Opinion
With Latest Polls, Pakistan may have
Turned a Corner
by
Harold A. Gould
After many
delays, and no further unanticipated crises that could be used as
excuses for further delays, Pakistan held its latest long awaited round
of national elections on Feb 18. Their outcome has been a pleasant
surprise to almost everyone who has harbored an opinion about where
Pakistani politics may be headed following the furor over Benazir
Bhutto's assassination and the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism and
terrorism emanating from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
and Waziristan.
Most observers were asking whether anything remotely resembling
constitutional democracy and civil society could come from these
elections. Now the answer is here. Thus far it seems that prophecy has
failed, and the results bode well not only for the political future of
Pakistan but also for the region generally. The elections were
remarkably peaceful; there is no credible evidence of the "massive
rigging" which even the country's Attorney General, Malik Qayyum, is
alleged to have predicted would be the case.
Yes, there may have been a bit of ballot box skullduggery here and
there, but probably no more than is alleged to have taken place in the
last two American presidential elections. Despite hints and allegations
that President Pervez Musharraf would never accept an outcome that would
work to his disadvantage, the general publicly declared, "Whatever the
result, we will accept it with grace. He pledged to work with whoever
becomes prime minister "in a reconciliatory mode".
None of this guarantees, of course, that the aftermath of the elections
will be all sweetness and light. Unforeseen demons can always arise to
spoil the party. Yet, it cannot be denied that the outcome of these
elections, and the atmosphere of reconciliation which has accompanied
them, suggests that after a long history of social turmoil, Pakistan may
have turned some kind of political corner. It may turn out to be, in
Arnaud de Borchgrave's (UPI Editor at Large) words, "the first step in
bringing a dysfunctional nuclear power back to democratic stability."
The results have all the earmarks of the kind of constitutionally
structured politics which I have called the 'South Asian consensual
model'. Two major political parties - the Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) - have emerged at the
centre, each with its own ideological and programmatic slants to be
sure, but neither infected with stridently extremist doctrinal agendas.
The leaders of both parties (Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif), despite
their past antipathies, are publicly committed to forming a coalition
government pledged to ameliorate the country's social ills instead of
exacerbating them. All this seems unprecedented in the Pakistani
political firmament.
A similar process appears to be under way in the four provincial
assemblies where, like the centre, no single party achieved a majority
of seats and, consequently, coalitions will need to be assembled if the
government is to go forward. In the Punjab, Nawaz Sharif's political
base, the PML-N with 102 assembly seats, the PPP with 75, Musharraf's
PML-Qaid (PML-Q) with 61 seats, plus independents with 35, constitute
the raw material from which some kind of ruling majority can plausibly
be fashioned. In Sindh, Benazir's home state, the PPP with 64 seats
enjoys an almost two-to-one advantage over the Muttahida Quami Movement
(MQM) (38 seats) and will be compelled to forge a working relationship
of some kind either with the latter or with some other combination of
independents (six seats), the PML-Q (nine seats), and the PML-N (four
seats). According to Dawn (Feb 20), Balochistan may be the "saving
grace" for the PML-Q with 17 seats out of 51 plus a patchwork of lesser
parties - the PPP (7 seats), the Awami National Party (ANP- two seats) -
and 12 independents with whom bargains can be struck. Finally, the NWFP
is also in play for achieving a moderate governing coalition after
extremist groups there were virtually wiped out in the elections. Led by
the ANP (29 seats), whose platform formally espouses a federal polity,
possible coalition partners include the PPP (17 seats), the Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA- 11 seats), PML-N (six seats), PML-Q (six seats),
PPP-Sherpao (five seats) and 22 independents.
Contrary to what many commentators will inevitably conclude in the light
of what appears to be a multiparty, multi-factional political jungle, it
is my conclusion that this pattern bodes well for the future of
democratic politics in Pakistan. First, it heralds the demise of the
so-called One Unit doctrine which has dogged the chances of a multiplex,
federal system like India's since the country's inception more than half
a century ago. This is because the situation has come about, not through
the divide and conquer tactics of military dictators, but through the
medium of a constitutionally structured, grassroots political process.
Clearly, the role of President Musharraf and his supporters in the
military-bureaucratic-feudal complex is destined to be decisive in the
eventual outcome. Put simply, Musharraf so far has been sending out the
right signals. He has accepted the verdict of the electorate and has now
even hinted that he might step down as president if a majority of the
legislators seem destined to vote him out of office. If such an event
were to occur it would herald a truly monumental step towards the
country's political transformation. Unquestionably, even the hint of
such an eventuality, along with Musharraf's sweet reasonableness about
the outcome of the elections, certainly bespeaks of the salutary
influence that the United States and other democratic nations have
exerted on him. Undoubtedly, however, this is not the whole story.
Democratic processes at work in Pakistan itself have been even more
decisive because only these can account for why the electorate itself
has not only gone peaceably to the polls in record numbers; it also has
in the process used the ballot box to decisively reject the extremist
parties that would replace modern democracy with medieval theocracy.
If it is accurate to conclude that Pakistan may be on the verge of
finding its own pathway to modern civil society, it now behooves the
United States and other outsiders to give Pakistan a chance to craft a
pluralistic, federalized, democratic society suited to its own perceived
requirements. The columnist Beena Sarwar (Dawn, Feb 22) has rightly
warned us not to sneer at what the 2008 elections have cast up. She
paraphrases those who would declare, "What kind of democracy it is that
puts the fate of the country in the hands of a Nawaz Sharif and an Asif
Zardari? My lord, how weird! Help me understand..." Her "spontaneous
answer" is, "It's surely not worse than a democracy which puts the fate
of America - and the world - in the hands of a George W. Bush... TWICE!"
And how could it be worse than India having "democratically elected" a
"right wing BJP government in India backed by religious militants" who
"cause enormous damage to India's secular polity?"
To repeat, it now behooves America and all of us to give Pakistan a
chance to do it their way.
(Dr. Harold Gould is a visiting
scholar at the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Virginia.
He can be contacted at Harold.Gould4@verizon.net)
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