Clearly, outgoing United States President Donald Trump did not know what he was talking about when he said there had been rigging. The best way of rigging, as any observer of Pakistani elections knows, is to kill the opposing candidate. Of course, in the US, that just means the vice-presidential candidate is sworn in on Inauguration Day, but what if the opposing candidate kills them both?
As a matter of fact, one of the most time-honoured tactics, that of aerial firing in the opponent’s strongholds, preferably outside a women’s polling station, was not used, even though it would have been effective in those inner-city neighbourhoods that voted so heavily for Joe Biden (though there was the danger that some drug dealers in line to vote might have fired back). Multiple voting, impersonation and suborning the polling staff, and other classic tactics seem not to have been tried. Perhaps because the election staff are not government servants, like school and college teachers, or the staff of publicly owned enterprises.
As a matter of fact, the election authorities are not even at the state level. The states merely tabulate the count delivered to them and then declare elected the presidential electors, who then go to Washington to vote in the new president. So, you are dealing with about 3000 election authorities, and it is not really possible to rig that election.
There were no reports of booth capturing, which means that you take over the booths for a while, and some of your workers stamp ballots while others, armed to the teeth, ensure that the polling staff goes along. The delicacy of the operation demands that either the returning officer (RO) accepts the results of the polling station without ensuring that the polling agents named by each candidate have agreed to the count, or that the polling agents shut their eyes to what is going on.
The result was also not compiled electronically, nor was the army called out to maintain peace. No polling stations were labelled dangerous, which means that there was a likelihood of a clash. Americans do not seem to take elections seriously. But then, who takes parties seriously? Here, election clashes do not occur because people support the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) or the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), but because they belong to the Jat or Arain biradri. Win or lose, for the PTI it does not matter. But for the Jats or Arains, it does. And people get killed because of that. And not only that, but elections may set off a chain of violence, or merely be a part of it.
As a matter of fact, there was no indication of whether the Trump biradari or the Biden biradari played a role in this election. And do not tell me Americans are above biradri politics. Biden picked a black woman, Kamala Harris, for his vice-presidential candidate because she was a black woman. And what else is biradari politics, but voting for people from the same group? Like voting for Harris, and also Biden, if you’re a black. Or voting for Trump, who is of German descent, because he is a fellow-white.
Speaking of black women, they have picked a black actress, Lashana Lynch, to be James Bond in the 25th film in the franchise. The film, No Time To Die, will be released next year. I wonder what will replace the Bond Girl, who was almost as much of an institution as Bond himself. I wonder if the knowledge that he was being succeeded by a black woman played any role in killing Sean Connery last week. Or was it old age? He was 90.
Of course, that still leaves our own Imran Khan able, at 67, to say that he is still young. Well, he might be young, but he’s vacillating. I mean, look at how he got rid of Fayyazul Hassan Chauhan as Punjab information minister. Again. But Chauhan should not worry. He has been replaced by Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan. After having been federal information minister under the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), she became Information SAPM after Fawad Chaudhry but was sacked. Now she has come back as SACM. She is living proof, if Chauhan needs any, that you can come back from the dead twice.
That might explain why Jahangir Taren, who left the country in a hurry to escape the blame for the sugar shortage, is coming back. He only lost Imran’s favour twice. He is quite a guy, because he worked first with Shehbaz Sharif, then with General Musharraf.
