More on Pakistan's Elections

I just wanted to emphasize that I was not at all critizing the
moves for restoration of democracy in Pakistan in my op-ed.


What I was criticizing was the contradictions in the process. General
Musharraf unilaterally amended the constitution 29 times last summer. He
placed extreme constraints on campaigning. Pakistan People's Party
campaign workers were arrested for doing whistlestop campaigning from a
train. The European Union observers report that the government polling
officials rigged the process so as to attempt to favor the pro-Musharraf
party, the Muslim League (QA). The government poured heaps of scorn on
the two major mainstream parties, the PPP and the Muslim League (N), the
latter of which had been overthrown in a military coup by Musharraf in
1999.


I do not believe that the fundamentalist parties would have done nearly as
well in a free and open election. It seems to me that in the Pushtun
regions in particular, the electorate felt that the PPP and the ML (N)
were being so determinedly marginalized by the military that one would be
throwing away one's vote in choosing them. And, the Draconian
restrictions on canvassing prevented these two parties from mobilizing
their grassroots effectively there. These had been the dominant parties
in the NWFP, after all. So, the Pushtuns, prevented from mild protest,
chose a much more extreme form of fundamentalist protest against
Musharraf's policies.


I think open democratic processes would have marginalized the religious
extremists, and that by playing Ahab to the great white whale of the
PPP/ML (N) status quo, Musharraf shot himself in the foot and produced a
hung parliament with a substantial fundamentalist representation. And, I
don't think the US put enough pressure on Musharraf to hold free and open
elections.


The theory may have been that such pressure might destabilize a valued
ally in the War on Terror. But the PPP had supported the latter effort,
and marginalizing it just allowed parties that opposed it to step into the
breach.


And, from what I can tell, the Bush administration policies of pursuing an
Iraq war, of only tepid engagement in resolving Kashmir, and of almost
complete neglect of the Israel/Palestine issue contributed heavily to the
protest vote against Musharraf, who was willy nilly yoked to those
policies.


There wasn't too much democracy this round in Pakistan. There was too
little. And, for Musharraf to try to continue to rule as a mere strongman
would have set the stage for massive protests. At least this way, Pushtun
discontent can be worked into parliamentary maneuvering instead of
violence, as Najeeb Jan rightly intimated.