Confusion about elections schedule

Nothing eats into the vitals of national unity and solidarity like uncertainty. We, the Pakistanis, are having firsthand experience of this truism - as forcefully demonstrated on Monday, 5th November, when the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) index sharply tumbled in the absence of reliable information scotching rumours about the arrest of President Pervez Musharraf.
Were the private television channels in operation, authenticity of the rumours that gripped the entire country could have been checked almost instantly. Where information is impeded, speculation flourishes. Likewise, the present dispensation's failure to come up with a definite roadmap for the things to come in the wake of fateful developments of last Saturday, is adding to the political uncertainty in the country.
As to when the general elections would be held, there are a number of statements by the government leaders, which not only keep changing but also contradict each other. President Musharraf in his address to the nation on Saturday talked of "only a few months" that he said it would take for complete restoration of democracy.
Next day, after a meeting with him, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told the media persons that the general election could be postponed by a year, lending credence to the speculation nurtured by a cross-section of opposition that the ruling PML(Q)'s agenda was being fulfilled. Shaukat Aziz had based his prognosis on the provision in the Constitution that justifies imposition of Emergency. His deputy minister for information, Tariq Azeem, too was hawking about an "adjusted" election schedule. We are not here to question the validity of such an interpretation of the Constitution, but we noticed, in utter disbelief that the very next day, that is on Monday, the Prime Minister was saying just the opposite of what he had said a day before.
Talking to media persons he said: "Our thinking about the election is that it will be held according to schedule". Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Ilahi was a little more assertive; he said the next general election would be held on time adding that "neither the tenure of present assemblies is being extended, nor is it needed". Attorney General Malik Abdul Qayyum was more specific, asserting that the assemblies would be dissolved in about 10 days time and elections would be held in the following 60 days.
They seemed to be getting the cue from President Musharraf, who earlier during the day had apprised diplomats based in Islamabad of his pledge to transit to full democracy despite the imposition of emergency by holding elections "close to the schedule". But then what to do with the insightful statement of a person who is considered to be the legal brain of the present government, Sharifuddin Pirzada? He says the emergency would be revoked soon though the term of the present government would be extended by one year.
Given the rising crescendo of opposition to the imposition of state of emergency, the government can ill-afford confusion as to what are its plans about what the President calls the third phase of his vision of transition to democracy. These contradictory statements emanating from various official circles tend to give the impression that the voicing of strong avowal to hold the general election on time is more under pressure from abroad than the regime's own plans.
Even before such an arm-twisting, if you so describe it, was resorted to by our foreign friends and allies, the government should have stated in most unambiguous terms, that the general election would be held as scheduled - because there is no other way out of the deep uncertainty-breeding crisis the country is presently confronted with. The government should announce a clearly spelled out roadmap to normalcy so that the commitment to holding elections by mid-January next year can be met.
That, of course, would involve creation of conditions that can be conducive to electioneering. As a first step, the ban on private television channels should be immediately lifted; now that there is a stiff new regulatory law in place, the ban is all the more unjustified. At the same time all detained political leaders and members of legal community should be set free.
Without active participation of all political and civil society stakeholders in the coming elections the exercise, which indeed would be a Herculean task, would lose its credibility with far more unpalatable consequences. Let there be two separate arenas, independent of each other as far as possible, for civilised confrontation between the government and its detractors, one, for political wrestling and the other exclusively devoted to the cause of judicial activism that is now under attack. Putting the two together would not help as moving forward is surely more essential in national interest than sorting out the legacies of the past events.