I hope, thats the case, but we already know elections won’t be free or fair.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071216/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_after_the_emergency
Election result critical to Musharraf
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 16, 2:57 PM ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf has emerged from six tumultuous weeks of emergency rule with another five-year presidential term but facing fresh threats to his grip on power.
Pakistan elects a new parliament next month, and after ceding control of the army and letting two key political rivals return from exile, the U.S.-backed leader will be vulnerable if the next batch of lawmakers opposes him.
Musharraf’s suspension of the constitution Nov. 3 enabled him to purge the Supreme Court of judges who could have terminated his autocratic rule.
But his extraconstitutional actions could leave him open to political attack and even impeachment if the ruling party fares badly at the polls, giving clout to an emboldened opposition that has been sidelined for years because of his total dominance, backed by the powerful military and a rubber-stamp parliament.
Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, is unpopular at home, despised by many liberals who once supported him. His international standing also has slipped, although he retains U.S. and British backing as an ally in the war on terror.
“He can’t afford an unsympathetic parliament,” said Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a political analyst and author. “If parliament is not subservient to him, then you will see a lot of trouble in Pakistan in the months after the elections.”
It has been a tempestuous year for Musharraf, marked by a series of political blunders since he first tried to fire the country’s top judge nine months ago. His U.S.-backed campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida has backfired and led to an escalation in the Islamic extremism he wants to fight. A recent poll found that 72 percent of Pakistanis opposed his re-election in October.
However, he remains Pakistan’s most powerful man. His exercise of raw power has shored up his position, and in a sign that he still sees himself as the man pulling the military’s strings, Musharraf stays at Army House military headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, rather than shift to the presidential residence in nearby Islamabad.
“He’s playing hardball and shown that he does not care about the constitution,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a politics professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Before lifting the emergency Saturday, Musharraf doctored the constitution to protect himself from legal action for suspending it, moves endorsed by the newly appointed supreme court.
“He has to do that or he will have no legal cover and constitutional protection,” said former Law Minister Iftikhar Gilani, who is running as an independent in the upcoming elections. “You can’t just play around with the constitution, one individual, the way he did it.”
But Musharraf — burnishing his battered credentials as a democrat — he promised to hold the elections on time, a key demand from Western allies who criticized his crackdown on thousands of opponents and the independent media during the emergency.
Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have been allowed to return from exile and dropped threats to boycott the vote, making it a more even contest than the flawed elections in 2002 that ushered in a Parliament subordinate to Musharraf.
Analysts say that unless the election is severely rigged — concerns already voiced by Bhutto and Sharif — none of the three major parties is likely to win an outright majority in the 342-seat National Assembly. Depending on who does best, that could leave Musharraf in good position to dictate terms.
Most expect the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party that dominated the last assemblies or Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party to win, followed by Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N.
If the PML-Q garners enough votes, it could remake the current coalition, bolstered by support from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a prominent Islamic party. But with the attorney-general hinting that a ban could be lifted on a prime minister serving more than two terms — a key Bhutto demand — it is possible that Musharraf is still positioning for her party to team up with the PML-Q, a matchup preferred by the West.
Sharif is drawing large crowds as he campaigns in his native Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province where over half the National Assembly seats are at stake. His PML-N could capitalize if the PML-Q suffers from its close association with the unpopular president and soaring food prices.
“The wild card is that Sharif might get more seats than people think,” said analyst Shafqat Mahmood, a former Bhutto spokesman.
That could leave Musharraf facing a hostile Parliament pressing for his prosecution or impeachment for his 42 days of extraconstitutional rule. Even if his allies fare well in the elections, the president will likely face pressure to indemnify his actions.
“He does not have to go to Parliament straight away, but ultimately he will have to,” said Rizvi. “He could continue with the help of force, but now the situation is different as he is not army chief, so how long will the army support him? That we don’t know.”
Matthew Pennington is The Associated Press bureau chief in Islamabad and has been covering Pakistan since 2003.
