The emerging results from Pakistan's election show that Pakistan Muslim League-Q—the PML faction allied to President Musharraf—has been badly beaten. This isn't in itself a ringing endorsement of constitutional democracy in Pakistan, but the details of the results suggest that there may be more hope for democracy than some had dared wish for.
For a start, what's more remarkable than Q's losses in terms of seats is the identity of those that lost—including its president, Shujjat Hussain, and the speaker of the national assembly, Ameer Hussain. In a country where leading political figures typically contest multiple constituencies and achieve political status only as a result of their pre-existing social and economic connections, these defeats look like major breakthroughs for democratic rather than feudal politics. Voters have decided that, no matter who they are, these men who unconditionally supported Musharraf have to go.
The same conclusion might be drawn from Q's surprising victories in Balochistan, where the army has been fighting a shifting coalition of tribal leaders and Islamists. It seems that where people are most directly affected by radicalism, they have voted for the party most clearly identified with taking action against it. There has been a similar result in the other border province, the North West Frontier Province. The regional assembly there had been under the control of the religious parties, but their coalition won only nine seats this time.
Of course, the big story of these elections has been the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the transfer of power within her Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) to her husband and son. Observers expected the PPP to ride a wave of popular sympathy and outrage and win a major victory. In the event, although the PPP will emerge as the largest party in the national assembly, they have not won overwhelmingly—and it is perhaps Nawaz Sharif's party, PML-N, who hadn't settled on even contesting these elections until a few weeks ago, who have delivered the most impressive performance by coming a close second. This may suggest that the PPP's dynastic strategy has backfired and that voters have been put off by Asif Zardari, Bhutto's widower, who has a reputation for gross corruption.
The key question is of what happens next. There will be a process of coalition-building between the PPP and Sharif's party, and it may be that, in the tradition of previous agreements in Pakistan, this will amount to nothing more than a carving up of the state. On the other hand, Pakistan has been enjoying strong economic growth in recent years and the parties may soon come under pressure if their actions are seen to jeopardise this growth, at least by the wealthy elite who have benefited most from it, and perhaps also by an increasingly vocal middle class.
The more immediate issue is President Musharraf. Both of the major parties fought this election on the basis of their opposition to him and, in particular, his decision to replace the supreme court judges at the end of last year when they were considering the question of whether his appointment as president was constitutional. What's interesting is that, having articulated their antipathy to Musharraf in constitutional terms, the major political parties may have paved the way to a constitutionalisation of Pakistani politics. For example, Sharif's party has already said that, while Musharraf ought to stand down following the popular defeat of the party who supported him, if the supreme court finds that his appointment was constitutional after all, then they would support that finding.
There is perhaps a chance that the competing powers in the Pakistani state—the elites represented by the two major parties and the military—will now try to find a lasting accommodation via the constitution. It's unrealistic to expect the military immediately to step out of the political sphere, where it has been a major presence since the creation of Pakistan. But Musharraf must accept that, even in terms of fighting the Islamists, which he usually identifies as his main aim, he has to secure greater political legitimacy—and that can only be done through making a deal with the major parties. We will see if, over the coming weeks, that deal is made and on what terms.
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