A Legacy of Resistance Against Occupation

Kahan, the Place in Balochistan Where Not a Single Vote Was Cast in the 2024 General Elections

After the 1970s, it is the first time in Balochistan that people boycotted the 12th general elections of Pakistan in large numbers, held on February 8, 2024. This boycott by the Baloch people is a great testament to the belief that Pakistan’s grip on Balochistan is illegal and unconstitutional.

According to estimates, the regions that fervently advocated for freedom from Pakistan voiced their intention to boycott the general elections in 2008. However, the boycott did not garner significant traction, as the freedom movement was still in its nascent stages.

Subsequently, boycotts were also observed in the elections of 2013 and 2018. Nevertheless, one-third of the destitute people of Balochistan participated in the electoral process driven by aspirations to get prosperity, employment, and government jobs promised to them by the politicians.

It is well-known that Balochistan is essentially a no-go area under the complete control of the Pakistani military, where the concept of transparent elections is nonexistent. Despite one-third of the people participating in the 2013 and 2018 elections, candidates backed by the occupying Pakistani military, with millions of rupees, managed to reach the assemblies.

During those times, in the 2018 elections, Qudoos Bizenjo reached the Balochistan assembly with a mere 400 votes with the help of entrenched power dynamic i.e. the military establishment. While the world may find it astonishing, in Pakistan, where the military establishment operates with impunity, such occurrences are sadly unsurprising. The military’s unchecked authority allows for the violation of human rights, flouting of laws, intimidation tactics like enforced disappearances, and evasion of accountability even in cases of extrajudicial killings.

However, the complete boycott of the February 8, 2024, election by the Baloch people is an effective public referendum against the tyranny and oppression of the Pakistani occupation, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other serious human rights violations, razed down the homes of Baloch people, forced displacement, elimination of means of livelihood, and compelling people of Balochistan to live in poverty.

The manner in which the public boycott in Makran has been manifested, where women and children in Mand, Zamran, and Hironk stormed polling stations with weapons, and people in other areas turned their backs to polling stations, is a testament to their patriotism and resentment towards Pakistan. However, there is still one area like Kahan that stands apart, where not a single vote has been casted, which still holds onto its ancestral beliefs of resistance against occupation.

From today’s elections we got this information that in the Kahan area of Kohlu district, not a single vote has been casted. Although the decision not to vote reflects the opinion of the people there, the Baloch insurgents implemented such practical wisdom that the enemy failed completely in conducting the elections. The insurgents have a lesson to the state forces and its machinery that even their bthirty-five i.e. Britain, has been unsuccessful in looting the resources of this land using any illegal means here.

It is said that from the time of British rule to the present, the Baloch insurgents have sacrificed and valiantly laid down their lives to protect and provide for the resources and minerals of this land, and this tradition continues to this day.