ISI's Former Leader's Mea Culpa: I Rigged 2002 Polls

General Ehtisham Zamir, the former head of ISI's political cell, has admitted playing a key role in rigging the 2002 polls to favor PML(Q), the pro-Musharraf faction of the Pakistan Muslim League. This was a joint effort of the ISI's political cell and the National Accountability Bureau. While it has been considered an open secret by many, this is the first time the ISI's role in 2002 election rigging has been confirmed by a former ISI top official who directly participated in it. In September 2002, Zahid Hussain of The News Online reported as follows:

"For several weeks before the nominations were filed, Tariq Aziz, President Musharraf's powerful principal secretary, had camped out in Lahore, wheeling and dealing with politicians. The country's most powerful bureaucrat had an important task assigned to him by his military leader. His job was to knock together a pro-military alliance. Aided by Major General Ehtisham Zamir, the head of the ISI's domestic wing, and the crafty Brigadier (retd), Aijaz Shah a former ISI officer and home secretary Punjab, Aziz finally manoeuvered a list of " loyal" candidates for the National Assembly from the province. Most of them belong to the PML (Q) and the Grand National Alliance, but there are several others who, the military government believes, were willing to cooperate."

In 2002, after a similar report in British newspaper The Guardian, the Daily Times of Pakistan quoted Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi as saying, "The report is totally fabricated as there is no political wing at ISI. Such reports appearing at a time when the general elections are just coming close might have some vested interest. Maybe the reporter wants to project as if ISI is planning to manipulate the elections, which is absolutely incorrect,"

Talking to Umar Cheema of The News in Pakistan yesterday, Retired General Zamir, the head of the ISI’s political cell in 2002, admitted manipulating the last elections at the behest of President Musharraf and termed the defeat of the King’s party, the PML-Q, this time “a reaction of the unnatural dispensation (installed in 2002).”

The son of the well known Pakistani satirical poet Mr. Zamir Jaffery, Maj-Gen (retd) Ehtesham Zamir termed the 2008 elections ‘fairer than 2002’. He said the reason behind their fairness is that there was relatively less interference of intelligence agencies this time as compared to the last time. But he stopped short of saying that there was zero interference in the 2008 polls.

Just a few days prior to the Elections 2008, the Army Chief General Kayani issued orders barring officers from any unauthorized meetings with Pakistani politicians, including the president. The army commander also said the military wouldn't play any role in staging the February 18 parliamentary elections, outside of providing security.

It should be noted that the former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto issued the executive order creating a political cell within the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the purpose of influencing political processes in Pakistan. This fateful decision in 1975 eventually brought ZA Bhutto's own downfall when he used this cell to unnecessarily rig the 1977 elections and was overthrown and executed by General Zia-ul-Haq. It was also this cell that helped Nawaz Sharif , a protege of General Zia-ul-Haq, get elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan after the General's death in a mysterious air crash followed by a brief term in office by Benazir Bhutto. In 1990 the ISI received 140m rupees (US$2.2m at current values) to rig national elections, according to supreme court testimony by the then chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg.

Pakistan People's Party's National Character

In addition to winning the largest number of seats in Pakistan's National Assembly, Pakistan People's Party has demonstrated its national appeal by winning seats in all four provincial legislatures. In spite of its losses and third place finish, PML(Q) is the only other party with this distinction. All of the other parties, including the PML(N) with the second place finish, have won seats in only one or two Pakistani provinces.
The table on the right shows the respective positions of all the parties at the federal and provincial levels. There are several other observations that should be made based on Pakistan Election Commission's data.
1. Pro-Musharraf parties(Q,MQM, Functional League, PPP Sherpao) together got
more votes than either PPP or PML(N). According to ECP statistics, former ruling alliance comprising Pakistan Muslim League, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan
Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) and Pakistan Peoples Party-Sherpao (PPP-S) secured 40% votes of the total while expected ruling parties PPPP and PML-N got 37% and 23% votes respectively.
2. Teogether, the pro-Musharraf forces won the second largest number of seats after PPP.
3.Out of total votes cast, the former ruling coalition received 10,844,233 votes followed by PPPP with 10,055,491 votes and PML-N with 6,240,343 votes.
4. The religious parties, represented by the MMA, suffered the worst ever defeat in Pakistan's history.

The fact that the PPP, the largest single party in the National Assembly, truly represents all parts of the nation is good for Pakistan's federation. The final result appears to be a split verdict: Without giving an absolute majority to any one party, the people want the politicians of all parties to work together to serve the nation rather than dissipate their energies fighting each other. The defeat of the right wing religious parties explodes the myth that Pakistan is in danger of falling prey to the fundamentalists.

What If Pakistan Opinion Polls Are Wrong ?

A recent International Republican Institutes's public opinion poll in Pakistan has made big headlines. The results of this poll do not augur well for President Musharraf and his allies in PML-Q. While the science behind such polls is sound, there are limitations as shown recently in the US primaries. Similar polls conducted at the start of the primaries did not see the Obama phenomenon and wrote off John McCain. So the question is: What if the polls are wrong? When polls go wrong in the US, most Americans just recognize the limitations of the methodology and move on. But, would that be the case in Pakistan? Would this poll not give the ammunition to those politicians and parties who are already threatening violence if they do not win? I think these questions are worth pondering, especially if the consequences of the inaccurate poll result in significant loss of life in an already troubled nation.

Just to try and prepare the people for such as possibility, let me suggest that we approach the IRI and other polls like it with caution. Here are some of the reasons why:

1. The sample size is small and not truly random. The sample is biased by those participants willing to respond who generally happen to be more interested AND more available. I personally rarely participate in these polls because the pollsters usually call when I am about to start dinner at about 7:30PM. They usually do not call back.
2. People do not always tell the truth. They say one thing and do another. The most famous case of this kind happened in California gubernatorial elections in 1982, when many white voters said they would vote for Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles who happened to be black but in fact voted for George Deukmejian, the white candidate for governor. This is now known as "Bradley Effect".
3. The national poll does not take into account regional, ethnic and class differences, the level of enthusiasm (likely voters) and multi-way races resulting in skewed seat allocation on constituency by constituency basis.
4. The way the questions are framed can change the outcome in significant ways. Asking someone "if you approve of XYZ?" is not the same as "Would you considering voting for XYZ? " As seen in this IRI survey, these two questions produced two different answers. While only 15% of respondents said they approve of Musharraf, 29% of respondents said they would vote for the coalition supporting Musharraf.

Let us all exercise caution in accepting these poll results as truly representative of the real vote scheduled for February 18. If these polls were representative of the general elections, there would be no need for holding large scale general elections in Pakistan or elsewhere.