#pakistani elections

[localrants]

Alhamdulillah, casted my first vote.

[workersolidarity]

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PROTESTS AFTER INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES FORMERLY OF PTI, PARTY OF IMRAN KHAN, DEFEAT WESTERN-BACKED OPPONENTS

Despite the jailing of Imran Khan and the banning of his PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf) Party, several independent candidates formerly of PTI won big in the 2024 Pakistan General Elections, held February 8th.

Pakistan has been in turmoil ever since Imran Khan, Prime Minister since August 2018, was ousted in a Lawfare coup by Western-backed opposition forces in the Pakistani government and military. Khan has since been detained on trumped-up charges, some of which include accusations of an illegal marriage to his third wife, whom he married in 2018 shortly before assuming office.

After Khan's ouster, PTI supporters protested en mass against the government, leading to several violent incidents which the government then used to strip the party of its symbols and prevent candidates from running under the party's banner. PTI candidates have since been forced to run as independents.

Several high-profile former members of PTI turned against Khan under pressure and were trounced in this week's elections, with several lesser-known ex-PTI members defeating the turncoats.

During the elections, which were held on Thursday February 8th, several reports of pressuring and ballot stuffing accusations emerged, with videos posted online showing interference at the polls.

Still, independent, PTI-backed candidates won at least 92 seats, which though not enough to form a government on its own, could make it a major player during negotiations to form a coalition, if not suppressed.

Any coalition will need 169 seats to support its bid before forming a new government, with the Western-backed Muslim League winning the most seats and most likely to form a governing coalition.

Delays in results and fears of a stalemate and further political turmoil has brought thousands of PTI and Khan supporters out into the streets to protest the government's attempts to eliminate PTI and Khan as a threat to the current elite faction governing the country.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[workersolidarity]

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💥AT LEAST 24 KILLED IN TWO BOMB ATTACKS ON CAMPAIGN OFFICES DURING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN PAKISTAN💥

At least 24 people were killed in two bomb attacks on Wednesday targeting campaign offices as contentious parliamentary elections are held in Pakistan.

According to reports, at least 24 people were killed and 25 others wounded in the bomb attacks, which targeted a campaign office in Pishin, a district belonging to the Balochistan province, and a second bomb attack targeting the offices of the Islamist party Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) in Qilla Saifullah, also in Balochistan province.

No one has accepted responsibility for the attacks at the time of publishing.

The bombings came amidst contentious parliamentary elections in Pakistan, a country that has long been splintered by separatists belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) which the US has designated a terrorist organization. The group has warned Pakistanis against voting in the elections, calling for a boycott.

Pakistan has been in a state of political crises ever since the duely elected Prime Minister, Imran Khan, was expelled from office by corrupt politicians through Lawfare, and has since been arrested and charged with a long list of crimes, which many in Pakistan see as illegitimate.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[theamericanbear]

For most of the world’s media, Pakistan’s general election was about terrorism. Candidates were identified according to their attitude towards the Taliban, and labelled as ‘secular’ or ‘conservative’. Little was said about party platforms. Circumstances appeared to justify the focus. There was a savage campaign of intimidation by domestic extremists in the run-up to the vote. More than a hundred people died, most of them members of the outgoing ruling coalition parties. The Awami National Party (ANP) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said they were targeted because of their uncompromising attitude towards the Taliban and avowedly secular views. There is some truth to this; but their enthusiastic embrace of the ‘global war on terror’ was a more immediate cause.

Despite the violence, turnout was nearly 60 per cent, the highest in Pakistan’s history. Youth participation was unprecedented. Critics of the ‘war on terror’ roundly defeated its supporters. Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which has taken a consistent antiwar position, crushed the ANP in the north-west. The PTI did particularly well in Swat, Dir and the Federally Adminstered Tribal Areas, where most of Pakistan’s counterinsurgency operations and US drone attacks are carried out. Also leery of the war, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) evicted the PPP from Punjab, Pakistan’s richest, most populous and developed province. Terrorism may be foremost in the minds of Western observers; Pakistanis are more worried about the economy, education and corruption. Opinion polls showed that people’s biggest concerns are inflation and unemployment, as well as power outages and high energy costs, which have stunted economic growth and caused much misery: 20-hour blackouts are not unknown. Not all Pakistanis are exposed to terrorist violence; everyone has to buy bread.

The PML and the PPP, the two dynastic parties with feudal roots that until now dominated Pakistani politics, are both notoriously corrupt. But where the PPP relied on cheap populism and the loyalty of jiyalas (‘die-hards’), the PML, a party of merchants and industrialists, has at least spent money on infrastructure projects. When he was prime minister in the 1990s Sharif built the Lahore-Islamabad motorway which has since been extended to Peshawar. His brother, Shahbaz, transformed Lahore.

Most voters appear to have endorsed Sharif as a more capable manager of the economy. Stock markets have signalled their approval with a record surge in share prices. Sharif, a pragmatist, is eager to open trade with India. This might help boost the economy and also reduce military confrontation. Sharif is shielded against charges of compromising national security by his impeccable right-wing credentials.

With the PML in power and the PTI in opposition, the US should enjoy less of the obeisance it had come to expect from Musharraf and the PPP. His large electoral mandate puts Sharif in a strong position to renegotiate Pakistan’s relations with the US, though it is not inevitable that he will try. But with thirty PTI gadflies in the National Assembly, servility will not come without a cost in credibility.

Sharif may have been a conventional choice, but this was doubtless a historic moment. It was the first time a democratic government in Pakistan was able to serve out its term. The first time, too, that the dynastic two-party stranglehold on national politics was shaken, with many once safe, hereditary seats passing on to new actors. Little of this would have been possible without Pakistan’s muckraking, rambunctious and irreverent media, and the newly empowered judiciary, serving as checks on politicians and the military.

[zombiessay]

PAKISTANI ELECTIONS

MY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW:

SLFHJKLGFHSLKDJFHSKLJDHFGSKLJHDFGKSLJHGFDKLAJHFKLSJAHDFLKHJSDFKHJSFDKJH I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO OR HOW TO FEEL

I AM SO NERVOUS AND EXCITED AND CONFUSED UFF

i hope everything goes safely and fairly and that we stand united as a country!

[theamericanbear]

[theamericanbear]

Two unknown assailants on motorcycle killed The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) special prosecutor in the Benazir Bhutto murder case Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali on Friday, DawnNews reported.

According to the police, state prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar was shot multiple times by gunmen in Islamabad’s G-9 area as he was driving to the next hearing in the murder case of the former prime minister, who was assassinated more than five years ago. Following the attack, he was taken to Islamabad’s main government-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital in a severely injured condition where he succumbed to his injuries.

Doctors said he had been killed with ten bullets targeting his chest and shoulder.

Zulfiqar had been given extra government security last year after police investigators working on the Benazir Bhutto case received threats, which also named him.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the shooting.

This tragic news comes just one week after former President and U.S. puppet Pervez Musharraf was accused of "conspiracy to murder" Bhutto and subsequently banned from politics in Pakistan for life for interfering in the affairs of the judiciary in 2007.

It also comes on the heels of presidential candidate (PTI) Imran Khan's claim that Bhutto was not killed by the Taliban, contradicting "the investigations done by a UN commission as well as Britain’s Scotland Yard police."

[theamericanbear]

Although he has been under house arrest since shortly after his return to Pakistan while facing trial on charges of arranging the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani Army Chief and President Pervez Musharraf was given a lifetime ban from holding political office by the Peshawar High Court:

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday banned former military ruler Pervez Musharraf from politics for life.

The ruling came in response to an appeal filed by the former army strongman over the rejection of his nomination papers for the National Assembly seat in Chitral.

A four-member larger bench, headed by PHC Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and comprising of Justice Malik Manzoor, Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Ikramullah ruled that since Musharraf had abrogated the Constitution twice, he could not be allowed to contest elections for either the National Assembly or the Senate.

Isn’t that interesting? In Pakistan, violating the country’s constitution as President gets a lifetime ban from politics, while in the US the same offense allows the perpetrator to open a Presidential Lie Bury.

Meanwhile, as the May 11 elections draw nearer, violence [in Pakistan] is escalating. [continue]