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Pakistan election and Musharraf s fate

Barrister Harun ur Rashid
THE election on 18th February is being widely seen as make or break for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf. Since 1999 he was able to manipulate the political events in Pakistan and became the main ally of the US on war on terror.
Unpopular Musharraf
His popularity has plunged over the past year because of his attempts to hold on to power which included purging the judiciary including the independent-minded Chief Justice and imposing six weeks of de-facto martial law under the guise of emergency rule on 3rd November.
Meanwhile the economy has been suffering from inflation, high prices of basic commodities and power cuts. Ordinary people have lost confidence in Musharraf's administration. The man who came as “the saviour of Pakistan" in 1999 has been perceived as the "destroyer” of Pakistan's stability and integrity.
President Musharraf as the army chief was able to convince Washington that he was the only one who could combat terrorism and protect Pakistan's nuclear weapons from falling into hands of militants.
The situation on ground speaks otherwise. Last year was the bloodiest year in Pakistan's history. Extremists and militants attacked 60 times inside the country, killing scores of people. They were able to hit the army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
The whole tribal area is up in arms, not in religious sense but out of revenge for casualties inflicted oh tribesmen. Pakistani soldiers were held hostages. The Musharraf government had to arrive at a truce with tribal leaders.
There have been concerns from the United States that Pakistan has not been doing enough to assist in the war on terrorism. Musharraf has rejected such claims, stating "The fight against terrorism and
extremism, whether it is al-Qaeda or Taliban, can never succeed without Pakistan's cooperation and Pakistan is the only country that has delivered the maximum on both. We are tackling them with 30,000 troops. If there is anybody who is not doing enough, it is others who are not doing enough.”
Yet Washington has not been satisfied with the explanation of Musharraf. US intelligence has found out that the Musharraf government has diverted some of the US funds against India
Under international and domestic pressure, Pervez Musharraf had to relinquish the position of the army chief and became a civilian president. He passed his army baton to the new army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani. Since that period, he has remained a “toothless tiger”. The Army has the dominant position in the country’s politics and if the army does not support President Musharraf, he collapses politically.
Election
Fears of fraud and political violence have overshadowed the start of Pakistan's general election. In the weeks preceding the election, there were several attacks targeting politicians and political rallies.
On February 9, a suicide car bomb killed 27 and injured 37 attending a political rally for the Awami National Party in Charsadda. On February 16, another suicide car bomb killed 37 and injured 93 outside the residence of PPP candidate Riaz Shah in Parachinar. The same day, a suicide attack on an army outpost in Swat Valley killed two civilians and injured eight people. A polling location in Bajaur was destroyed by militants earlier.
Although nearly half a million security personnel were on the streets, voting began slowly on Monday, 18th February. Some 81-million people arc eligible to vote, but turnout has been low. It is reported that at a polling station in the key city of Lahore, just 28 percent of the 2,740 registered voters
had turned out, with just 90 minutes of voting to go.
"This is about Pakistan and the government's relationship with its people, and it is about Pakistan's ability to show the world that it has a credible election, therefore a credible government," said Sen. John Kerry as he observed voting in the eastern city of Lahore.
A senior electoral official said national turnout was estimated at 35% percent of Pakistan's 81 million eligible voters, with the figure hit by security fears and violence that left at least 18 dead and 100
injured on 17th and 18th February.
The Results
After being sidelined for more than eight years, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-Nawaz) seem headed for a shock comeback as initial results of Monday's elections put a question mark over President Pervez Musharraf s political future.
The erstwhile ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), the president loyalists and some of its allies have suffered a humiliating drubbing in the low-turnout elec-
tions for the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies despite alleged support they got from local governments and other state agencies in what the opposition parties called pre-poll rigging.
At the time of writing, the following are the results in the National Assembly- PPP 88, PML (N) - 66 , Pro-Musharraf PML (Q) 38, NWFP-based Awami National Party -10, MQM -19, Islamist MMA 5, Others-40.
60 seats are reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslims in the National Assembly.
The PPP had the honour of toppling PML (Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in his hometown of Gujrat and National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain in Sialkot district, but its leadership could not fully capitalise on a sympathy wave after the Dec 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The trend seemed in line with opinion polls by local and foreign pollsters and forecasts by most political analysts, but it looked like a shock for the PML (Q) and President Musharraf after the regime had repeatedly rejected all adverse predictions as biased or misjudgments.
But while the partial results had already started trickling in, the President, while appearing briefly on the state-run Pakistan Television, called the vote "the voice of the nation” and said whoever won in what he called the “mother of elections" must be accepted. “We must accept the result gracefully."
Wlule the PPP was likely to win most of the National Assembly and provincial assembly seats in its main power base of Sindh province, besides sharing the spoils in the other three provinces of Punjab, North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, the PML (N) has done unexpectedly well in Punjab, even giving some shocks to a friendly PPP
While top PPP leaders remained comparatively inactive during a 40-day mourning for Ms Bhutto and
did not campaign much even afterwards, PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif created his own wave in his home province of Punjab and Hazara region of the NWFP with his hard line against President Musharraf and for the restoration of about 60 superior court judges who were sacked under the extraconstitutional emergency the president had declared on Nov 3 in his now given up capacity as army chief.
PML (N) and PPP government!
Both the PPP and PML (N )have vowed to cooperate in the formation of the future government — and possibly have a government of national consensus — if they together win a majority.
A two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament (National Assembly and Senate) would enable them to impeach the President and to deprive the presidency of its powers to sack a prime minister and dissolve the parliament by restoring the Constitution to its pre-Oct 12, 1999 position when General Musharraf suspended it while capturing power by toppling the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif and then amending it by decree.
But according to some analysts that does not seem to be an immediate possibility while a PML (Q)-led coalition has a majority in the 100-seat Senate and it is not yet certain if all the opposition parties together will have a two-thirds majority in the 342-seat National Assembly.
Conclusion
If Nawaz Sharif s PML party forms a power sharing government in Islamabad with Bhutto's PPP. it will be a sweet political revenge on President Musharraf.
Pakistan politics seems to complete its circle after long nine years. In 1999 General Musharraf did an army coup while in 2008 people's coup occurred in the country.
The author is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva