by KIYYA BALOCH
The controversial election results and the manner in which they have come about have sparked widespread protests across the province.
Balochistan — Pakistan’s largest province by land area as well the most mineral-rich — has nearly been at a standstill for around three weeks as thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, intermittently blocking main highways, cities, and roads since the February 8 general elections.
Almost every major city and town in the province — from the Makran coast near the Iranian border to Chaman next to Afghanistan — has witnessed demonstrations and political rallies as Baloch and Pashtun ethno-nationalist parties, along with minority Hazaras, have taken to the streets, decrying what they term as “stealing the public mandate”.
But this is probably news to you. For even as the fire rages across the province, there has been little mention of it in the mainstream media, whose entire focus has been the election of the Punjab chief minister, the fate of the independents backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), and the wheelings and dealings of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as they join hands to form a coalition government in the Centre yet again.
This is hardly surprising, though, considering Balochistan — the site of a violent separatist insurgency, the gateway to the much-touted China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and home to Reko Diq, one of the largest copper and gold reserves in the world — rarely ever features in the mainstream narrative, unless there is a violent episode.
Surprising results
To be fair, there were plenty of incidents of violence in the run-up to the elections, which did receive some airtime on TV channels and a few news stories here and there on digital and print publications. Yet, what has happened since February 8 belies a different kind of violence — candidates declared victorious suddenly found themselves on the losing side within a few hours or even the following day, prominent leaders discovered they had been relegated to lower positions in their strongholds, while upstarts saw remarkable success and worst of all, there were no answers forthcoming on how these results had changed overnight.
Take the Hazara Democratic Party, for example, whose candidates — both prominent leaders, its chairman Abdul Khaliq Hazara and Qadir Ali Nayal — had initially been declared victorious, but ultimately ended up losing their seats in the community’s traditional stronghold to little-known outsiders. Then there is Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, who was initially winning the NA-259 seat with some margin, before finding out that he had lost once the final results were revealed. There was also Akhtar Jan Mengal, whose results from NA-261 Kalat were revised repeatedly, but ultimately resulted in his victory.
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