Washington Star/Evening Star

Islamabad, Pakistan—The results of Pakistan's only free national elections, which were overturned in East Pakistan by a military crackdown in March, have now been thrown into doubt in the rest of the country.
Former Foreign Minister Zulfikar All Bhutto is struggling against an apparent effort by President A. M. Yahya Khan's military government to keep him out of power.
The traditional Pakistani establishment of big landlords, industrialists and army officers lost the elections in December. Now the establishment is recouping.
New social and political forces demanding changes won control of the national assembly elected Dec. 7. It was supposed to have written a constitution to end Gen. Yahya Khan's martial law rule and begin democratic government.
In the East those forces sought a large measure of autonomy under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in order to escape what Easterners considered inferior treatment by the West. Rahman pushed his demands to the point that Yahya considered them a treasonous effort to break up Pakistan.
Rahman is now imprisoned, his Awami League which won 72 percent of the provincial vote is outlawed and the province lies almost prostrate under terror of an army from West Pakistan.

SOCIALISTIC APPEAL

In the West, demand for change was voiced by Bhutto. A big landowner, he joined the leftists to make a socialistic appeal to the poor that won a majority of the West's assembly seats.
But Bhutto was unwilling to see the East obtain the degree of autonomy it wanted because that would have weakened the nation which he hoped to help lead. Bhutto became the catalyst of the political situation that led to the army's crackdown in the East on March 25.
As Yahya Khan later told it, Rahman warned Bhutto privately outside a meeting the three leaders had shortly before the crackdown that "the army intends to finish me, and then they'll finish you."
Bhutto quoted this to Yahya later in the apparent belief it would not happen. But it seems now to have been a realistic forecast.
Bhutto's initial reaction when the army began shooting up the East was that "the country has been saved" by suppression of the Awami League. But Yahya announced a ban on all political activities and soon the members of Bhutto's Peoples party in the West became restive.
Bhutto began publicly insisting that the situation in the East should not prevent the establishment of an elected government in the West where his party was dominant. It won 81 of the West's 138 elected assembly seats and also control of two out of four provincial legislatures in the West.
Yahya and his small group of generals and civilian advisers showed no inclination to give power to Bhutto. They are believed to regard him as a power hungry opportunist who is a potential danger to the establishment.
Factionalism which had appeared in Bhutto's party shortly after the elections widened during the wait for power. Some of more leftist—possibly even Communist—followers disagreed with the way Bhutto moderated his radical election stands.
At the same time a movement developed to unify three political parties all claiming the inheritance of the Moslem League, the party that led Pakistan to independence from the breakup of British India in 1947.

FRONT MAN

Yahya's government is generally believed by political observers to be behind this move. Its front man is head of the All-Pakistan Moslem League (APML), Abdul Qayyum Khan.
Qayyum always favored a strong central government and little provincial autonomy, which is the attitude of Yahya's clique, also.
The three Moslem Leagues together only won 18 out of 300 elected assembly seats in December.
Building them into a majority is difficult but not impossible.
The legal order that an assembly member loses his seat if he switches parties is expected to be changed, ostensibly so Awami League members can rally to the new loyalist party. But such an order also would permit efforts to lure away some of Bhutto's followers. Efforts along these lines already have been reported. Some of his more feudal landlord followers are reported ready to break with the party's leftist line. They might join the old establishment men in the Moslem League.
Yahya has announced that by-elections will be held in East Pakistan to fill seats of the Awami Leaguers who have taken part in "antistate activities . criminal acts . . . anti-social activities."
In the present disturbed conditions in the East, with a number of government supporters already assassinated by the Bengali "liberation army, the ability to hold meaningful elections is doubtful.
Many political observers suspect seats might end up being filled by government choices who will support the Moslem League.
There are also independents and parties based on the Moslem faith that will add strength to the bloc supporting Yahya's policies.

LEAGUE EXCLUDED

Yahya outlined plans June 28 for establishing representative government based on his definition of representative which excluded the Awami League.
He said his experts would write the constitution instead of letting the assembly do it. He hoped to have the government going within four months but martial law would remain in force even after it was established.
Yahya said he had instructed the committee drafting a constitution that there should be a ban on political parties which are "confined to a specific region and not national in the practical sense." He also said there must not be factional subparties within a party.
In public statements since then Bhutto has showed sensitivity about this, obviously fearing Yahya is moving toward a ban on his Peoples party. Bhutto denies it is regional, arguing that it won in two of the West's provinces. But an alternate interpretation which Yahya might have had in mind was that a party has to have strength in both East and West Pakistan. The Peoples party has no standing in the East just as the Awami League had none in the West.
Although they failed to win seats in the East, the Moslem League factions and Moslem religious parties do have eastern organizations.
Bhutto's party is also obviously split into subparties. Yahya's remarks might have been framed to point at the Peoples Party.
Increasingly frustrated as his hopes of gaining power are frustrated, Bhutto has been increasingly critical of Yahya's regime—in contrast to his role as the regime's ally against Rahman between the elections and March.
After Yahya outlined his plans June 28th Bhutto said that by November—after the four months Yahya mentioned—he would either be in power or in prison.
This was a threat to cause trouble if he were denied power. But the present mood of the government indicates it is unlikely to be coerced by the threat of public disturbances which Bhutto has the ability to stir up. Disturbances are more likely to be met with stern repression.
Bhutto is not the only potential source of trouble in the West.
Assertion of East Pakistan's right to autonomy stirred up the resentment of West Pakistan's other three provinces against domination from Punjab Province which is the heartland of the establishment.
The leading regional firebrand of Sind, the province containing Karachi, has been banished to his native village to keep him off the political stage. In Baluchistan there has been a series of train derailments and ambushes on highways which informed sources relate to regional resentment against the government. And in the Northwest Frontier Province landlord-tenant strife has exacerbated the political situation.