The New Pakistan
Pakistan's election saw a mere 35% of eligible voters turn out to exercise their mandate. Little wonder, given all the violence that exorcised the intent of the electoral spirit pre-election, in the slaughter of innocent people attending rallies in support of their candidates.And their fears were realized to an extent when 25 people died due to election-day violence, joining the 90 already dispatched to a far finer place, where rumour has it there is no hunger, no energy shortage, no terror.
The true wonder of this election is not that President Musharraf's party won such a stinging rebuke from his people, but that the radical Islamic parties supportive of the Taliban were denied one single deputy to Pakistan's spanking new national assembly.
As well, discerningly peace-loving voters in the North-West Frontier Province sought fit to elect a secular representation, the Awami National Party. That should be of some comfort, both to the people of Pakistan who want to remain secularly-governed, and politically moderate in character.
It's undeniable that the election struck a blow to President Musharraf's intent to remain as head of his country. He lost not only a huge number of constituencies, but leading ministers, along with small parties with whom his own had been allied and seen support from. Totally.wiped.out. The message being, indelibly, unmistakably: time to decamp.
"Musharraf is completely finished" according to retired general and army chief of staff, once the president's boss, Mirza Beg. "He has no options left. If he tries to do anything, he will be booted out. He has been so ignorant and naive about what was happening in this country." How's that for a statement of confidence?
"This was more than an election. It was a referendum", claimed Hussain Ahmad Piracha, professor of politics at International Islamic University. And, as such, there is no mistaking the mood of the country. "Musharraf did not expect a defeat like this." That being said, he must indeed have confused his personal sense of place with the broader dismissal of his countrymen.
Who sincerely desire their country to return to what they insist is democratic rule. A most peculiar type of democracy, to be sure, since the most popular party, the one the majority of Pakistans have vested their hopes in for the future, reflects a dynastic inheritance, not a democratic process.
It seems to be left to the two successful parties, one the avowed secular and left-of-centre PPP of the Bhutto clan, the other the conservative PML-N whose leader Nawaz Sharif, was as guilty of corruption - and deposed by Pervez Musharraf with that charge levelled against him - as was Asif Ali Zardari, Mrs. Bhutto's widower, whom Nawaz Sharif replaced, happy to be able to incarcerate the very man with whom he may have to haggle with for position now.
And the second order of business - following a process whereby the dismissed judges will be reinstated and enabled to pass judgement on President Musharraf's legal right to remain in power - will be for Pakistan to formally distance itself from the United States. Happily, they believe, giving up the billions of dollars of American support, for the freedom to dissent.
Which is to say, to unequivocally deliver the message that Pakistan will solve its own internal problems with bitterly errant Islamism, without lending any support whatever to the U.S. agenda with respect to Afghanistan. Ceasing all "un-Islamic" activities, as the collective statement of the country's scholars, mullahs and madrassa principals urged.
"It is the first time in a long time that there will be a government that does not do what the U.S. wants, but what Pakistanis want", claimed Mr. Beg, the retired general. "Nor can Pakistan provide the U.S. with any co-operation regarding Afghanistan except to try to bring peace in our border areas.
"We can give no further guarantees because we cannot guard our entire 2,600-kilometre border with Afghanistan." An entirely reasonable statement of fact. The country is concerned with its inter-tribal relationships, the need to make peace with its more remote tribal enclaves, the warlords who are capable of assembling their own militias to do damage in avenging state harassment.
To Pakistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda do not appear to present as problems. They're prepared to let sleeping tigers lie there peacefully, within their borders, even as they roam at will in their neighbour's pasturage, wreaking havoc as they will, to recapture that which was once fiercely theirs.
When and if those tigers turn their predatory aspirations on Pakistan, the country will face them, but not until then. Good, bad or indifferent, that appears to be their strategy.
Labels: Troublespots, World News
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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