Back to the people

POLITICS in Pakistan appears to be dead. However, this is only because of the beating it has taken. Like whack-a-mole, it pops up when least expected. The moment headlines about international events no longer take up all the oxygen in the room, the fractious world of Pakistani politics begins to draw attention to itself. It was no different this time around. Once the US-Iran saga settled into ‘deal is a-comin’’, commentary here focused on how the foreign policy successes had not translated into any relief for inflation-afflicted Pakistanis. By now, questions have multiplied about the mess that is the economy. These questions will simply grow as budget time draws closer and summer power bills multiply. That’s not all. The impending elections in Gilgit-Baltistan and beyond have highlighted the same issues that the government and others have been at pains to ignore. Elections in GB are scheduled to be held this month, after a delay of around four months due to ‘bad weather’. Elections for around 24 directly elected seats will take place in the first week of June. Keeping precedent in mind, the electoral trend favours the party in power in Islamabad. But those on the ground are not so sure. According to them, voters tend to see the government in Islamabad as a coalition and hence expect a similar mish-mash in poll results — some form of a PML-N-PPP combine. And because the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (of the Aleem Khan fame) is also campaigning hard there, the guess is that it may also have been promised something. It is difficult for a couch potato to tell how much of the result will come from the voting and how much from the powers who cannot be named. Let’s not forget the rumours regarding the need to remind the PPP of its place in the system. However, many people have worked hard to ensure that there will be questions about the election’s credibility. One party is — as expected — without an election symbol. And its leadership has been stopped from campaigning freely;