Travel from Karachi to Khyber or from Lahore to Quetta, and voter ambivalence is a safe verdict to pronounce on the mood prevailing across the country days before the people go to the polls. As seen firsthand, the reasons for the apparent apathy vary: cynicism that elections will be rigged, resonance of boycott calls from several quarters, depression over terrorist attacks and fear created by targeted killings of opposition candidates, especially Benazir Bhutto. It is a sign of the reigning cynicism that despite opinion polls showing a surge of support for the opposition PPP and PMLN, many around the country say it’s a foregone conclusion that as long as the US backs President Pervez Musharraf, he will go on to pack the next parliament with his supporters, with only a change of faces, if at all.

Thus, big rallies are out; only corner meetings remain. Lawyers like Pakistan Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan, ousted judges and opposition candidates who are seen to be threatening remain locked up. Where there is any action, Bhutto’s People’s Party and the Sharifs’ Muslim League are leading on a nationwide basis. Regional parties like the leftist Awami National Party of the heirs of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the pre-independence Sarahadi Gandhi, in the Frontier province, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement of Altaf Hussain in urban Sindh have their own strongholds. Most ethnic-nationalist and religious parties, as part of the APDM alliance, are boycotting the election. Of these, significant parties worth any number seats in parliament are the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Balochistan Nationalist Party and the Jamhoori Watan Party (of the slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti). Imran Khan’s PTI is also a part of the APDM, though it just about managed one seat in the last election.

... contd.