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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Ironically, Benazir's successor, the caretaker prime
minister, was one of Pakistan's largest landowners, also
from
Benazir's Sindh Province. Jatoi had joined the PPP when
Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto had founded it in the late 1960s, was in
Bhutto's
first cabinet, and was later chief minister of Sindh until
Zia
overthrew Bhutto in 1977. Jatoi had remained supportive of
the
PPP during the martial law period and had spearheaded the
campaign organized by the MRD against Zia's government.
Following
Benazir's return to Pakistan in 1986, however, Jatoi was
removed
as chairman of the Sindh PPP and subsequently formed his
own
political organization, the National People's Party. Known
as a
moderate, Jatoi said that his party's objective was to
make
Pakistan a modern, democratic, and progressive Islamic
welfare
state.
Jatoi's caretaker government instituted accountability
proceedings against persons charged with corruption and,
under
the authority of laws enacted by both the Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto and
the Zia regimes, set up special courts to handle
accountability
cases. The accountability process had traditionally been
used to
disqualify from public office those found guilty of
corruption
and wrongdoing. It had also been used as a weapon by
politicians
in power against their opponents. The period for
accountability
defined by the Jatoi government was limited to the twenty
months
of Benazir's regime. The PPP demand that Nawaz Sharif's
Punjab
government during that same time be subjected to similar
scrutiny
was rejected. Nevertheless, the Jatoi government defended
the
proceedings as fair and neutral. Although several charges
were
brought against Benazir, and her appearance before the
accountability tribunals was required, she remained free
and was
able to lead her party in the October 1990 elections.
The Central Election Commission, consisting of three
members
of the senior judiciary, supervised preparation of the
electoral
rolls and the conduct of the 1990 elections as well as
processing
complaints and issuing reports. Although Pakistan has a
large
number of political parties, the two main contenders in
the
elections were both broad-based coalitions. One contender
was the
Pakistan Democratic Alliance, established during the
campaign by
Benazir's dominant PPP, together with the
Tehrik-i-Istiqlal,
headed by Asghar Khan, and two smaller parties. Asghar
Khan had
been Pakistan's first commander in chief of the air force
and
later became chairman of Pakistan International Airlines,
before
entering the political arena in 1969 and founding his own
party.
In the 1970s, Asghar Khan was one of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's
harshest critics. Having helped to oust Bhutto, however,
he did
not benefit from the Zia military government, and in 1989
he
resigned as Tehrik-i-Istiqlal's chairman. Political
observers
were surprised when the party joined the Pakistan
Democratic
Alliance.
The other major contender in opposition to the Pakistan
Democratic Alliance was the IJI, the coalition that had
also
competed with the PPP in the 1988 elections. The Pakistan
Muslim
League was a major component of the IJI, as was the
Jamaat-i-
Islami. The three chief competitors for leadership in the
IJI and
specifically in the Pakistan Muslim League were Nawaz
Sharif,
former Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo, and Ejaz
ul-Haq, son
of the late President Zia ul-Haq. These three men
represented key
groups in Pakistan's political culture. Junejo belonged to
a
major Sindhi landowning family and represented the feudal
classes. Ejaz appealed particularly to Zia's Islamic
fundamentalist supporters. His candidacy was weakened,
however,
by his relative lack of political experience. Nawaz
Sharif, the
ultimate victor, represented the country's growing
business
classes. The caretaker prime minister also aspired to
remain in
power, but his party was not a member of the IJI, and so
he
lacked sufficient political strength.
Other important parties included Altaf Hussain's MQM,
representing the refugee community in urban Sindh, and
Khan Abdul
Wali Khan's Awami National Party, based in the North-West
Frontier Province and northern Balochistan. Although in
1990 the
PDA and the IJI were the major election contenders in
Pakistan's
three largest provinces (Punjab, Sindh, and the North-West
Frontier Province), they had only a limited presence in
the
fourth province, Balochistan, where regional and religious
parties, such as the Jamiat-ul-Ulama-i-Islam and the
Jamhoori
Watan Party, were of equal or even greater importance.
The central campaign issue in 1990 for IJI was the
Benazir
government's alleged corruption and wrongdoing in office.
The
principal issue for the PDA was the alleged
unconstitutionality
of her dismissal from office and the subsequent treatment
of her,
and her family and associates, by the caretaker
government. The
campaign was heated, including incidents of violence,
harassment,
and political kidnappings. Media coverage played an active
role.
During this campaign, the government no longer held a
monopoly on
television news because a second network, People's
Television
Network (PTN), had been started, to compete with Pakistan
Television Corporation (PTV). The new network introduced
Cable
News Network (CNN) in Pakistan. The PPP filed a complaint
against
PTV, charging biased network election coverage by it, but
the
complaint was rejected by the Lahore High Court. Print
media
coverage offered more variety. Although
government-controlled
newspapers tended to be anti-Benazir, the larger private
sector
of print media provided more diversity of opinion. Both
the PDA
and the IJI predicted victory, but at least one detailed
public
opinion poll gave the edge to the PDA.
The election results were disastrous for the PDA, as
the IJI
won 105 of the 207 contested seats in the National
Assembly. The
PDA won only forty-five seats. The IJI attributed its
victory to
success in holding its coalition together as well as in
establishing electoral alliances nationwide to ensure that
PDA
candidates would not run unopposed. The PDA blamed the
defeat on
alleged rigging of the elections. Although the elections
were
certainly not free of irregularities, observation teams
both from
inside the country and from outside, including a team from
member
countries of the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation
(SAARC--see Glossary),
concluded that the elections had
been
generally free and fair. Despite their problems, the 1990
elections were another step forward in the quest for
political
stability and democratic government. The constitutional
transfer
of power was achieved without direct military
intervention.
Data as of April 1994
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