Musharraf’s Party Accepts Defeat

By JANE PERLEZ and CARLOTTA GALL

Published: February 20, 2008

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan appeared on Tuesday to be heading for a transition to an elected civilian government after President Pervez Musharraf told visiting United States senators that he accepted the resounding defeat of his party in elections and would work with a new Parliament.

Many Pakistanis expressed relief that the overwhelming victory of the two major moderate opposition political parties in the parliamentary elections on Monday signaled a change in direction after eight years of military rule under Mr. Musharraf, even though in the past the parties had rarely produced models of stable government.

After fears that violence and vote-rigging would mar the polling, international election observers described the victory for the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N as an accurate reflection of the voting.

Mr. Musharraf was “accepting of the reality of the election,” Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in Islamabad, the capital, after he and two other American senators met with Mr. Musharraf.

The leader of the pro-Musharraf party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a usually uncompromising politician, said his party would be in the opposition. Tarik Azeem Khan, the spokesman for the party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, said: “We readily accept our defeat, unlike in the past when losing parties alleged rigging. We accept that we were beaten fair and square.”

The nearly complete election tally on Tuesday showed that the Pakistan Peoples Party had won 80 of the 242 contested seats; the Pakistan Muslim League-N, 66; and the pro-Musharraf party, 38.

Now, after one of the most significant electoral outcomes in Pakistan, the United States, which has backed Mr. Musharraf to the hilt even as an insurgency by the Taliban and Al Qaeda has grown in intensity, must seek new partners in the campaign against Islamic militants in the country and region.

A former chief of staff of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, said the election of a new government should help the United States if Washington is looking to work with moderate forces.

“It’s an opportunity to rejuvenate this whole relationship,” General Karamat said. “What we are seeing through these elections is moderate and liberal forces, which is absolutely great.”

General Karamat, who also was Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said the rout of the Islamic religious parties in the North-West Frontier Province was an indication of the national mood, which should help the United States. In place of the religious parties, the province chose two secular parties as the powers in the important local assembly.

The North-West Frontier Province abuts the tribal areas that have become sanctuaries for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, where they find increasing numbers of suicide bombers to send into the populated regions of Pakistan.

A key factor in the relatively smooth election was the decision by the new chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to ensure that the military stayed out of the campaign and did not interfere on Election Day, analysts said.

General Kayani, in turn, appeared to be a promising partner for the United States, according to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, who also met with Mr. Musharraf on Tuesday.

Mr. Biden, who has criticized what he called the “Musharraf-centric” policy of the Bush administration, said that the army’s new leader was a “rational man who understands the obligations and limitations of the military.”

The emergence of a Parliament of moderation should be good news for the United States, said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani military analyst based in Washington. ”If Parliament will now have a stronger hand than before in national decision-making, then the United States should be pleased, since it will not have to beg and cajole Pakistan to act in its own interests against the terrorists,” Mr. Nawaz said.

The leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, Nawaz Sharif, who was prime minister twice in the 1990s, is now in an important position to help forge the new government with Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Mr. Zardari is the widower of Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader and former prime minister who was assassinated nearly two months ago.

During the election campaign, both Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari said they believed that Pakistan had to turn the war against the insurgents into a Pakistani effort rather than one that was dictated by the United States.

Those sentiments found resonance because while Pakistanis had come to fear the insurgents, they resented the feeling that Pakistan, under Mr. Musharraf, had become a tool of the United States, analysts said.

“The lesson for the United States in this is to listen to the will of the people,” said Jehangir Tareen, who was a member of Mr. Musharraf’s early cabinet and supports Pakistan’s alliance with Washington. “We cannot nod automatically to the United States,” he said. “We would like to participate in this if it is in our interest. We will not be ordered about.”

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In the 1990s, and more recently, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N were rivals, and there is little love between the two camps. The leaders of the parties, Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif, were in exile for nearly a decade until recently, and both tried to run their parties from abroad.

Although the resounding victory of the two parties was broadly welcomed, even deliriously so in some places, there were memories of the failings of the civilian governments in the 1990s. Many Pakistanis agree that neither the government of Ms. Bhutto nor that of Mr. Sharif distinguished itself. Both were riddled with corruption.

Mr. Zardari, a controversial man known in Pakistan for being accused of corruption, has never held elective office. He faces rumblings and distrust in his party, and it was not clear how well negotiations between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, which are expected to begin in the coming days, would proceed.

The talks are likely to be protracted, with each side laying down conditions that would be hard for the other to fulfill.

Mr. Sharif, who was ousted as prime minister in 1999 in a coup by Mr. Musharraf, framed his campaign on a distinct anti-Musharraf platform, a tactic that appears to have worked well and that brought his party an unexpectedly strong windfall.

Mr. Zardari sounded a more accommodating tone about Mr. Musharraf.

Analysts said it was possible that Mr. Zardari would even seek to form a coalition with Mr. Musharraf’s party and leave Mr. Sharif’s party outside the government.

Mr. Sharif has been reported to agree to the Peoples Party assuming the post of prime minister in exchange for three things: impeachment proceedings against Mr. Musharraf, the reinstatement of the dismissed chief justice of the Supreme Court and other judges, and the appointment of a leading lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, as prime minister.

Mr. Ahsan, the leader of the anti-Musharraf lawyers’ movement and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, is a member of the Peoples Party.

Although the election was considered fairly orderly, an Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, said Tuesday that 18 people had been killed and 150 wounded in connection with the voting.

Jane Perlez reported from Lahore, Pakistan, and Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad.

Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election – NEW YORK TIMES

By CARLOTTA GALL and JANE PERLEZ

Published: February 19, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

David Guttenfelder/Associated Press

Pakistani supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement party, MQM, react after the closing of the polls in Karachi, Pakistan.

Times correspondents in Pakistan are taking questions on the impact of the vote on the country’s political future.

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, the former speaker of Parliament and six ministers.

Official results are expected Tuesday, but early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a Parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

Early results showed equal gains for the Pakistan Peoples Party, whose leader, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated on Dec. 27, and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the faction led by Nawaz Sharif, like Ms. Bhutto a former prime minister. Each party may be in a position to form the next government.

The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed him for more than six years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.

Politicians and party workers from Mr. Musharraf’s party said the vote was a protest against government policies and the rise in terrorism here, in particular against Mr. Musharraf’s heavy-handed way of dealing with militancy and his use of the army against tribesmen in the border areas, and against militants in a siege at the Red Mosque here in the capital last summer that left more than 100 people dead.

Others said Mr. Musharraf’s dismissal last year of the Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest, was deeply unpopular with the voters.

Mr. Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief last November after being re-elected to another five-year term as president, has seen his standing plummet as the country has faced a determined insurgency by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and a deteriorating economy.

By association, his party suffered badly. The two main opposition parties — the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N — surged into the gap.

By early Monday night, crowds of Sharif supporters had already begun celebrating as they paraded through the streets of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just outside the capital, Islamabad. Riding on motorbikes and clinging to the backs of minivans, they played music and waved the green flags of Mr. Sharif’s party decorated with the party symbol, a tiger.

From unofficial results the private news channel, Aaj Television, forecast that the Pakistan Peoples Party would win 110 seats in the 272-seat National Assembly, with Mr. Sharif’s party taking 100 seats.

Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, was crushed, holding on to just 20 to 30 seats. Early results released by the state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, also showed the Pakistan Peoples Party to be leading in the number of seats won.

The Election Commission of Pakistan declared the elections free and fair and said the polling passed relatively peacefully, despite some irregularities and scattered violence. Ten people were killed and 70 injured around the country, including one candidate who was shot in Lahore on the night before the vote, Pakistani news channels reported.

Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, voters did not turn out in large numbers. Yet fears from opposition parties that the government would try to rig the elections did not materialize, as the early losses showed.

Official results were not expected until Tuesday morning, but all the parties were already coming to terms with the anti-Musharraf trend in the voting.

At the headquarters of Sheik Rashid Ahmed, the minister of railways and a close friend of the president, his supporters sat gloomily in chairs under an awning, listening to the cheers of their opponents. “Q is finished,” said Tahir Khan, 21, one of the party workers, referring to the pro-Musharraf party.

The party workers said Mr. Ahmed, who was among the ministers who lost their seats, was popular but had suffered from the overwhelming protest vote against Mr. Musharraf and his governing faction.

The results opened a host of new challenges for the Bush administration, which has been criticized in Congress and by Pakistan analysts for relying too heavily on Mr. Musharraf. Even as Mr. Musharraf’s standing plummeted and the insurgency gained strength, senior Bush administration officials praised Mr. Musharraf as a valued partner in the effort against terrorism.

With Mr. Musharraf as both president and head of the Pakistani military — a post he relinquished last November — the administration poured about $1 billion a year in military assistance into Pakistan after 9/11.

B.K.Bangash/Associated Press

Pakistani voters get ready to cast their votes at a polling station in Peshawar, Pakistan. 

Times correspondents in Pakistan are taking questions on the impact of the vote on the country’s political future.

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Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images

A Pakistani man casts his vote at a polling station in Nawabshah. More Photos >

Vincent Thian/Associated Press

A Pakistani man casts his vote at a polling station in Islamabad. More Photos >

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Election workers in Lahore waited for ballots. Monday’s vote was delayed after the death of Benazir Bhutto in December.

The New York Times

Islamic religious parties suffered losses in the north.

After Mr. Musharraf stepped down from the army, the Bush administration still gave him unequivocal support. Last month, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Richard A. Boucher, told Congress he considered the Pakistani leader indispensable to American interests.

Such fidelity to Mr. Musharraf often raised the hackles of Pakistanis, and the newspapers here were filled with editorials that expressed despair about Washington’s close relationship with the unpopular leader.

Many educated Pakistanis said they were irritated that the Bush administration chose to ignore Mr. Musharraf’s dismissal in November of the Supreme Court chief justice.

The big swing against the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party that supported Mr. Musharraf appeared to bear out the position of the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, who has been a critic of the administration’s Pakistan policy.

On his arrival on Sunday to observe the elections, Mr. Biden said: “I don’t buy into the argument that Musharraf is the only one. We have to have more than just a Musharraf policy.”

As a starting point for a new policy, Mr. Biden said the United States needed to show Pakistanis that Washington was interested in more than the campaign against terrorism. He suggested that economic development aid be tripled to $1.5 billion annually.

But Washington could take some comfort in the losses of the Islamic religious parties in the North-West Frontier Province that abut the tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have carved out bases.

The greatest blow for Mr. Musharraf came in the strong wave of support in Punjab Province, the country’s most populous, for Mr. Sharif, who has been a bitter rival since his government was overthrown by Mr. Musharraf in a military coup in 1999 and he was arrested and sent into exile.

He returned last November, and although banned from running for Parliament himself, he has campaigned for his party on an openly anti-Musharraf agenda, calling for the president’s resignation and for the reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry and other Supreme Court judges.

Underscoring the reversal for Mr. Musharraf was the downfall of the powerful Chaudhry family of Punjab Province, who had underwritten his political career by creating the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party for him.

“The myth is broken; it was a huge wave against Musharraf,” said Athar Minallah, a lawyer involved in the anti-Musharraf lawyers’ movement. “Right across the board his party was defeated, in the urban and rural areas. The margins are so big they couldn’t have rigged it even if they tried.”

A few hours after the size of the defeat became clear, the government eased up on the restrictions against Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the lawyers’ movement that has opposed the president. Mr. Ahsan, who has been under house arrest since last November, when Mr. Musharraf imposed emergency rule for six weeks, found the phones in his house were suddenly reconnected.

“Musharraf should be preparing a C-130 for Turkey,” Mr. Ahsan said, referring to Mr. Musharraf’s statements that he might retire to Turkey, where he spent part of his childhood.

Two politicians close to Mr. Musharraf have said in the past week that the president was well aware of the drift in the country against him and they suggested that he would not remain in office if the new government was in direct opposition to him. “He does not have the fire in the belly for another fight,” said one member of his party. He added that Mr. Musharraf was building a house for himself in Islamabad and would be ready soon to move.

Jane Perlez reported from Lahore, Pakistan, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad. David Rohde contributed reporting from Peshawar, and Salman Masood from Rawalpindi.

Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Jane Perlez from Lahore. David Rohde contributed reporting from Peshawar, and Salman Masood from Rawalpindi.

MUSHARRAF MUST GO – NAWAZ SHARIF

EXPRESS – FEBRUARY 19, 2008

	Rahat Dar/European Pressphoto Agency A polling place in Lahore, Pakistan, on Monday.

MUSHARRAF MUST RESIGN

EXPRESS

FEBRUARY 20, 2008

TINPOT DICTATOR MUSHARRAF CRUSHED

Playing with fire in Pakistan

Khaleej Times Online

BY ERIC MARGOLIS

17 February 2008

PAKISTAN’S national elections on Monday are critically important for this strife-torn country’s future. They are just as important for its Western backers. Unless honestly conducted — and this seems highly unlikely — the vote will ignite further violence, plunging the highly strategic nation of 163 million into new dangers.

Only one thing is certain about Monday’s vote. If President Pervez Musharraf and his PML-Q party do well enough to retain power or lead a coalition, almost everyone will charge the election was rigged.

Musharraf has manipulated every vote since seizing power in a 1999 military coup. Polls show only 15-20 per cent of Pakistanis support him. A recent World Public Opinion voter survey found 63 per cent believed conditions in Pakistan would improve if Musharraf resigned.

The majority of Pakistanis backs the late Benazir Bhutto’s People’s Party, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League (PML-N).

But Musharraf’s powerful friends are determined to keep him in office. In spite of Musharraf’s having muzzled the media, jailed thousands of opponents, purged the judiciary, and stuffed the electoral commission with henchmen, Washington and London still support his dictatorship and continue to hail him as a ‘democrat.’

Adding to the hypocrisy, while claiming to be waging war in Afghanistan to bring it democracy, the Western powers have been encouraging dictatorship in Pakistan.

The reason is clear: Musharraf has rented out much of his army and intelligence service to battle Taleban in Afghanistan, and tribal militants at home. The fee: up to $1 billion monthly in secret and overt US payments. Without the steady inflow of cash from Washington, Musharraf would not last very long.

Musharraf and his US and British patrons are hoping the opposition will split the vote and leave the former general as last man standing. The opposition, by contrast, is talking about ending the war against Taleban and reasserting Pakistan’s traditional interests in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

The powerful military still supports Musharraf, though for how long depends on the level of post-election violence. Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, the new armed forces chief, was selected by Musharraf and Washington as a loyal anti-extremist who would follow America’s lead. But this capable general remains an enigma. Indian intelligence sources say the US decided in early 2007 to ease the floundering Musharraf from power and make Gen Kiyani Pakistan’s new strongman.

If Pakistan is rent by widespread protests and violence over brazen electoral fraud, or suffers political deadlock, the military may overthrow the widely unpopular Musharraf and seize power. Gen Kiyani is said to be reluctant to see the military re-engage in politics, but there could be no alternative.

The best outcome would be for the military to remove Musharraf and impose temporary martial law until the independent judiciary can be restored, the electoral commission made fair, media ungagged, and political repression ended. Then genuine elections could be held and Pakistan returned to parliamentary government. But once soldiers taste power, they are often reluctant to give it up.

Until Pakistan gets a legitimate government representing its national interests, rather than those of the Western powers, the country will remain in turmoil.

Pakistan is facing spreading civil war, and possible secession by two of its four provinces, Balochistan and Northwest Frontier. The Pashtun tribal uprising ignited by the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan is now spreading into Pakistan, risking a full-scale uprising by that nation’s 25 million Pashtuns. Any of these earthquakes could provoke an invasion by India, met by a nuclear riposte from Pakistan.

The war in Afghanistan and heavy-handed efforts by the US to bend Pakistan’s military regime to its will ignited much of the current turmoil. A majority of Pakistanis don’t want their soldiers to be Western mercenaries, or their leaders Western yes-men. They support Taleban and the struggle for Kashmir. But the US is so consumed by its war of revenge against Taleban it cannot see any of this.

Pakistan is one of the Muslim World’s most important nations and its sole nuclear power. By treating Pakistan like a banana republic, arm-twisting Islamabad into battling its own people, and ignoring the wishes of Pakistan’s people, the US and Britain are playing with fire. 

Eric S. Margolis is a veteran American journalist and  contributing foreign editor of The Toronto Sun

Pakistan votes

Khaleej Times Online >>> EDITORIAL

18 February 2008

IT IS said that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Pakistan had been suffering a prolonged period of widespread unrest, political or otherwise, that did threaten to destabilise the country at various points of time. The past one year had been especially critical for the people of Pakistan as the country reeled from a series of bloody disturbances some of which also gave birth to mass movements striving for democracy. As the nation votes in the national and provincial elections today, people in Pakistan can certainly hope for a new beginning.

President Musharraf has promised his nation a ‘free, fair, transparent and peaceful’ election. Although Sunday’s suicide attack in the tribal town of Parachinar that killed 39 people flies in the face of any such claim of peaceful polls and there are reports on the possibility of widespread rigging, scepticism and fear shouldn’t be getting the better of Pakistani voters. The polls are the first step towards lifting the country out of the morass of power struggles and curbs on civil liberties.

A lot is at stake for all the parties and players concerned. To begin with, the results of today’s elections — certainly the most crucial in the history of Pakistan — would in all probability be a referendum on President Musharraf’s eight-year rule. His popularity seemed to be on the wane following his decision to rein in the judiciary and gag the media to perpetuate his power. But the leader, who relinquished his army top job last December, seems to be in no mood to quit or throw up his hands in despair. During his recent tour of Europe, he continued to project himself as the only candidate who can bring democracy to his country and offer a lasting stability. And he still asserts that people of Pakistan want him to rule the country. Therefore, it remains to be seen how the president will react if the people of Pakistan vote against him. Is he ready to accept such a verdict and allow his country to relish a fair democracy?

Going by the public mood, it’s Benazir Bhutto who reigns supreme in the hearts of people. There’s no denying that the assassination of the country’s most charismatic leader was one of the darkest hours in the history of the nation. And her scarifice for her country shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste. Pollsters have already predicted a huge sympathy wave that might lead her party to wrest power from the present incumbent.

Then there’s Nawaz Sharif who also seems to be back into the fray, vowing to join hands with democratic forces.

The new Pakistani army chief has sent a strong message to the nation that the military establishment will not meddle in political affairs. Only time will tell whether the army is going to stick to this stand because, after all, Pakistan is a country that has been under military rule for more than three decades.

In the final analysis, with the polls, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Who stands to win or lose in Pakistani vote

Khaleej Times Online 

(Reuters)

18 February 2008

ISLAMABAD — The assassination of Benazir Bhutto sucked the oxygen out of campaigning in Pakistan for Monday’s election that is meant to mark a transition to civilian-led democracy.

No one has dared speak out as forcefully as Bhutto did against Islamist militancy and need for democracy in a nuclear-armed Muslim state on the front line of a war against Al Qaeda.

The following are profiles of politicians with most at stake in polls for national and provincial assemblies:

PRESIDENT PERVEZ MUSHARRAF

• It’s not a presidential election, but the outcome of the vote is vital for Musharraf’s future. A hostile parliament could try to impeach him for the “unconstitutional” way he got himself re-elected for a second five-year term by the outgoing assemblies, and imposed six weeks of emergency rule in November to get rid of judges who could have annulled his victory.
• Musharraf, 64, came to power as a general in a bloodless coup in 1999, ousting prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He first became president in 2001. He quit as army chief in November, weakening links with the institution that has been the greatest source of his strength.
• He has survived at least three Al Qaeda inspired assassination attempts after becoming a US ally following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
• The alliance with the United States, and authoritarian responses to political challenges over the past year have caused Musharraf’s popularity to plummet.

CHAUDHRY PERVEZ ELAHI

• The Chaudhrys of Gujrat are an influential political family in Punjab. They worked with intelligence agencies to herd support for Musharraf by taking over Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League. While called the PML, it is usually referred to as PML-Q or Q League to differentiate it from Sharif’s wing.
• Elahi, former chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s richest and most populous province, is a cousin of PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. A recent survey by US-based International Republican Institute said only 5 percent of people saw Elahi as the best person to handle Pakistan’s problems.
• Regarded as opportunists, the Chaudhrys are also seen as conservatives, sensitive to the religious lobby, who have failed to help Musharraf set a more liberal agenda.

ASIF ALI ZARDARI

• Bhutto’s 51-year-old widower is not standing for election. But having been made joint chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) along with his son 19-year-old Bilawal, in accordance with Benazir’s wishes, Zardari’s calling the shots for a party that is likely to emerge with the largest number of seats.
• The moustachioed Zardari has a reputation for warmth and loyalty to friends. But he is dogged by the nickname “Mr Ten Percent”. He spent 11 years in jail for graft and other charges. Never convicted, he says the charges were politically motivated.
• The government last month said it would pursue an old money laundering case against Zardari in a Swiss court.
• Though it was Sharif that hounded Bhutto out of Pakistan and jailed Zardari, Musharraf kept Zardari in prison until 2004. While regarded as political liability for Bhutto, Zardari earned respect for the fortitude he showed during his time in jail.
• Like his late wife, Zardari hails from a feudal landowning family, though his was far smaller than the Bhuttos’. Aside from Bilawal, he has two teenaged daughters.

MAKHDOOM AMIN FAHEEM

• The PPP’s vice chairman could very well become the next prime minister. Many people believe Musharraf regards Faheem as acceptable as he doesn’t take hard positions.
• A large landowner in his native Sindh province, soft-spoken Faheem has been loyal to the Bhutto family throughout.
• He served in the cabinet of Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first popularly elected prime minister, who was toppled and hanged by the military in late 1970s. He also served in Benazir’s two governments, and led the party during her eight years in self-exile. He refused the prime ministership offered him by Musharraf after a 2002 general election.

NAWAZ SHARIF

• Sharif, 58, is barred from standing for election. He was prime minister twice in the 1990s. His first government was fondly remembered by businessmen. The second ended in a coup with Pakistan almost bankrupt. He was sent into exile in 2000.
• The PML-N, otherwise known as the Nawaz League, can’t win. But Sharif hopes to recapture ground, particularly in central Punjab province, to keep pressure on Musharraf, or even bring him down if PPP joins hands.
• Known for a love for food and grand lifestyle, Sharif still possesses a common touch most other leaders lack.
• Musharraf promptly deported Sharif to Saudi Arabia when he tried returning in September, but had to let him come back in November because of pressure from Saudi monarch King Abdullah.
• A protege of an earlier military dictator, President Mohammad Zia-ul Haq, Sharif sometimes displays colours of a pro-West liberal, but he cultivated appeal to the religious constituency over the years. Critics say he mixed pragmatism in foreign policy with conservatism and illiberalism domestically.
• Sharif has yet to earn Washington’s trust. President George W. Bush has said Sharif should prove his commitment to battling against Al Qaeda and the Taleban.

Pakistan polls open amid violence, fraud fears

Khaleej Times Online

(AFP)

18 February 2008

ISLAMABAD – Pakistanis began voting Monday in critical parliamentary elections overshadowed by violence and fears of rigging, with the fate of key US ally President Pervez Musharraf hanging in the balance.

The polls come after a year of political turmoil and bloodshed in the nuclear-armed Islamic republic, capped by the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in a suicide attack in December.

The vote is supposed to complete Pakistan’s transition to democracy after eight years of Musharraf’s rule, but is more likely to spark fresh unrest if opposition parties claim the vote is fraudulent.

Polling stations, guarded by tens of thousands of troops, opened at 8:00am, (0300 GMT), AFP correspondents said and are due to close at 5:00pm, with the first results trickling in at about 10:30pm.

“Polling has started and it will continue till 5:00pm without any break,” election commission secretary Kanwar Dilshad told AFP.

An AFP reporter saw voting declared open at a polling station in the capital Islamabad, with about two dozen people entering to cast their ballot in the opening minutes. Four armed police stood guard.

Musharraf’s spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi dismissed allegations of rigging, saying that even the ballot boxes were transparent and fitted with special seals.

“I have no doubt in my mind that the elections will be free, fair and transparent,” Qureshi told AFP.

“As spokesman for the president, I have seen the earnestness with which he has been working and trying to remove every hitch for these polls,” he added.

The outcome of the vote will be watched avidly in Western capitals amid concerns about Musharraf’s ability to tackle Al Qaeda and Taleban militants based in Pakistan’s tribal areas on the Afghan border.

Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 and stepped down as army chief in November, is not standing in the polls, but could be badly weakened or even impeached if the public install a hostile parliament.

Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari and former premier Nawaz Sharif have pledged to hold protests if they suspect foul play. Both have said they suspect “massive” rigging in favour of Musharraf’s allies.

Zardari warned in an interview with Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper that he would have “no choice but to take to the streets” if the polls were fraudulent.

Sharif, Bhutto’s former rival, told reporters Sunday that it was ”more than clear that a massive rigging plan is in place.”

One person was killed and six others wounded when gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on an election office of a candidate for Sharif’s party in the eastern city of Lahore late Sunday, police said.

Opinion polls have tipped Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party to win, followed by Sharif’s grouping, with the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q trailing in third place.

They have also showed Musharraf’s popularity slumping. But security fears after Bhutto’s death — which forced the postponement of the polls from their original date on January 8 — have raised the possibility of a low turnout that would benefit Musharraf’s allies.

The government has deployed 500,000 troops for the vote and the aftermath, including 81,000 soldiers — one for every 1,000 members of the 81-million-strong electorate.

The violence knocked the wind out of Pakistan’s normally colourful electoral campaigns and added to widespread public discontent about rising prices and shortages of flour and other essentials.

Campaigning ended grimly on Saturday when a suicide car bomber ploughed into a meeting of Bhutto’s supporters in the northwestern tribal town of Parachinar, killing 47 people and wounding more than 100.

The attack highlighted the Pakistani military’s ongoing struggles in the tribal belt, which has been branded by US officials as a “safe haven” for Al Qaeda militants.

Musharraf has accused a top Al Qaeda militant based in the region of masterminding Bhutto’s assassination.

High stakes for Musharraf in poll

BBC

Last Updated: Sunday, 17 February 2008, 18:45 GMT

By Chris Morris BBC News, Gujrat, Pakistan He retains loyal supporters, but many see Mr Musharraf as a liability In the garden of a vast, colonnaded house in Gujrat, election agents from Pakistan’s Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) party gather for one last pep talk from their leaders. Just off the Grand Trunk Road, surrounded by the lush green fields of rural Punjab, this is the home of a powerful political clan – the Chaudrys. For the last few years they have run the main political base of the PML-Q, the party closely allied with President Pervez Musharraf. But at recent election rallies the party’s candidates have made no mention of the man who has dominated Pakistani politics for a decade. There is no avoiding the fact that, this year, Pervez Musharraf is not a name that will win his party many votes The Chaudrys point out that the head of state is supposed to be above party politics, and they insist that he is not being deliberately ignored. “He’s not a liability, we don’t feel that he’s a liability to our party,” said Chaudry Pervaiz Elahi, the PML-Q’s prospective prime ministerial candidate. “This election is a performance-based election, and you have to show people what you did for them in the last five years.” But there is no avoiding the fact that, this year, retired General Musharraf is not a name that will win his party many votes. Sympathy vote A couple of hours’ drive down a Punjabi motorway, at a rally organised by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), posters of the assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto look down upon the crowd. There has been talk of a big sympathy vote. Several of the people I spoke to at the rally said they used to support President Musharraf and the PML-Q. Not any more. President Musharraf has said Monday’s vote will be free and fair “His policies are not right for the country,” said one man, who gave his name as Nasir. “We don’t feel safe going to the markets. So this time we’re going to vote for the PPP.” Shafi, another new PPP supporter, agreed. “Everything’s so expensive now, and there’s no security in the country,” he said. “Musharraf himself was a good man, but the people he had around him were all blackmailers.” But do such sentiments reflect a more widespread anti-incumbent mood? And if so, what next? Resignation calls A coalition of small political parties, known as the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), is boycotting this election altogether. Under Pervez Musharraf, it believes, opposition parties can achieve nothing positive – even if they get into government. “This regime will not permit them to perform their democratic, constitutional and lawful approaches in parliament,” said Mehmut Khan Achakzai, the APDM’s chairman. “They will try to release the judiciary from prison, they will try to have a powerful parliament. Conflict will be there. The best way is for Musharraf to resign, and for the Pakistan army to have no role in the body politic of Pakistan.” Musharraf’s days are numbered. It can be a few months or a couple of years Zaffar Abbas Dawn newspaper The military is deeply entrenched in this country, but there are already signs of a change in approach. The new army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, who took over when President Musharraf stepped down from his military role last year, has ordered his soldiers to stay out of politics and give up lucrative jobs in the civilian bureaucracy. The priority of the army at the moment is to concentrate on the fight against Taleban-style Islamist militants, particularly in areas close to the Afghan border. So it wants to ensure that any political transition following this election is a smooth one. Political risk President Musharraf has insisted that he wants a stable democratically-elected government after a free and transparent election. But many observers feel that, for him, this is a process fraught with political risk. The PPP has threatened street protests if it suspects fraud Poll views from abroad Voters, boycotters “If there’s a clean sweep for the parties opposing President Musharraf, the day after elections could be his last day,” argued Zaffar Abbas, the Islamabad editor of Dawn newspaper. “But if there’s a mixed voting pattern then Musharraf will have some leverage to bargain with those political parties.” And when it comes to Mr Musharraf’s chances of serving a full five-year term as civilian president, Mr Abbas is adamant. “It depends on how the Pakistani military plays its role, and how the international community plays its role. “But Musharraf’s days are numbered. It can be a few months or a couple of years, but certainly not his full term.” Part of the problem So the one man who is not running has a lot at stake in this election. Pakistan has huge problems with militancy and inequality, and for years the west has backed Pervez Musharraf as the man to deal with them. He is at heart a secular moderniser, and he still thinks he has a vital role to play. But he brooks no opposition and he has become a deeply divisive figure here. For many people he is part of the problem, no longer part of the solution.