A game of Russian roulette

We need to keep careful score as this election campaign moves on. The question that is emerging is not just that of who will win the poll, but of how many candidates will actually emerge alive and un-harmed from the process. It is still early, but the toll is already mounting – quickly and steadily. Who knows what we will see by the time polling day actually arrives on May 11?

It is clear now that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan meant business when it said it intended to target the Awami National Party, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement on the basis that they were ‘secular’ forces. It is now obvious that the group has every intention of doing exactly what it says. At least three electoral candidates linked to these parties are already dead – gunned down or torn apart by bombs. Countless others have been injured.

As could have been predicted, the ANP – based chiefly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – has suffered the worst. Eighteen were killed in a suicide bombing in Peshawar on Tuesday that was targeting Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, whose brother, Ghulam Bashir Bilour, was killed last year.

But the other parties on the list have not been left immune either. In many ways the election campaigns for the candidates of these parties have become a test of courage – or foolhardiness – rather than a political process. We can already say with a fair degree of certainty that there will be more deaths.

The parties have been affected: every move made by Bilawal Bhutto has to be put up against back-lit screens to determine if it is safe for him to make it. In effect this means he can hardly lead his party’s campaign, and is unable to mingle with people or visit constituencies, even as ardent supporters demand he do so.

The ANP faces the same problem, with party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan opting not to lead its campaign. Over the past few years, he has already attended a record number of funerals – and does not wish to join the bodies in graveyards. Who knows how many bodies there will, eventually, be.

This is no ordinary election. For too many candidates it has become a game of Russian roulette, with possible death lurking everywhere. Democracy cannot operate like this. The Taliban, a banned force with no belief in polls, have become key players in the election.

In the first place, by making the list of targets public, the TTP has identified the parties they see as most antagonistic to them. There was little doubt about this anyway – with other mainstream forces adopting a somewhat more ambiguous attitude on militancy. At least the Taliban verdict draws the picture out more clearly for many of us.

But death, or the fear of it, should not be a part of an electoral exercise; the Taliban should not have a role to play in how it should be conducted. But this today has become our nightmarish reality. They are in many ways determining what will happen.

A dead candidate can after all not sit in an assembly or make decisions for the future. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto left behind a political void. Other, possibly smaller ones have been created since then but when they are all put together we have a gaping hole – a vacuum within our political reality that weakens us, as politicians are gunned down. No nation can really survive such carnage given the damage it inflicts on democracy and all that goes with it.

So, what do we do? Is there anything that we can do? It does not seem so. Political parties whose candidates have been felled have asked the Election Commission for security. The reality is that it cannot really do so. Safeguarding each and every contender against expert assassins is simply not possible.

Elections after all involve, or should involve, corner meetings, free interaction with people, warm handshakes and all the other forms of contact with the masses that comes around at this time. For certain parties at least, this is beginning to look more and more difficult with each passing day.

The real question is why the Taliban have been permitted to turn into a force that can influence our entire political existence in such a manner. We have after all, technically speaking at least, been fighting them for over a decade.

Yet, even today their spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, is apparently available to reporters and anchorpersons everywhere in the country. It is known he is exceedingly accessible and indeed an exceptionally articulate proponent for his organisation’s wicked cause. It is astonishing though that our vast network of intelligence agencies cannot seem to track him down or reach him with the same ease as media people everywhere.

So what is the reason for this? Members of the PPP, which has just handed over power to the interim setup, say that running the country and coping with militancy is an almost impossible task given that they are kept in the dark about much that is happening.

Residents of tribal areas ask why the war is being fought in their villages and towns when it should really be fought in Rawalpindi and against institutions which hold central power in the country. The games that they are engaged in may be very different from those that we believe are being played.

Like a video game, the real target in the eyes of some seems to be that once beautiful city of Kabul – destroyed now by years of warfare. Attempts to rebuild it have partially succeeded; but there are those who believe they have the right to own it. The strength of the Taliban is derived from their beliefs and ideology.

These are extremely dangerous times then. It is obvious that death is to be a part of this election. The score will need to be carefully kept. It changes frequently and alarmingly. That this has been allowed to happen shows just what kind of crisis we have been plunged into. There is no rope hanging down for us to pull ourselves back out again of the crater in which we have landed.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor. Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com