At least Pakistanis have shown enough maturity to have a peaceful poll. The government may make as many security arrangements as it likes, but people being sensible enough to assemble at polling stations, get in line (which they seem to avoid for any other activity) and go through the polling process, shows that they have kept their end of the bargain. The threat posed by militancy showed itself in the attack in Quetta on Wednesday, but it could not stop the poll. Now it is up to the Election Commission of Pakistan to count all of those millions of votes, and give the nation the 342 members of the National Assembly, both the 266 directly elected members, and those elected on reserved seats. That National Assembly will then proceed to elect one of its members Prime Minister. Similarly, the provinces will elect chief ministers. The newly elected chief executives will then give the country governments which will tackle the problems facing the country, secure in the mandate that they will have just received.
However, going by past experience, while the electorate may take a breather from politics, the new Assemblies will not. Immediately after they take oath, they will have to proceed to the election of a new President, the incumbent’s term having expired in September. As soon as that is over, the newly elected assemblies will have to elect replacements for the half of the Senate retiring in March. The parties will also by then be in the middle of the inevitable by-elections which will follow Thursday’s election, as members elected to more than one seat take oath for only one seat. It would not be going too far to say that the election marks the start of a spurt of political activity. This is quite apart from the jockeying for position, the deals, the trade-offs and even the betrayals that will mark the filling not just of the PM’s and CMs’ slots, but those of president, and of the federal and provincial cabinets.
However, perhaps the caretakers should remember that they will not be remembered so much for their deeds, as for how smoothly Thursday’s poll went. It is to be hoped that the result will be a functioning polity, with a government able to handle the various problems of the country, but that is up to the people of Pakistan, not the caretakers.
