting in front of the UN headquarters. (Photo by Jehangir Khattak via Voice of NY)

Jamal Khan drove 45 miles from his home in White Plains, N.Y., to 46th Street and First Avenue in front of United Nations headquarters in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, on April 26. He wanted to add his voice to the condemnation expressed by more than two dozen supporters of Awami National Party (ANP), who had gathered to protest bomb attacks on its candidates ahead of May 11 landmark elections in Pakistan.

Khan, who runs a fried chicken business and has been in the U.S. since 1991, shouted slogans in unison with his comrades. “We want peace”; “Stop killing Pashtuns”; “Stop terrorism” and “Stop target killing ANP candidates” were some of the demands that reverberated against a background of  traffic and nearby construction noise. The protesters were referring to Taliban violence against the ANP’s predominantly Pashtun (also spelled “Pakhtoon”) leadership.

ANP is a Pakistani political party with a support base in the country’s mostly Pashtun northwest. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has announced plans to target three major secular parties — the ANP, the Pakistan People’s Party, to which President Asif Ali Zardari belongs, and the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Around 60 people have died in bomb attacks on ANP, PPP and MQM campaign workers and leaders across Pakistan since the beginning of April.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated TTP, an umbrella group of over two dozen Taliban outfits, is based in the North Waziristan region of the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) corridor along Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. It is blamed for the scores of terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of over 40,000 Pakistanis since 2004.

The protesters converged in front of the UN in response to a call from the U.S. chapter of the ANP. Unlike Khan, the majority of the participants had travelled from Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue, of ‘Little Pakistan’ fame. Almost all major Pakistani political parties maintain their presence in the United States mostly as non-profits. Some of these non-profits often raise campaign funds for their parent parties in Pakistan.

“Stop the killing of ANP leadership and innocent Pakhtoons in the Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,” said Taj Akber Khan, organizer of the protest who is also president of the U.S. chapter of ANP, reading from a resolution over a megaphone. The interim government, said Taj, should provide a peaceful environment for holding free and fair elections by taking action against those committing “these evil acts.”

“We want to bring to the attention of the international community the organized violence against secular parties in Pakistan,” Taj told party supporters. The UN, he demanded, should press Pakistan’s interim government to create a conducive atmosphere for campaigning.

“Right now, electioneering is just taking place in Punjab (Pakistan’s most populous province) but candidates in the other three provinces (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and parts of Sindh) cannot reach their electorate,” he said, fearing that fair elections might become a distant reality under such conditions. ANP says it has lost over 700 of its leaders and supporters over the past few years in attacks by extremists.

The protesters raised slogans against terrorism. (Photo by Jehangir Khattak)

The small but noisy protest in front of UN headquarters received big coverage in Pakistan’s mainstream television channels, since it coincided with a powerful bomb explosion in the country’s southern port city of Karachi. Eleven ANP supporters were killed and 50 injured when a bomb exploded near a small campaign gathering for the ANP candidate for the Sindh province’s legislature, of which Karachi is the capital. The Taliban instantly claimed responsibility for the attack.

Taliban attacks are a new phenomenon in Karachi, which has seen political, sectarian, ethnic, militant and criminal violence for the past many years. According to a report by the United States Institute of Peace, the violence has claimed more than 7,000 lives since 2008.  The Taliban violence has induced old political rivals – the MQM and ANP – to join hands against a common enemy. The two parties have rivaled each other for years to win political space in the port city.

Just hours after the protest in Turtle Bay, Taj Akbar joined local leaders and supporters of the MQM at a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, to condemn the attacks. Pakistan Club, USA, a Queens-based community organization, hosted the event.

Pakistan Club USA members and supporters of MQM at the event to condemn election violence. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

“When candidates cannot run their election campaigns freely, how can the elections be fair?” Anees Siddiqui, of the MQM, asked a small audience at the Kabab King restaurant located at 73^rd Street and Broadway in Jackson Heights. The event’s host, Raees Warsi, shared Siddiqui’s sentiments.

Extremists dictating election results?

The Taliban do not believe in a secular democratic system, claiming Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and thus their brand of Sharia should be the supreme law of the land there. The Taliban explained on April 29that it was targeting the three parties because of their secular ideology and support for military operations against the group.

But not everyone sees this as the sole reason for their latest bloody campaign against pro-democracy political parties.

Arif Ansar, the founding CEO and chief analyst at Washington DC-based think tank PoliTact, believes the violence is connected to wider trends in the Middle East.  “The liberal space is continually shrinking and nationalist and conservative forces are resurgent in the Middle East, as they have been in Pakistan,” he told Voices of NY in response to an email query. “There are different reasons for this, but one of them is the war on terror. It may also be linked to the dysfunction of the liberal autocrats that triggered the Arab Spring.”

Ansar fears that the violence could have far-reaching domestic, regional and international implications. “It can decisively shift the balance in favor of conservative, nationalist and religious elements in the elections. These forces were already resurgent due to factors such as war on terror and the failure of secular parties to govern and deliver.”

Ansar believes that if the conservatives or religious elements come into power as a result of this shift, they will exert influence on the reconciliation process in Afghanistan and the direction of Pakistan’s relations with India and the U.S.

Many in Pakistan and the community here in the U.S. fear that the upsurge in violence could delay the elections. But Arif Ansar doubts there will be a delay. “Barring some major tragedy, like assassination of a major political leader, there is little chance of this happening,” he says, adding that even the murder of Benazir Bhutto failed to stop the 2008 elections. He says the international community also wants these elections on time “irrespective of how imperfect they may be.”

The impact of violence on the election results makes many Pakistanis nervous, including Khan, who is a native of Swat valley in the country’s mountainous northwest, an area which was liberated from the Taliban in 2009 after a military operation.

“I don’t think elections will be fair. The militants are sidelining the Pashtuns from the national mainstream,” he said, while blaming the country’s security establishment for failing to provide adequate protection to the election candidates.  Explaining the urgency that drove him to join the small protest, leaving his business to his employees, Khan said: “The stakes are higher than the profits from a day’s business.”