Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | The parliamentary election will be the first since President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as army chief last December. The election will also occur in the presence of a reinvigorated secular opposition and after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on 27 December. |
Implications | Unless the election results are rigged, Pakistan’s secular parties are likely to secure a victory. Although this is not a presidential election, it will serve as a referendum on the nine-year rule of President Musharraf. |
Outlook | An opposition victory will set the stage for confrontation between the parliament and President Musharraf, which could stall economic and political reforms and progress in the "War on Terror". |
Pakistan will be holding a parliamentary election for the first time in six years on 18 February. The election will also be the first since President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as army chief last November before being sworn in for a second five-year term as president, and his first as a civilian (see Pakistan: 29 November 2007: Musharraf Takes Oath as Pakistan's Civilian President). The election will also feature a reinvigorated secular opposition, following the return of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif last October and November respectively. The polls were originally scheduled for 8 January but were delayed by six weeks after the assassination of Bhutto on 27 December (see Pakistan: 3 January 2008: Pakistan's Parliamentary Election Delayed by a Month after Opposition Leader's Death). Approximately 80 million registered voters in Pakistan's four provinces and eight tribal districts will select candidates to fill 272 seats in the country’s 342-seat lower house of parliament (National Assembly) and the provincial assemblies. More than 1,000 international observers and journalists are expected to monitor the event.
Security has been tightened in the nuclear-armed country of 160 million people in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination and in the run-up to the polls. Additional security has been provided to more than 64,000 polling stations throughout the country. Campaign activities, which have been curbed by security concerns and the 40-day mourning period for Bhutto, have escalated as voting approaches, along with attacks on election candidates and electoral activities. Four major attacks occurred on political targets in the last week alone (see Pakistan: 11 February 2008: Suicide Bomb Hits Rally as Campaign Heats Up Ahead of Election in Pakistan). In the most recent attack, two people were killed yesterday when a roadside bomb hit a car carrying pro-Taliban election candidate Mufti Hussain Ahmed in the Swat Valley, near the Afghan border. Meanwhile, Pakistani police reported yesterday that they had apprehended two men who had conspired in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last week.
At a conference in Islamabad today, President Musharraf pledged that the election would be “free, fair, transparent and peaceful”. This comes amid a series of polls that have shown declining popularity for the president. Meanwhile, thousands of supporters of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) gathered in the industrial city of Faisalabad in Punjab province today, in its last major rally before voting next week. Punjab is home to half of Pakistan’s population and is the country's political heartland.
The Provinces | |||
Province | Seats | Major Parties Contesting | Likely Outcome |
Punjab | 148 | PML-Q, PML-N, PPP | Punjab has traditionally formed the support base of the PML. However, given the sympathy vote for the PPP in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination and the division of the PML into the anti-Musharraf PML-N and pro-Musharraf PML-Q factions, the PPP may perform well here. |
Sindh | 61 | MQM, PPP | The race is between the PPP and pro-Musharraf MQM, although the PPP is expected to perform well given the wave of sympathy for the party in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination. Sindh is Bhutto’s home province. |
Baluchistan | 14 | PML-Q | There is no major challenger as most parties have boycotted the elections, meaning the PML-Q is likely to perform well here. |
North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) | 35 | ANP, JUI, PPP | NWFP formed the stronghold of the six-party Islamist MMA in the last election, although divisions between the JUI and JI mean the ANP and PPP are likely to perform well here. |
Another 12 seats will be up for grabs in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as well as two seats in Islamabad. 10 seats are reserved for non-Muslims and 60 seats are reserved for women, which will be allocated to parties on the basis of their performance in the elections.
Scenarios
Musharraf will be hoping for a stalemate, with no clear winner in the election. However, unless the results are rigged, opinion polls indicate that Pakistan’s secular parties, led by the PPP, are likely to perform well after the return of their leaders last year and the expected sympathy vote for the PPP following Bhutto’s death. President Musharraf's main allies are the Pakistan Muslim League- Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) and Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM). The Islamist parties are expected to perform poorly compared to 2002, due to the reinvigorated secular opposition and divisions within the six-party Muttahida Majli-e-Amal (MMA). Within this Islamist alliance, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is boycotting the elections, while the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) is contesting the polls amid death threats to its leader, Maulana Fazlur Rahman. The election is also being boycotted by Tehreek-e-Insaaf, the party of former Pakistani cricket captain Imran Khan, as part of the All Parties Democratic Alliance (APDM).
Asif Ali Zardari, the PPP co-chairman and Bhutto's widow, has left the options on whom the party will ally with open by calling for a "government of national consensus" in an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP) yesterday.
- A PPP- Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) alliance would be the worst-case scenario for Musharraf, as it could easily challenge his rule. The possibility of such an alliance became apparent following a meeting between Zardari and Sharif in Lahore on Tuesday (12 February).
- Zardari has nonetheless, pursued a less confrontational approach towards the president than the PML-N, leaving open the option of allying the PPP with President Musharraf’s PML-Q party.
- As a middle path between an anti-Musharraf PPP-PML-N coalition and a pro-Musharraf PPP-PML-Q coalition, the PPP could also form an alliance with the country’s regional and Islamist parties, such the Awami National Party (ANP)—a Pashtun secular nationalist party based in NWFP.
The discovery of vote-rigging or electoral fraud could spark further opposition protests and a nullification of the election results. A statement by the European Union yesterday expressed concerns over the election arrangements, while the day before (12 February) U.S.-based organisation Human Rights Watch criticised Pakistan’s Election Commission for failing to investigate reports of campaign violations.
Makhdoom Amin Fahim, deputy chairman of the PPP, is the likely candidate for prime minister in the event of a PPP victory, given the inexperience of party chairman Bilawal (Bhutto's son) and the corruption allegations against Zardari, who is also not standing in the elections. Nonetheless, Zardari is likely to pull the strings of the political process if there is a PPP victory. However, the PML-Q's candidate for prime minister, former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, has threatened to reopen cases of corruption against the Bhutto family, which were shelved under the National Reconciliation Ordinance issued by Musharraf last year.
Outlook and Implications
Although this is not a presidential vote, the election will serve as a referendum on the nine-year rule of President Musharraf. More importantly, an opposition-led parliament could challenge many of Musharraf’s policies. These include his re-election for a second term as president last October, which was conducted by the outgoing parliament and occurred while he held the dual position of president and army chief. The new parliament could also challenge the legality of Musharraf’s six-week state of emergency last November, as well as amendments to the constitution, which gave him discretionary powers to dismiss governments and assemblies and to appoint the heads of the armed forces and administrative services. Finally, the incoming parliament could reinstate judges who were purged from the Supreme Court following Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule. This would include former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest. In the worst case scenario for the president, the new parliament could attempt to impeach Musharraf.
Any indication that the election results have been rigged or the independence of the electoral process has been compromised could fuel further political unrest. Whatever the outcome, political gridlock seems likely, which will deter much-needed economic reform to tackle issues such as rising inflation, government borrowing and an expanding trade deficit. Any indication that Pakistan is failing to make progress on tackling Islamic extremism or the process of democratic transition could affect aid flows, which remain the mainstay to the country’s balance of payments.
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