Fraud in Sanghar
Daily The Nation 21,1,1996
By Mir Murtaza Bhutto
In Sanghar on January 11.1996, Mohtarma Benazir won a trophy and lost a claim. The world cup for election fraud, which Jam Sadiq Ali took to his grave, has been exhumed and has been awarded to the Prime Minister. She has lost the title of champion of democracy, having traded it with champion of poll rigging. It was not dhandli that took place in NA-181, it was dhandla.
This constituency is composed of block votes. (Though there are about 2,20,000 registered voters, never more than 1,00,000 ever cast their ballots). The MQM regularly casts between 23,000-24,000 when it fields its own candidate. The Pir of Pagara votes number around 20,000. The Punjabi and Baloch settlers consist of approximately 5,000 votes each. In 1970, when Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took the nation by storm, the PPP bagged 60,000 votes here its highest recorded. It’s been downhill since then for the PPP as far as NA-181 is concerned. In 1988, the party got 49,879 votes. In 1990 46,889 in November 1993 it got 45,121 votes and lost the seat to Jam Mashooq Ali who won on the borrowed votes of the MQM, Pir Pagara and Muslim league (Punjabi settlers). In 1990, Jam Mashooq had also received 50,531 votes that these three forces generate. He was declared winner at the count of 72,405, thanks to his father for having got stuffed 20,000 gratis votes.
But in Sangar on January 11, 1996 Mohtarma Benazir Zardari over whelmed the infamy of the legendary Jam Sadiq Ali in the department of election fraud. She got her frightened, pathetic candidate elected by over 75,000 votes. There is no way this could have been achieved by fair means.
Let us, first, very briefly examine the various claims being made by the ruling party in the aftermath of its gargantuan “win” in Sangar.
My party’s candidate got less than 10,000 votes. That is less than the lowest I received when I was contesting elections from Syria in 1993. At the time, when I had been half way across the world for sixteen long years, I got between 15,000 and 25,000 votes in the six different constituencies from where I contested. That means I have lost ground since my return and that too in Sindh. This is an untenable proposition.
The entire MQM votes for the party of which General Naseerullah Babar is a prominent member. This is a laughable suggestion.
All of Pir Pagaro’s Hurs voted for the Sarkari party despite the fact that he had boycotted the polls. This is an impossible explanation.
Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and the Punjabi settlers voted for the sarkari PPP en-bloc. This is an incredible scenario.
Angels from high above also cast a few thousand votes. This is a fairy tale.
By all accounts there was only a 15 per cent to 20 per cent turnout on election day. Let us be generous and concede that 25 per cent voted on January 1, 1996 in Sangar. There are about 2,20,000 registered voters in NA-181. According to these irrefutable facts even if every single voter casts his/her vote for the sarkaris, they cannot get more than 55,000 votes. According to the ruling party, our party got 9400 votes and the Nawaz group got 17,000 votes. That leaves the sarkaris with about 23,000 votes.
Mathematically, it is impossible to rationalise the declared result of an 75,000 votes victory no matter which way you look at it. Clearly, the Prime Minister’s sycophants went for an overkill in Sangar. The election was not rigged, it was bulldozed. It was like killing a fly with an artillery shell.
The sarkari PPP exaggerated beyond all proportions in committing a fraud that may well prove to be their Waterloo. They bungled badly because the stakes in Sangar were so high that they cannot be overestimated. In Sangar it was not a serious triangular contest because, even with backing, the PML candidate would not have got more than 20,000 votes. (The MQM’s entire vote comes out only for their own candidate close allies can rely on only 60 per cent to 70 per cent of their vote). The real contest was between the two factions of the PPP. The prize was not just the votes of the combined PPP in Sanghar nor was it a single seat in the National Assembly. The prize was all of Sindh, until now the power base of the sarkari PPP, which Sanghar represented.
A defeat in Sanghar, or even a near win, would have been an unmitigated catastrophe for the sarkaris. Its repercussions would be felt beyond Sindh to all Pakistan and beyond the seas to where Benazir keeps a keen ear and a nervous gaze.
In Sindh, a demoralised administration, reeling under Abdullah Shah’s incompetent and corrupt misrule, would have collapsed completely. The unsteady loyalties of the sarkari MPSs in Sindh, many already cheating on their boss on the sly, would have come under a fresh and vigorous assault. In short, a defeat in Sanghar would have overturned the entire political applecart of the sarkaris and thoroughly subverted its power equilibrium. They had no choice but to adhere to their battle cry: Marsoon marsoom Sanghar na deasoon (I will die, I will die, I will not give Sanghar).
Hence, come hell or high water, Carthage had to be destroyed. Mohtarma Benazir thus behaved like a despicable tyrant who wants to demonstrate to the world a popular mandate. The ego of the dictator wants a display of 100 per cent popular endorsement. But his limited vision tells him to be generous and credible, by manoeuvring a 99.9 per cent electoral victory. Unfortunately for her, Mohatarma’s minions arranged not a 99.9 per cent mandate but a 350 per cent one.
The sarkaris should wipe the silly grins off their faces because they have lost what-ever little tattered and soiled credibility they possessed till now. It would have been infinitely wiser for the Prime Minister to have conducted a fair poll. This way, the ruling party would have known how far they had fallen in the eyes of people, and they could have taken corrective measures to stem the decline.
As children, we were taught both at school and at home, not to cheat in our school work. In the long run we are only cheating ourselves, we were told. Politicians, too, only cheat themselves when they fiddle poll results. It would not be out of order here to remind the Prime Minister of what her father one wrote: “One may delay the deliverance of a people but then nature extorts a high price for it.”
Benazir has not only lost a title or a claim; she has betrayed the rallying cry of freedom and democracy, of the rule of law and human dignity, that consumed the better part of her adult life. Mohtarma Benazir has stolen the trophy of Sanghar. In the process, she has forfeited a dream.
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