Elections, Democracy and Stability in Pakistan
Elections, Democracy and Stability in Pakistan
Table of Contents
  1. Executive Summary
Pakistan’s Mass Deportation of Afghans Poses Risks to Regional Stability
Pakistan’s Mass Deportation of Afghans Poses Risks to Regional Stability
Report / Asia 4 minutes

Elections, Democracy and Stability in Pakistan

President Musharraf faces the most serious challenge to almost eight years of military rule.

Executive Summary

President Musharraf faces the most serious challenge to almost eight years of military rule. Opposition has gathered momentum following his failed attempt to remove the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Moderate political parties, all segments of civil society and the public at large are vociferously demanding restoration of democracy and rule of law and the military’s withdrawal from politics. The choice is not whether a transition will come but whether it will be peaceful and orderly, through free and fair elections, or violent. Musharraf and the high command are tempted to retain their power at all costs. Several of their options – particularly emergency – could portend disaster. Rigged or stalled elections would destabilise Pakistan, with serious international security consequences. Especially the U.S., needs to recognise its own interests are no longer served by military rule (if they ever really were) and use its considerable leverage to persuade the generals to return to the barracks and accept a democratic transition through free and fair parliamentary, followed by presidential, elections this year.

Bent on gaining another presidential term and retaining the office of army chief, Musharraf wants the present national and provincial assemblies (collectively the presidential Electoral College), which are themselves the product of the rigged 2002 polls and end their own five-year terms this year, to re-elect him. Opposition parties, including the main civilian contenders, Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League (PML-N), reject that. They also rightly fear that elections for new assemblies, if held at all, are likely to be rigged.

However, Musharraf can no longer count on a pliant judiciary endorsing his re-election by the current, stacked assemblies, his retention of the dual offices of president and army chief or any other unconstitutional act. Another stolen election would be strongly resisted by the opposition parties and civil society and could possibly lead to a violent confrontation between the military and protestors.

A rigged election would also not serve international interests. Now, as before, Musharraf has little choice but to support the Islamist parties to counter his moderate opposition. The pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI)’s help is essential to him, particularly in Balochistan, where the staunchly anti-military Baloch nationalist parties would likely win a free and fair poll. In the national parliament too, Musharraf would need the Islamists’ support to get renewed approval of his dual hats. If the Islamist parties gain five more years of power in Balochistan and Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), their militant allies – Pakistani, Afghan and transnational – will benefit, and the moderate parties, which still retain the support of the vast majority of the population, will lose.

With his military government fast losing all claims to public support and legitimacy, Musharraf could decide to compromise with the national-level moderate parties, reaching, for instance, a power-sharing accord with Bhutto’s PPP, which would likely win a free and fair election. Speculation about such a compromise was revived by their meeting in Abu Dhabi on 27 July. By agreeing to hold such an election and give up his army post in return for the PPP supporting him for president, he could retain some legitimacy and policy-making influence. Given the momentum of the pro-democracy movement, however, this option may no longer be viable. Even if Bhutto is still amenable, Sharif’s PML-N rejects any further role for Musharraf, in or out of uniform, and the Supreme Court might be reluctant to give him a pass on the two-year constitutional bar on a retired general standing for public office. 

Musharraf and the high command could still refuse to see the writing on the wall and impose a state of emergency, suspending democratic rights and freedoms postponing general elections for a year and in effect imposing absolute military rule. Citing the threat of heightened militancy as a pretext for the action, he could then use the emergency powers to postpone national elections. This would fuel pro-democracy protests and civil disobedience, forcing the military either to back down or resort to violence. Such repression would cause citizens, especially in those regions such as Balochistan that have already suffered from military excesses, to lose belief that political change can come through peaceful and democratic means.

In the face of such unattractive options, it is also possible that the generals would conclude that a democratic transition is their best course. This would require them to withdraw their support from Musharraf and agree to genuine elections. Whether they reach such a decision, however, depends importantly upon how the international community uses its considerable leverage with the high command.

It is vital, therefore, that the international community understand its interests are best served by a stable, democratically-governed Pakistan. Since the 11 September terror attacks, the U.S. has provided the bulk of $10 billion in aid to the military, believing that the military is their reliable partner and the only institution with the capacity to govern and to combat militants. On the contrary, by excluding moderate parties, military rule has fanned extremism; by alienating the smaller provinces and virtually blocking all institutions and channels of meaningful participation, it threatens to destabilise a country of 160 million people in a strategic and volatile neighborhood. By permitting the Taliban insurgents, aligned with jihadi political parties, to operate from Pakistani sanctuaries, it has endangered the fragile democracy in Afghanistan.

The U.S. should use its considerable influence to persuade the generals to give up power, offering political and material incentives if they do so and threatening sanctions if they thwart democratic change. A free, fair and transparent election this year is the first, necessary step in the peaceful political transition that is needed to bring Pakistan to moderate, democratic moorings.

Islamabad/Brussels, 31 July 2007

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