On the front line of democracy: Sir Doug Kidd reports on his involvement as a Commonwealth observer during Pakistan's recent elections.

• Author: Kidd, Doug
• Position: Essay

The outcome of Pakistan's elections on II May was of historic significance. For the first time in the state's history, a civilian government completed its full term and power was transferred to another civilian government. Both national and international observers monitored the elections, including an eight-person Commonwealth team led by Sir Doug Kidd. The observers' verdict was mostly positive, despite the fact that proceedings were marred by violence. They all in the end formed the view that despite everything, and taking everything into account, the election enabled most voters to freely express their will and the result was a creditable expression of their will.

**********

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan held scheduled elections for the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies on 11 May 2013. With something over 190 million people, Pakistan has the sixth largest population in the world--after China, India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil. The election was remarkable in that it resulted in the first democratic transfer of power from one full-term civilian government to another. For the first time in Pakistan's 66-year history the prospect of an elected government completing its full five-year term in office and being replaced by an elected successor caused heightened interest at home and abroad.

The elections were monitored by both national and international observers. Among several national observer groups the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), made up from 42 organisations, fielded an impressive 40,000 local observers on election day. The European Union, despite the prevailing austerity, fielded the largest group of international observers--140 with a budget of C4 million. Their first staff were 'in country from 3 April and by 16 April had already built to 52 observers. The United States, living up to its bipartisan tradition, fielded not one but two teams--one each from Republican and Democratic foundations, both apparently funded by Congress. Several high commissions and embassies hosted small teams.

Thanks to an offer of special funding by Australia and the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth was able to field a team of eight observers from seven member countries. I was the chair of this group, and the only one with a political background. I admit to not being the first choice for chair but understand that those offered the post ahead of me sensibly assessed the security situation as too perilous, at least for an unpaid position. With one exception, the other seven members were all election officials; the exception was a media person with election monitoring experience. The team was supported by five Commonwealth Secretariat staff from four countries and a security adviser. This team compared with one of 21 observers in the 2002 elections (coming out of the military government of General Pervez Musharraf), which included several serving and former politicians, including me. On that occasion I spent six weeks in Pakistan--the first four as a member of a three-person advance party. This year the team was 'in country' from 4 May until 18 May.

Security situation

Throughout the election campaign and on election day, the security situation ranged from dire to a matter for heightened concern. The situation in the western and north-western provinces of Balochistan and Kyber-Pashtunwha (KPW) and the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghanistan border) were assessed by international observer groups as so serious that no observers were deployed in either the first and last mentioned and few in KPW. These three areas comprise well over half the area of Pakistan but elect only 61 out of 272 directly elected members of the National Assembly.

In these areas there were a multitude of insurgents and militants, far from all being (as is so commonly reported in Western media) Taliban. (The Taliban's umbrella organisation is Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, usually referred to in English language news media in Pakistan by its initials TTP) There are groups in Balochistan that have been resisting incorporation in Pakistan since its foundation in 1947 and there are Sunni militants intermittently and murderously targeting the Shia minority. In the FATA and what was known in earlier times as the North West Frontier, the locals have been shooting and blowing up anyone who ventured into their area since the first European showed up. (Winston Churchill's book The Malakand Field Force, on sale in Islamabad, is a good account of the endless efforts in Victorian times to subdue these people.) Nothing has changed--they just keep on insisting on being left alone!

In the midst of this, US drones (piloted by desk bound warriors at Creech USAF base in Nevada) operated, targeting the Taliban and others but succeeding mainly in swelling the ranks of all groups with the relations and kinsmen of those killed and wounded--as President Obama belatedly admitted recently. Incidentally, the RAF's 39 Squadron is operating Predator drones from the same US base. (1)

The security situation elsewhere was serious but not fratricidal.

Taliban opposition

The Taliban had declared elections as being 'un-Islamic' and they openly declared (by named spokesmen who never seem to be rounded up!) that they would target 'secular' parties. All these were members of the previous coalition government--Pakistan People's Party (PPP), associated with the Bhutto family, Awami National Party (ANP), mainly from KPW, Jamait-e Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), mainly from Balochistan and KPW, and Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), mainly from Karachi. The supporters of these 'secular' parties were nearly all Muslims, but the Taliban, themselves strictly Sunni and ultra-conservative in Muslim doctrine and practice, judged them to be not strict enough in their observance of the faith. Left/liberal and right/conservative have essentially religious meanings in Pakistan politics.

Each time, after suicide bombers or remotely detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) had done their work, a named Taliban spokesman would issue a statement claiming responsibility and reminding the public why yet more people had been blown up. On one occasion the spokesman, while claiming responsibility, issued an apology for killing some 23 people in the front rows at an election rally. Their target was the candidate, who survived, and they were sorry that all the people in the crowd had been killed. To complicate matters the candidate was not standing for a 'secular' party but was being 'punished' for supporting the governing, 'secular' coalition for a brief period in the early part of the term then...