Political musings: Zehri says power brokers pick Balochistan governments

Election or selection? BNP-A chief discusses Balochistan’s politics

ISLAMABAD: The head of the Balochistan National Party-Awami claimed on Sunday that Balochistan has not had elections in the true sense and that the political governments have been installed in the province through a process of ‘selection’.

Known for his blunt remarks, BNP-A chief Senator Mir Israrullah Zehri is the brother of the provincial Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri, yet on the political front the two are arch-rivals.



The senator was earlier part of the BNP which was formed in 1996 by seasoned Baloch politician and former chief minister Sardar Ataullah Mengal. Two years later, he formed his own faction of the party due to his differences with Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the son of Ataullah Mengal, over intra-party polls.



The Israrullah-led faction has been a part of the coalition governments respectively led by the PML-Q and the PPP in the centre and province. However, presently he sits on opposition benches in the Senate as the only MPA from his party. His party also sits on opposition benches in the Balochistan Assembly.

Israrullah claims that Baloch politicians have been coming to power after a nod from the real power brokers – the establishment of the country. He calls ‘the so-called elections’ a ‘selection’ which, according to him, is done on the basis of personal links.

“This selection is done on the basis of personal links of local politicians with station commanders of law enforcement agencies or whatever you call them. If they want to favour me, I will get elected. If they are not with me, no matter how much public support I enjoy, I will not win.” He is the one on whose report his seniors make the selection,” he said.



He said he had been consecutively elected to assemblies since 1990 and his people [Baloch nationalists] had been getting more or less the same number of seats since then.  “In 1997, we were united under one BNP and had a combined strength of 12 members in the provincial assembly. Even when the BNP was divided into three parties – the NP, the BNP-M and the BNP-A –we (BNP-A) managed to maintain our significant presence somehow till 2013,” he said.

According to him, he was anticipating even more seats but results of the last elections were quite opposite to expectations. “We realised later we could not get endorsement from them,” he said.

“In the past we had contacts with them. They are Pakistan’s institutions but we never had any deal with them on the number of seats. But others – like Mehmood Khan Achakzai [of PkMAP] and Hasil Bazinjo [of NP] – might have made this. You can see it through allocation of seats to them,” he said.

According to him in the initial plan before 2013 general elections, it was Sardar Akhtar Mengal, who was to be given an important role in the province but the plan did not realise somehow and the NP and the PkMAP were selected as the new players in the provincial set up.

“Our party candidate had been winning a seat from Gwadar, and I sent the same guy a party ticket. Two days later, I came to know he is contesting from BNP-M. When I asked him what happened, he said I have been told to get their ticket,” he said to substantiate his claim.

In Makran, which, he said, is considered the most educated area of Balochistan, no election took place. If there were 150 polling stations in a constituency, only six or seven were open. In the rest of polling stations, polling was not conducted at all but people were sent to assemblies from there, he added.

He also cited the example Chagi, which, according to him, is a totally Baloch area but from where a PkMAP lawmaker succeeded, in spite of the fact that the party has no presence in the area.

“Within Quetta districts some provincial constituencies – like the PB-5 and the PB-6 – are purely Baloch dominated area, from where Baloch nationalist parties had been traditionally winning. This time these seats were given to PkMAP under a deal with the Achakzai led party,” he said.

He claims that the incumbent provincial setup comprising the NP, the PkMAP and the PML-N also came into being as a result of an agreement with real power brokers of the country.

“In Balochistan, power is given to parties like dowry. It is also given in turn. This time it is you and that too for a specific period and then the next one. This is also the case of the present setup in the province,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2016.