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The
landslide victory of the parties opposed to Pakistani strongman Pervez
Musharraf was hardly a surprise. Opinion polls had been showing 75
percent of the population opposed to Musharraf, who imposed himself as
a military dictator and subsequently got himself elected president on
the basis of his control of the state.
Musharraf
had magnified his unpopularity recently by imposing martial law in the
name of fighting Islamic extremists but in fact applying his repression
essentially against the bourgeois liberal opposition. He also drew the anger of the
bourgeois liberal opposition by gutting the country's judiciary, including
the Supreme Court, and filling it with his stooges.
His
regime was, moreover, widely suspected of complicity in the
assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the popular leader of the Pakistan
People's Party (PPP). Under all
these clouds, including the the bashful backing of the Bush government,
Musharraf's Party got only 40 out of 272 contested seats for the
National Assembly. The Islamist parties were also buried in the landslide
victory of the bourgeois opposition parties. But in that case, it is not clear whether the base of Islamic
fundamentalism was wiped out or even seriously diminished.
New
York Times correspondents, as in an extensive article in the Jan. 8
issue of The New York Times Magazine, have indicated that the decline
of the Islamist parties may represent in reality a radicalization of
their base, with their former supporters moving toward armed action.
Some of the Islamist parties even boycotted the election.
The
Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 26: "A poll by the International
Republican Institute released shortly before the election indicated
that though public support for groups such as the Taliban had fallen sharply,
89% of respondents did not believe that Pakistan should support a
U.S.-led campaign against Islamic extremists."
One
of the leaders of the PPP, Imran Khan, tried to warn the American
public in an interview on the Pacifica radio program “Democracy Now,”
Jan. 30, that the "war on terror" backed by the U.S. in Pakistan,
and in which U.S. forces have been staging covert operations within
Pakistan, is becoming a war against the entire nation that straddles
the Pakistan and Afghan border.
"What
should have been a war against al-Qaeda is evolving into a war against
the Pushtuns, and if it’s a war against the Pushtuns, then I’m afraid
it is a never-ending war. Because, you know, there are millions of
Pushtuns on both sides of the border, Pakistan and Afghanistan. And
unless a change of strategy takes place, I’m afraid not only is the U.S.
stuck in a quagmire, but in Pakistan, as I said, the country itself is
going to be destabilized, is being destabilized."
The
main parliamentary political question left unresolved by the election
is whether Musharraf can hold onto his formal position as president.
Despite their victory, the opposition political parties reportedly
still do not have the necessary votes to impeach him. And under the
strong presidential system, reflecting a legacy of dictatorship, Musharraf
has the power to dismiss whatever premier is elected and to dissolve
the parliament.
Musharraf’s
political authority, however, has been reduced to a negative quantity,
so that it would be a dangerous
provocation for him to try to use any of this theoretical power. But in
the wake of the election, he has expressed a stubborn intention to hold
on to his office. And that threatens to become an increasing factor of
political instability.
Washington
would undoubtedly like to see him "gracefully" relinquish his
office and be allowed by his opponents to do that. But the outcome
remains uncertain and the uncertainty is destabilizing. In the run-up to the elections, the
U.S. tried to broker a deal between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf.
The
operation failed because of the military dictator's truculence, and
even his overwhelming repudiation at the polls does not seem to have
sweetened his character. Nonetheless, Benazir's successor in the
leadership of the party, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, seems to be
orienting again to some sort of accommodation with Musharraf.
Dawn,
the leading English-language newspaper in Pakistan, reported in its
Feb. 26 edition: "Feb. 25—Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif
Ali Zardari says a coalition of PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-N will
be unable to impeach President Pervez Musharraf and, therefore, he will
seek a working relationship with the embattled leader.
“'The
ground reality is that we do not have two-thirds majority in both the
houses of parliament'” that would be required for a successful
impeachment, Mr Zardari told the Wall Street Journal [WSJ] in an
interview. ‘Our main objective is to work for the smooth transition to
democracy,’ he said.
"The
WSJ said that Mr Zardari’s comments were among the most conciliatory to
date regarding its intended approach to Mr Musharraf.”
Zardari,
a notoriously corrupt politician, obviously thinks that a
reconciliation with Musharraf is in his interests, and undoubtedly not
his alone but also those of the United States. The continued solicitude
of the U.S. for Musharraf no doubt is an important consideration for
him, probably more than formal parliamentary arithmetic.
His
problem is that it is far from certain that the Pakistani people, and
in particular the people who have been risking their lives and freedom
to oppose the dictator. will accept such a "gentlemen's agreement."
They
might indeed draw the conclusion that the opposition parties are no
alternative, and that in fact they as well as Musharraf are enemies—and
that there is something fundamentally wrong with the political system
that only a mass uprising can change.
In any case, it is already evident that the elections have not
solved the crisis in Pakistan. They seem to be only a new stage in its
deepening.
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