Regional poll ‘bewilders’ residents

Tom Hussain, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 10. 2009 12:30AM UAE / November 9. 2009 8:30PM GMT

Pakistan Muslim League-N activists greet their leader, Nawaz Sharif, at an election rally in Gilgit. Muzammil Pasha for The National

GILGIT, PAKISTAN // A regional poll on Thursday in Pakistan’s northern territory of Gilgit-Baltistan is being fiercely contested by all the major political parties, despite residents’ ineligibility to vote in national elections.

The result is far less predictable than in previous elections, when only two of the country’s major parties, the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League, had contested, alongside local independent candidates.

But with the restoration of full parliamentary democracy in Pakistan in 2008, and the subsequently high media profile of all political activity in the country, federal political parties are pouring time and resources into the vote in this mountainous region, which forms part of the greater Kashmir territorial dispute between Pakistan and India.

“The dynamics of our elections have been transformed by the influx of all the national parties. The number of candidates contesting each seat has gone up, making the results far less predictable,” said Amjad Hussain, a Gilgit-based political activist of the Pakistan Muslim League faction led by Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader.

“Overnight, we’ve gone from being a political backwater to the focus of national politics and, frankly, it’s quite bewildering.”

The region’s 745,000 registered voters, spread across 24 seats in high-altitude valleys bordering Afghanistan, China and India, are a numerical pittance in a country of 170 million people.

And, with Gilgit-Baltistan part of the Kashmir dispute, its residents are not, technically, Pakistani citizens, and have no representation in the federal parliament.

The region’s legislative assembly, for which this week’s elections are being conducted, has restricted powers and is more akin to a Pakistani district government than a province or autonomous territory.

Despite the boost in campaigning activity, analysts said the relatively recent introduction of partial democracy in Gilgit-Baltistan still meant the ideologies and personality cults of national political party leaders have not had enough time to fully take root.

The election is only the fourth since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, and only the second contested by political parties.

“Party identity has no impact on voter choice because the people have little experience of democracy and are unaware of political norms,” said Farooq Ahmed, a regional correspondent for Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English newspaper. “Votes will be cast on the basis of the personal standing of a contestant, whose candidature, in turn, is based on sectarian, ethnic and tribal identity.”

Yet, despite the apparent irrelevance of the poll from a federal electoral perspective, Gilgit-Baltistan has over the past month played host to every political heavyweight Pakistan has to offer, all of them making promises that target local sore points.

Yousaf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, has personally led the campaign of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), launching it on August 14 with the unveiling of a package of political and administrative reforms that devolved powers over development spending and local governance to the legislative assembly. It also redressed popular dissatisfaction with the region’s name, changing it from the anonymous Northern Areas to Gilgit-Baltistan. He has since visited the region to campaign.

Mr Sharif, the national opposition leader and head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, last week made a whirlwind helicopter tour, in which he visited every district.
Addressing rallies at each stop, he announced that the government of central Punjab province, which his party rules, had doubled its quota of university seats for students from Gilgit-Baltistan, all of whom would be granted full scholarships.

Even Altaf Hussain, who, despite being in exile in the Britain, maintains a huge amount of political control in the southern metropolis of Karachi, has regaled voters with speeches from London by telephone. His party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, has been targeting students from Gilgit-Baltistan studying at Karachi’s universities for recruitment, giving them scholarships, training them in electioneering, and sending them to their home constituencies, empowered with considerable campaign budgets and organisational support.

Even Pervez Musharraf, the former president, who also lives in exile in London, has made his presence felt.

He is still popular among Gilgit-Baltistan residents, having devoted considerable time while president to wooing residents with speeches in their native languages, upgrading the regional council into a legislative assembly, and allocating funding for crucial improvements in infrastructure and social services.

The Quaid faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, formed under Mr Musharraf’s tutelage, has sought to cash in on his popularity, entrusting its campaign to Marvi Memon, a Musharraf loyalist and member of parliament.

However, in the process of widening their involvement in Gilgit-Baltistan, the political parties have become tarred with the sectarian brush, an inevitability considering the population is evenly split between Sunnis, Shiites and Ismailis, who follow the Aga Khan.

“It is no secret that the PPP is considered a pro-Shiite party, the Noon League [Mr Sharif’s party] pro-Sunni, and the Qaaf League [the Quaid faction] is favoured by Ismailis. It’s equally true that the parties’ local leaders have in the past excluded people of sects other than their own,” said Iqbal Rasool Mughal, regional president of the PPP’s youth organisation. “That is why we have nominated a Sunni candidate in Gilgit this time.”

Candidates, activists and analysts are in consensus that the likely outcome on Thursday is a split mandate, with the PPP and Quaid faction likely to emerge as the two most successful parties, but with independent candidates constituting the largest bloc in the 24-member legislative assembly.

“With the PPP in power in Islamabad and in control of the region’s administrative machinery, it is expected to form a majority in the assembly and the next Gilgit-Baltistan government,” Ahmed from Dawn said.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae