Daily Times

The Chief of Army Staff, General Ashafq Parvez Kayani, is on a countrywide tour to oversee security arrangements for the elections. He was in Quetta on May 6, where he has asked the security and intelligence agencies to synchronize their efforts to minimize chances of any threat to the candidates and to pollsters on the polling day. Nearly 7,000 army personnel are deployed in Balochistan to manage election-related activities. Ballot papers were transported to the polling booths bt the army. Special aerial monitoring through helicopters has been arranged for polling day. For Balochistan the presence of the army is nothing new or exceptional. The force is already deployed and is keen to have control over the province. The political air in Balochistan had been heavy over many years due to the treatment that civilian and military governments chose to apply to the province. The repeated failures of the past governments to deliver the Baloch from their perceptual and real threats have extended the life of the insurgency in the province. Considered enemies, the insurgents have not been brought into the political process through dialogue. And unless there is a dialogue, how could the government expect Balochistan to become a normal province is a difficult puzzle to solve. The previous government having announced the much touted Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package .became complacent and did little to implement it. The day the government ended its term after completing five years, Balochistan was as threatened and under the control of the army as it was at the beginning of the government’s tenure. The Frontier Corps (FC) continued with its policy of kill and dump, and it was never pulled out even when the residents of Quetta accused it of being responsible for the troubled atmosphere in the province. Even the exposure of the FC’s atrocities in the Supreme Court could do nothing to free the province from its clutches. In such a situation, talking of peaceful, credible, free and fair elections sounds unnatural.

The insurgents have already rejected these elections. They have distanced themselves from the local political parties participating in the polls. How would the caretaker government ensure a good turnover on election day is a point worth considering. Ideally, these elections should have been held in a free political atmosphere, not a garrison ambiance that has only deepened by adding more of a military presence in the province. It would be a great disservice to Pakistan to once again conduct farcical elections in Balochistan and then give some lollypops to its people in the garb of a new Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan type package. This policy will not work this time, just as it failed over the last five years. *