So what do you think, indiscriminate killing of innocent children, women and men, beheading, blowing up girl’s schools, suicide bombing and burning CD shops, is that going to decide what the Swatis wants?
With so much violence going around, we can’t expect people to come out in large numbers to line up at polling booths, can we? Don’t be so pessimistic, rather than down playing the “low” voter turnout, one should salute the people risking their lives by turning out to vote, when they very well knew that the Taliban terrorists can strike any time.
Here is a small sample of Pre-election violence:
Feb 18 election in Pakistan may be the most violent ever | NowPublic News Coverage
Well the violence was all over in Pakistan. And comparing it to other parts, Swat did not see the violence, beheadings, or killings as you mentioned. The article you posted also says and I quote:
Based on information sent by its coordinators from Peshawar, Nowshera, Bannu, Mardan, Swabi, Kohat, Karak, Haripur, Dera Ismail Khan, Buner, Swat, Shangla, Chitral, Dir Lower, Malakand, Lakki Marwat, Charsadda, Hangu and Battagram districts of NWFP and Fata, the network said that many potential voters in the observed districts were taking interest in the general election and hoped they would take place on schedule.
There is virtually no violence in Buner, Kohistan, Dir, and somewhat Malakand. Even in Swat, only Matta was the target of militants (they just spread in the rest of Swat now after almost a year of election).
And we did not see no threats in Mingawara (where most voters live) and no incident took place before or on election day. Neither does your provided articles claim anything like that.
So I guess you don't know much about Swat and how the militancy spread. Rather you are based on the reports that are terming everything "swat" which has close to 22 districts, and only one (Matta) had problems, that led to Kabal for a while and then only now in Mingawara.
In the News Archive - Eleven dead in Pakistan election violence
February 11, 2008 Monday 3:44 PM GMT
ISLAMABAD – A suicide bomb killed an election candidate and nine other people in Pakistan Monday, while a political worker died in a clash between rival parties as a wave of pre-poll violence intensified.
The attacks raised new fears about the security of the elections in one week's time, with candidates keeping a low profile since the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at a political rally in December.
That's not in Swat. So I don't know why would you mention that?
Pakistani general election, 2008 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the weeks preceding the election, there were several attacks targeting politicians and political rallies. On February 9, a suicide car bomb killed 27 and injured 37 attending a political rally for the Awami National Party in Charsadda. On February 16, another suicide car bomb killed 37 and injured 93 outside the residence of PPP candidate Riaz Shah in Parachinar.
The same day, a suicide attack on an army outpost in Swat Valley killed two civilians and injured eight people. A polling location in Bajaur was destroyed by militants earlier.
Swat Valley has 22 districts. Again, only Matta was targetted back then. And that suicide bomb, if I correctly remember, took place in Matta. And Matta is a very small village with lots of land (where Army is trying to build a Cantonment).
So just in case you didn't know, that suicide bomb was the only bomb blast as far I remember with a couple of other incidents, that took place in far away lands of Swat valley called Matta and Kabal. The main towns, Buner, Shangla, Malakand, Minagawara (which is like 90% of the population) had no problems whatsoever (tho threats were there, but threats were everywhere in Pakistan, isn't it?)
And just to let you know, Buner, Shangla, Malakand, they still have no problems. They strictly told Army not to intefere and they will take care of the militants themselves, and they did. Similarly Dir did the same thing, and no problem there. Similarly Kohistan (Kalam/madain/bahrain etc.) did the same thing, and no problem there either. And Shangla par, Chae kesar, and other small towns, they told Army they will take care of them and they did, no problems at all.
MMA’s four of the six parties did take part in the elections.
Link-1 Link-2 Link-3
As I said in my previous post, voters had the choice to vote between the Islamic parties and secularist parties, they voted for the secularist.
Well, that's why I said. There was no MMA to vote for (as you just confirmed). Even tho people hate Maulana Diesel (Fazul ur rahman) but Qazi have some very strong public support. You'll find out this in next election for sure.
In the 2002 elections, MMA won by playing to anti-American sentiment over the American led invasion of Afghanistan. In the past elections, religious parties have never won more than five or six seat either in the provincial or national assemblies. I don’t think people are going to trust the Taliban supporters again.
And NWFP did not vote for MMA back in 2002 because they were playing on sentiments of American invasion. In fact, PPP and ANP both played on those sentiments and tried to invoke people's emotions, but they miserablly failed. PML-N was in power before the coup-de-etat, and nobody liked that party so they didn't win.
Swatis also rendered as Swatayan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swati_(tribe)
The Swati (also Swatey in Pashto) is a Pashtun tribe.
Swatis - Definition of Swatis at YourDictionary.com
Swati Definition
Swati (swä′tē
noun pl. Swati -•ti or Swatis -•tis
a member of a people of Muslim faith living in Swat
Actually the Wiki is incorrect. It's possibly written by someone who doesn't know. (Even there are many among Pakhtuns who doesn't knwo the difference).
Swati is a different ethnicity. They were the people who use to live in swat back in 15th century, when yusufzai tribes came and conquered the land and pushed the Swatis into, now called, hazarajat. i.e. Abbottabad, Mansehra, etc. They use the surname "Swati", where the Pashtuns of Swat, does not.
The original term is "Swatay" for Pashtuns in Swat and "Swati" for the other nation that can also be found in some quarters of Swat and mainly in Hazarajat.
So you see there's a vast difference between two. And no, I am not making that up, this is a fact. Besides you should not believe in Wiki to base your argument. Wiki is a useful tool, but its most distorted source ever.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
Swatis themselves have been intimidated into keeping silent about Fazlullah and criticising only the army and its “collateral damage”. But the channels can no longer conceal the fact that the Swatis are now praying for America’s drone attacks in their valley as the last resort.
first of all its a false information that people are asking for American drone attacks. if someone joked about it and a reporter caught that, it's a different story. Or you are welcome to Swat (I will protect you and will ensure your safe return back to wherever you came from) and lets have a ground reality check.
And one thing I want to clarify that. It depends which part of Swat are you talking about. Mingawara (our town), matta, kabal, etc. are not in favour of maulana Radio. They despise him. The upper swat (where theres no electricity and no nothing) was in support of Maulana Fm, but things are changing there as well, and they have to, Maulana FM is not doing anything Islamic per se. Besides there is not one party involved there. There are several groups, yet all are called Taliban and theya re all mixed in one pot and treated similarly, tho everyone have different agenda.
But that doesn't bar people from criticising collateral damage of Army (which is higher than what talibans caused before army intervention).
Things are really different on ground than what you will read on news my friend. You must visit Swat and interview people if you want to find the truth.
However, this video might help you understand whats going on there -
http://awaz.tv/playvideo.asp?pageId=1969