Karachi,

Earlier this month in Pakistan, a popular
television show instructed viewers on the proper
method of casting a ballot in the coming
elections. The programme was the satirical 4 Man
Show, and the elections in question are being run
by a music channel to determine the people’s
choice for best VJ. The subtext to the skit was
the listlessness surrounding those other
elections in Pakistan, scheduled for February 18.

On the streets of Karachi there are few visible
signs of campaigning, aside from banners
announcing various constituency candidates. But
many of those banners have been in place since
the run-up to the January 8 elections, which were
postponed following Benazir Bhutto’s
assassination, and the slogans on the Pakistan
People’s party banners - The Return of Benazir is
the Return of Hope - now sound a note of doom.

It’s easy to find the reason for the absence of
the large-scale rallies that usually characterise
campaigns: suicide bombings. It hasn’t been just
Benazir’s rallies - first her homecoming rally on
October 18, then the election rally on December
27 - that have been targeted. Over the past
weekend, there was a suicide bombing at an Awami
National party rally in the volatile North-West
Frontier Province, killing 27.

The threat of suicide bombings has almost
entirely halted the big rallies, although Asif
Zardari relaunched the PPP’s campaign on February
9 at a rally of thousands in Thatta, Sindh
province, after the 40-day mourning period for
Benazir Bhutto. It’s worth mentioning that the
few rallies that have been held included one at
the weekend for the APDM, the inaccurately named
All-Parties Democratic Movement, which is in fact
boycotting the elections.

Necessity is opening up other avenues, too: in a
move either bizarre or ingenious, the Muttahida
Quami Movement, Karachi’s most powerful party,
whose election symbol is the kite, held a
kite-flying festival that attracted large
crowds - though it remains in doubt how many people
listened to the speeches rather than simply
enjoying the kites and music. Largely, though,
candidates are using quieter methods, such as
door-to-door campaigning and local neighbourhood
meetings. Perfectly worthy ways of engaging
voters, but entirely lacking in pre-election buzz.

Many Pakistanis have long since stayed away from
the election process, believing no government
will change their lives of hardship and misery.
But this time the mood of hopelessness seems to
have extended outward, even to people who live
and breathe politics. No political conversation
I’ve heard in the last month has been without the
word “allow”. As in: “Musharraf won’t allow ...”;
“the army will never allow ...”; but also "the
people won’t allow".

This stand-off between what will and won’t be
allowed is often portrayed as the real decider of
election results. So, the argument goes: on the
one hand, Musharraf-backed-by-the-army won’t
allow the two parties that oppose him (the PPP
and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) to make up the
two-thirds majority in the national assembly
necessary to impeach the president and reverse
his changes to the constitution. On the other
hand, the people of Pakistan - specifically the
supporters of the PPP and PML-N - won’t allow a
result that brings Musharraf’s supporters (the
Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam and the MQM)
back into power.

Asif Zardari has openly warned the government of
a “severe reaction” in the event of rigging, and
his party has made it clear that widespread
defeats for the PPP will be seen as evidence of
that. So, the chattering classes predict, the PPP
will probably emerge as the largest single party
in the National Assembly, followed by the PML-N,
but the PML-Q and MQM will also carry a
significant number of seats. Interestingly, the
most recent polling data suggests this would
accurately reflect the parties’ actual level of
support. It seems possible that the wave of
sympathy for the PPP following Benazir’s death
has been dented by the appointment of the
controversial Zardari as party leader. Certainly
there’s no one who has anything approaching
Bhutto’s crowd-pulling charisma.

And the party that made the most astonishing
gains in the 2002 elections - the religious
alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal - is entirely
absent from political discussions. One of the
main sections of the MMA, the Jamaat-e-Islami, is
boycotting the elections; but in addition,
support for the MMA in the constituencies it won
in 2002 has sharply declined as a result of its
failure to deliver on promises after five years
in office. However, disturbingly, the fall in its
popularity may also signal that some of its
supporters have moved further into extremism and
now believe in backing or joining those who
operate outside the political process.

As for me, I’m going to cast my vote on February
18 to show support for a process which, however
flawed, is leagues ahead of any alternative. Who
I’ll vote for - well, that’s a question to which
I still don’t have an answer.