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The elections held in Pakistan presently carry weight as the previous champion of the opposition parties to President Pervez Musharraf and his military rule, Benazir Bhutto, is no longer alive to carry-on her democratic work. But the people of Pakistan show their faith in her party, and others outside the present established government, with their voices, and their votes.
“It seems, according to predictions, that the opposition has won,” Tariq Azeem, a spokesman for the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam said in a telephone interview from the capital, Islamabad.
Early results from the 64,000 polling booths showed gains for the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party and former prime minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League. A two-thirds majority would give the opposition the mandate to press Musharraf to reverse constitutional changes that have kept him in power since a 1999 military coup.
“Going by the trend the opposition parties will win, if they don’t sweep they will at least get the majority,” Talat Masood, former general and a political and defense analyst, said in a telephone interview from Islamabad. “Definitely, the results are being delayed and maybe the authorities will try to take advantage of the night but I doubt very much they will be able to manipulate.”
With 100 of 272 constituencies reporting, Bhutto’s party won 28 seats in the National Assembly, with Sharif’s group securing 32, according to the private Online International News Network’s Web site. The Pro-Musharraf party won in 12 districts, it said. The official Election Commission tally showed Bhutto and Sharif’s party with six seats each and Musharraf’s backers with one victory, out of 21 parliamentary seats.
Of course… there’s always the chance that a leader who holds his position due to military force and increased power through removal of other government officials who oppose him could choose not to leave his office, even if he loses the general election.
Even a landslide opposition victory won’t necessarily dislodge the president. Musharraf, 64, has the constitutional authority to dissolve parliament. That power and concerns about rigged balloting lead some analysts to predict that opposition clout will remain limited.
Musharraf has lost support since March, when he began trying to oust the independent-minded Supreme Court chief justice, and opposition increased in November when he imposed emergency rule to sack dozens of top judges who refused to acknowledge his supreme authority. His popularity also has been further undercut by former prime minister Bhutto’s Dec. 27 assassination while campaigning.
We should cross our fingers that this possibility does not occur, because with Pakistan as a U.S. ally under Musharraf’s rule and the U.S. also supporting the democratic process, it could put us in quite the predicament of having to prove if we really want to spread and support democracy. Or perhaps we’re more keen to keep allies and win (well… not that we’ve really won anything yet) wars.
The U.S., which has pumped $10 billion into Pakistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with the aim of securing the country against al-Qaeda, is depending on the vote to further a transition to civilian government from Musharraf’s military rule.
U.S. intelligence agencies are critical of Musharraf’s efforts to control extremists and say al-Qaeda has established bases in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
One thing is for certain, it’s a dangerous time for the people of Pakistan.
The government had warned journalists and election observers from the European Union, the U.S. and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to avoid certain areas, including near Afghanistan’s border, where fighting against al-Qaeda terrorists continues. A suicide bombing on Feb. 17 killed more than 80 people in the Afghan city of Kandahar in one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
The number of people killed in terrorist attacks and sectarian violence in Pakistan more than doubled last year to 2,116 from 967 in 2006, the Interior Ministry in Islamabad says.
So far this time around the elections has been peaceful, and we hope it continues to stay that way.
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