General Pervez Musharraf on 11 November 2007 announced that he “expects” general elections to be held in Pakistan before January 9, within 60 days of the National Assembly’s dissolution on November 15. He did not indicate an exact date for the elections or when he will lift the state of emergency that he imposed over a week ago, and made clear that the emergency could continue throughout an election and thereafter; ironically, he maintained, to “ensure transparent polls”. He also did not indicate when the Provisional Constitutional Order with which he has replaced the constitution–which the Supreme Court struck down as itself being unconstitutional before its judges were removed and replaced by the general’s proxies–would be revoked. He said that all those being held on political grounds would be released to participate in the polls, but criticised political opponents as well as the judiciary, particularly Chief Justice Iftekhar Choudhry, who has been pushed out of his seat for a second time in the one year.
The so-called election announcement is in keeping with other vague utterances from General Musharraf which he has no intention of actually keeping, perhaps not in word and certainly not in spirit. He behaved and spoke in a similar manner throughout the time that his candidacy for the presidency was being reviewed by the Supreme Court, and wound up again making a mockery of the court rather than risk the chance that his authority be challenged. It is a commitment without commitment. Even if he were to adhere to the deadline, the holding of the elections under emergency rule, with senior judges in house arrest, the courts virtually at a standstill, censorship and two new ordinances to control reporting, thousands of ongoing detentions, denials of the right to assemble, and above all an abrogated constitution, the idea that military rule could somehow be replaced by a democratically-elected civilian regime defies common sense: it is the sort of nonsense at which military regimes excel.
The announcement thus is not an announcement in favour of democracy but rather an announcement in favour of the international community paying attention to something else, and if possible, somewhere else. It is the announcement of someone who believes that he can coerce and lie to the rest of the world in the way that he does to people in his own country.
The Asian Human Rights Commission holds that these general elections, even if held, will not and cannot be free and fair, as Musharraf is both president and army chief; as the judiciary is under lock and key, along with the constitution and all of the fundamental rights that it contains; as thousands of political workers, lawyers, civil society activists, human rights defenders, journalists and others are filling up the jails, despite having been put in them without regard to law; and, as the country is today under ordinances and regulations that are intended to diminish the rule of law and open expression. A free and fair election in Pakistan will only occur when all of these conditions are righted and the general’s notion of “democracy” is put to rest. In the meantime, the announcement of November 11 should be taken as nothing more than a poorly-concocted and barely-worked out diversionary tactic.
