Dream of peaceful polls

Elections season is shaping up to be reminder of times long past, for all wrong reasons

The 2024 election season is shaping up to be a reminder of times long past, for all the wrong reasons, as all the major parties are claiming the opponents attacked them. In Karachi, PPP and PTI are both accusing MQM-P workers of attacking some of their local offices. Some MQM-P leaders quickly denied any links to the attacks, but it appears Mustafa Kamal did not get the memo, as the former mayor of Karachi used violent language in his fiery speech at a party rally, including threatening election officials with mob violence if they “try to rig the elections”. Even if we are to take the lenient view that those comments were only directed at people who may indulge in the crime of rigging, election candidates cannot go around threatening anyone, even criminals, with lynching. Kamal especially should know better — he was among the most prominent MQM members to condemn the Altaf Hussein-era iteration of the party’s use of violence when he left it in 2016.

Further north, a PPP office in Lahore was attacked by unidentified armed men who robbed it and set it on fire. There were also conflicting reports of fresh security concerns at universities in Islamabad, although authorities rubbished reports that universities in the federal capital were being closed. But the mere fact that security around university campuses needs to be heightened reflects the increasing law and order concerns across the country. And while Islamabad does not have a significant history of electoral violence, it has a ‘rich’ tradition of political violence, especially boil-over violence from other provinces and cities.

Meanwhile, K-P and Balochistan can ill afford electoral violence — they already have an uptick in terrorism to deal with. The situation in these provinces is tense enough that experts were already warning of militant attacks on public gatherings. Unfortunately, some politicians also believe that violence, rather than ideas, is the way to impact election day.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2024.

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