By Praful Bidwai
The Pakistani people, chided, cheated, taunted and put down for years by military rulers and their civilian accomplices, have emphatically asserted themselves. They have done themselves proud by affirming their democratic political sovereignty and delivering a stinging verdict against the ruling coalition headed by the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaied-e-Azam), a puppet of General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s self-appointed saviour and President. They have also voted decisively against religious extremism.
The Pakistani voter has severely punished almost all of the PML(Q)’s stalwarts, including its prospective Prime Ministerial candidate and a galaxy of former Ministers. These belong to well-entrenched “political families” with strong clan and kinship connections, and are among Pakistan’s most venal and shrewd politicians. They always know which side of the bread is buttered and typically win all elections—no matter on whose ticket. Their ignominious defeat should remove all doubts about the central meaning of the results.
The message for Gen Musharraf is simple. He asked the people to vote for his nominees and supporters. They resoundingly rejected his appeal.
If Gen Musharraf has any sense, he should quit and roll back his recent decisions, including the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) of November last and dismissal of legitimately appointed judges. Or else, instead of becoming “the father figure” to the next government, which he boastfully offered to do, he may turn into a much-scorned pariah.
The election result totally disproves the doomsayers’ view that Pakistan can never develop a democratic ethos. It has far-reaching implications for politics and balances within Pakistan’s state structures and must be termed a watershed. The low voter turnout—caused by political uncertainty, lacklustre campaigning, and above all, the suicide-bombing wave in which Benazir Bhutto was killed,—shouldn’t be allowed to obscure its character as a referendum against the Establishment, including the army, and for a decisive shift towards democracy.
Pakistan hasn’t witnessed such a strong anti-army sentiment at least since the Bangladesh War as it has done recently. The most popular slogans chanted at public meetings, and circulated through SMSs and mobile ring-tones, all deride the military for its misrule, corruption, greed and intimate links with the United States and its agendas.
This sentiment coincides with the decision of the new army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, to sever the military’s overt links with politics, withdraw hundreds of army personnel from top positions in public undertakings and other civilian jobs, and to declare categorically that the army would play no role in the assembly elections. One effect of this was an election which, despite some flaws, was one of the freest and fairest in Pakistan. This suggests the army refused to be partisan by letting Gen Musharaf rig the polls on a large scale.
This distancing of the army from the political process and administrative functions augurs well for the prospect of demilitarisation of the Pakistani state, politics and society. Democrats everywhere must unreservedly welcome this. If it’s consolidated, as it should be, the trend would lead to a historic breakthrough which transforms Pakistan over a period of time.
The election results have 5 noteworthy features, which add up to a pro-democracy momentum. First, the people voted in a rational, discriminating and unsentimental way. They were not excessively swayed by “sympathy” for the Pakistan People’s Party on account of Bhutto’s assassination, although many blamed it on the government’s failure to provide her enough security. Unlike in the past, they refused to give an overwhelming mandate to the PPP or the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Second, the PPP has won 88 of the National Assembly’s 272 elected seats. Besides its traditional stronghold, Sindh, it has also done well in the North-West Frontier Province and southern Punjab. The PML(N) has retained its base in Punjab and won 66 seats—surpassing expectations—because of its strong anti-Musharraf stand. This outcome, like the provincial assembly results, reaffirms regional diversity and the federal character of Pakistan’s polity.
Third, the popular mandate favours a PPP-PML(N) coalition which also carries other liberal and centrist parties, like the Mohajir-dominated urban Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Afsandyar Wali Khan’s Awami National Party, based mainly in the NWFP. The MQM has offered to support the new government. Such a multi-party coalition will have a broad and diverse base.
Fourth, the results unambiguously point to the public’s disillusionment with the religious extremists. The mullah-dominated Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which had bagged a record 56 seats in the National Assembly in 2002, has suffered a stunning defeat, winning just 5 seats. This vindicates the view that the 2002 election was exceptional because it followed the US invasion of Afghanistan, and immediately impacted neighbouring NWFP and Baluchistan. Until then, religious extremists only commanded under 3 percent of the popular vote.
Equally important is the setback the MMA has suffered in the NWFP provincial assembly. In place of the majority it won 6 years ago, it has managed to bag a pathetic 8 seats (of 96). By contrast, the secular, left-leaning ANP has won an impressive 29 seats and the PPP 18. In Baluchistan too, the MMA’s tally fell from 12 to 7 seats (total, 51). In the absence of an election boycott by the Baloch nationalists, the PML(Q) too would have been wiped out.
The MMA’s comprehensive rout undermines Gen Musharraf’s claim, often bought by the West, that the mullahs continue to be a major force and that he is the sole bulwark against them, in particular, the possibility that they might gain control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Gen Musharraf will now find it hard to play “the mullah card”.
And fifth, an alliance led by the PPP and the PML(N) offers Pakistan the best chance to address two urgent tasks: making a decisive break with military rule, and granting autonomy to the provinces. The first is a precondition for Pakistan’s genuine democratisation. And without the second, the very existence of the state may be in jeopardy, given the autonomist and secessionist movements in Baluchistan, the NWFP and the tribal agency areas, and resentment in Sindh at the excessive weight Punjab commands in government and politics.
A rich broad-horizon agenda now awaits the new national/federal government. To fulfil it, the PPP and PML(N) must reach a modus vivendi or power-sharing arrangement which recognises but goes beyond their different social bases and geographical characteristics. It also means that the PPP leadership under Asif Ali Zardari must firmly rule out cutting any kind of deal with the Musharraf regime or the PML(Q), which gives the old order a measure of legitimacy and prolongs the military’s dominance in Pakistan.
Mr Zardari, implicated in corruption cases running into billions of dollars, is vulnerable to pressure and manipulation by Gen Musharraf as well as the US. He hasn’t asked that Gen Musharraf step down, nor ruled out “cooperation” with him. It’s only under the PML(N)’s pressure hat he agreed to demand the restoration of the judges whom the General sacked after promulgating the November 3 PCO.
There is an outer chance that Mr Zardari will be tempted to try one of those super-opportunistic cut-and-paste jobs for which Pakistani politicians have gained notoriety—for instance, by stitching together a coalition between his party and the discredited PML(Q), and possibly including the MQM and the ANP, along with some Independents.
That would completely violate the popular mandate, and make a mockery of the elementary democratic norm that a ruling party defeated in an election should not be part of the next coalition government. It will almost certainly split the PPP and discredit and isolate Mr Zardari. He must desist from that terrible course.
Pakistan today stands at a crossroads, similar to the turning point of 1971-72 after the birth of Bangladesh. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto then squandered a precious opportunity to free Pakistan from the stranglehold of the army, which got discredited because it had lost a war. Instead, he chose to collude with the army, and promoted Gen Zia-ul Haq, who hanged him and imposed martial law which was to last 11 years and plunge Pakistan into the Dark Ages.
One can only hope that Bhutto’s son-in-law doesn’t repeat his blunder by bestowing legitimacy on Gen Musharraf and inviting the army to play a larger-than-life role just when it is withdrawing from politics. The immediate priority in Pakistan is to rescind the November PCO, restore Chief Justice Choudhry and other dismissed judges, and cancel the arbitrary decrees passed by Gen Musharraf.
We South Asians must respect the democratic mandate delivered by the Pakistani people, and look beyond Gen Musharraf. He’s nobody’s “best bet in Pakistan”. We must see through the “three A’s (Allah, Army and America)” cliché. Msssrs Zardari and Sharif both support the India-Pakistan peace process. It now may have a wider constituency in Pakistan than Gen Musharraf. This is great news for India-Pakistan relations and for the prospect of a peaceful, prosperous South Asia.
– IPA
