KARACHI: Tens of thousands of supporters of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) staged a sit-in against alleged rigging in Feb 8 elections on the M9 Motorway that connected Sindh’s two largest cities of Karachi and Hyderabad on Friday.
GDA head Pir Pagara Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi predicted that PML-N and the PPP coalition government, which he described as a “Khichree”, would last for hardly 8 to 10 months. After that time, he added, emergency or martial law might crop up as the establishment would have “tried and tested” all parties.
He alleged that the election results were ‘sold’ for advance ‘payment’ months before the polling day.
This was the GDA’s first demonstration against what it called the “vote fraud” in Jamshoro district. A massive turnout was witnessed for the sit-in as tens of thousands of followers of Pir Pagara, and other supporters of the GDA participated.
Besides leaders from the constituent parties of the GDA, provincial leaders of several other parties, including Jamat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the nationalist leaders also attended the sit-in and addressed the protesters.
Speaking from a bridge on the M9 motorway, which was turned into the stage for the speakers, Pir Pagara, the head of the GDA, predicted that a next “hodge-podge” government of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) would not last beyond 8-10 months.
In a hard-hitting speech, the GDA chief warned that Pakistan might face emergency-like situation or even a martial law because the establishment had tried and tested all mainstream political parties and “… the same judges will be seen protecting this move [elections] and giving it a legal cover.”
Pir Pagara alleged that the election results were “sold” against “advance payment” months before the polling day. Still, he added, the alliance did not boycott the elections because they wanted to expose the massive “rigging”.
Pir Pagara asked the power that be, who take decisions for the country, to acknowledge a concerning fact that a national party or leader was no longer available at present. “No political party or leader now exists at the national level, all are confined to their respective provinces,” he observed.
“Now who is left to look after the Federation except the army?” he posed a question. “The army is our own. We can’t even think of distancing ourselves from the army which is looking after the federation,” he stated.
He said that the protest was their constitutional right but their purpose was to condemn the alleged robbery of their mandate. He explained that his lack of interest in the election campaign was based on the information that election results had been sold some three months before the election day.
“Such a big buy and sell occurred in this general election but why is the ECP [Election Commission of Pakistan] still asleep?” Pir Pagara, whose party was an ally of the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, raised the question.
“You have noticed that during the elections I did not go anywhere and stayed at home. Friends kept asking me to hold public rallies and meetings, but I refused,” he said. “A large public meeting costs Rs100 million. Spending such a huge amount after knowing the outcome would have been wasteful.”
Pir Pagara blamed the ECP for singling out the PTI on the basis of its intra-party elections. He argued that the way PTI conducted the intra-party election was no different from the process of electing party leadership in PML-N, PPP and even the GDA.
He also opposed labelling PTI founding chairman Imran Khan as thief just because he bought some items from Toshakhana. He told the rally that all the former prime ministers and presidents of the country had done the same.
“In my view Imran Khan is not a thief though he might have committed some stupid mistakes. We all commit these mistakes. If Imran Khan is a thief, then we all are thieves,” he said. He termed PTI supporters a flood. “If the path of a deluge is blocked at one place it drowns the other place.”
He said the overwhelming victory of the independent candidates, mainly the PTI-backed candidates, was a lesson in this direction. “If you won’t give justice and respect to the people in this country, they will try to find some other way to get justice,” he warned.
He also accused the PML-N and the PPP coalition of unleashing skyrocketing inflation which had been causing a rapid dwindling of the country’s middle class. He advised the establishment not to ignore this ongoing disappearance of the middle class, which, he said, was indispensable for a developing country.
Other leaders, who spoke before Pir Pagara, suggested protest measures such as laying siege to the Sindh Assembly at the time of oath taking of the newly-elected lawmakers and even surrounding the residences of the returning officers. However, no such reaction was mentioned in Pir Pagara’s speech. He said that he would consult with the allies to chalk out the future course of action. GDA General Secretary Safdar Abbassi announced that their next sit-in demonstration would be held on February 20 in Moro, Naushehroferoze district.
In the speech, Pir Pagara’s younger brother, Pir Sadaruddin Shah Rashdi, urged the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of the “election fraud”, reminding the apex court that the polling on February 8 happened on its order.
Another GDA leader Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi demanded that the returning officers (ROs) and the district returning officers (DROs) should be booked for treason under Article 6 of the Constitution because their “robbery of the people’s mandate” amounted to conspiracy against the country.
JI’s Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, JUI-F’s Rashid Mehmood Soomro, Qaumi Awami Tehreek’s Ayaz Latif Palijo, Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party’s Qadir Magsi and other speakers demanded cancellation of the election results. They called for calling new elections immediately.
