The former information and railways minister said he was facing a protest vote against the government’s performance over the past five years. High prices and shortages of essential goods were at the top of voters’ minds. “There is a wheat, electricity, and gas shortage,” he said. “I can’t say there’s no shortage. I have to admit, yes, there is.
“What can you say to people who say they can’t give their children breakfast and have to send them to school without food?” he added. Not only that, he said, voters may be punishing him for the government’s bloody military operation last July against armed Islamic militants who were holed up inside Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque–more than 100 were killed. “That’s another minus, a negative,” he said.
If a formidable politician such as Ahmed is in trouble, that doesn’t bode well for the electoral chances of Musharraf’s political vehicle, his Pakistan Muslim League-Q faction, or for the president himself. At stake in Monday’s voting is not only the party’s ability to remain in power for another five years in the national assembly, but perhaps also Musharraf’s political future. This election is supposed to mark a much hoped-for transition to democracy from Musharraf’s nearly nine years of military rule. Under heavy domestic and international pressure, Gen. Musharraf resigned as army chief last November, soon after the previous national assembly reelected him to a new five-year presidential term in a controversial and legally questionable vote. To avoid strong legal challenges, he declared a state of emergency in November, sacked independent-minded Supreme Court and High Court judges, and temporarily jailed thousands of lawyers and opposition activists. The most influential and vocal lawyers and judges remain under house arrest.
As president, Musharraf is not a candidate in these elections, which determine membership in the national and provincial assemblies. But his PML-Q party is being hard-pressed by strong opposition from the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf overthrew in a bloodless coup in 1999. The center-left and populous PPP lost its indefatigable and charismatic leader late last December in a suicide bombing that the government and the United States blame on Islamic militants. She had rallied the party since her return from exile last October, and her death was a tragic blow to her reenergized followers. But a wave of sympathy since her passing is expected to boost the party in her native Sindh province and in the Punjab, the country’s richest and most populous province. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, is heading the party until their 19-year-old son, Bilawal, finishes school in England. Early returns from Sindh show a PPP sweep there.
While the pro-government Electoral Commission rejected Sharif’s candidacy for the national assembly, he has run a strong campaign in support of his center-right party. Both Zardari and Sharif have expressed deep skepticism that the voting will be free, fair, and transparent, as Musharraf has repeatedly promised. They have warned that if the voting is rigged, their parties could lead street protests against the president. Fear of terrorist violence is another electoral factor. Several recent suicide bombings aimed at political parties–the latest, targeting a PPP rally near the Afghan border on Sunday, killed 46 people–have frightened voters and may keep the turnout low.
Even so, many Pakistanis see the vote as a referendum on Musharraf’s rule. According to recent public opinion polls that the president has dismissed as being biased, the president’s approval rating is less than 20 percent, and a vast majority of Pakistanis would like him to resign. Inflation in essential commodities is running at more than 10 percent, and there is a shortage of basic necessities. Further, Musharraf’s imposition of the state of emergency, his stifling of popular judges, and his apparent intention to cling to power no matter what the cost have turned many Pakistanis against him. As a result, the PPP and Sharif’s party could do surprisingly well and may emerge from the polls in a position to form a coalition government with a strong or a two-thirds majority in the 342-member national assembly. In that event, Musharraf would face a hostile government and national assembly that could conceivably move to impeach him.
Nevertheless, the president’s men continue to express their confidence that Musharraf’s League-Q will do well enough to remain in power, perhaps by cajoling the PPP into some sort of power-sharing arrangement. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, a leading candidate for prime minister if Musharraf’s party performs well, sounded wildly optimistic, predicting that his party will comfortably win 100 seats in the Punjab, where half of the directly elected seats are located, and therefore will be able to cobble together a pro-Musharraf government with the help of likeminded smaller parties. Monday’s results, however, may not be as clear-cut as the three main party leaders are hoping–none of the parties may win solidly enough to easily form a ruling coalition. In that case, days of difficult horse-trading lie ahead before a viable government can be formed.
But based on anecdotal evidence, the PPP and the Sharif-led opposition party seemed to be doing well as the polls closed, hours before the official results will be announced. Unscientific exit polls of three Rawalpindi constituencies do not represent a national trend and could be incorrect and unrepresentative, but in interviews with voters either entering or exiting several polling stations in these three constituencies, Newsweek reporters found that the mood was overwhelmingly anti-government and in favor of Sharif’s party and the PPP. Indeed, it was nearly impossible to find a voter who openly expressed his support for Musharraf, the government, or for PML-Q candidate Ahmed. One man named Abdullah favored Ahmed, saying, “He is a good man who works hard for the people.” Nearly everyone else in the polling line laughed, saying they were either for the PPP or Sharif’s party. “Nawaz Sharif is very good,” said Khurshid Bibi, a women in her 70s who proudly showed off her ink-stained thumb as proof that she had voted at a station inside the Government’s Post Graduate College. “He was innocent and jailed unfairly by Musharraf,” she added, referring to Musharraf’s imprisoning of Sharif on corruption charges after he was deposed.
At another polling station inside the Rawalpindi Satellite Town Boys College, a 19-year-old first-time voter also said he had voted for the Tiger, the symbol on the ballot of Sharif’s party. Many voters in line, both at women’s polling stations and men’s, sported buttons with the Tiger logo. An elderly man named Salem said he was voting against high prices by supporting Sharif. A civil servant said he was voting against Ahmed. “Sheikh Rashid is the candidate of inflation and more terrorism,” he said. “We need a change to stop both.” Even a highway patrolman in civilian clothes proudly and loudly said he was voting for Sharif’s candidate. “He’s sincere,” he said. “He’s done a lot for the country.” There were also many pro-Bhutto voices at the polling station as well. One young man shouted, “Bhutto is alive.”
Even before Bhutto’s assassination, the expectation had been that these would be Pakistan’s bloodiest elections, and that voter turnout would be relatively low as a result. In the Punjabi capital of Lahore, the army made its presence known on eerily empty streets on Sunday, the day before the election, through a “flag march.” But hours later in Lahore, a candidate from Sharif’s party and three other people were shot dead outside the election office. Reports of sporadic election-related violence and irregularities have been trickling in today, with polling forced into suspension in several constituencies, but so far there have been no major attacks.
Nationwide, early reports suggest that voter turnout was low, around 35 percent, the same as in 1997, which represented the lowest turnout in Pakistan’s history. “We’re not unsatisfied by the turnout,” said Javid Akhtar, 45, a PPP supporter. “We should be okay.” In Bhutto’s home province of Sindh, voter turnout may well be higher than the national average. “People have covered miles and miles on foot just to be able to vote,” PPP supporter Mashhood Abbasi told Newsweek by phone from Hyderabad. “All the women at the polling station I went to vote at were crying for Benazir,” he said.
Some voters went away from the polls disappointed that their names were not on the voters’ lists. At one polling station in Rawalpindi, four brothers turned up with their father–they were all Sharif supporters–only to find that the father’s name was not on the list, meaning that he couldn’t vote. Among those turned away from the polls in Lahore was Sana Mir, 30, who recently moved back to Pakistan from Africa. “My name is not on the list, so I’m going home now,” she said dejectedly. She added that her family had implored her not to vote, fearing violence, but she went anyway because she didn’t want “Pakistan to become another Africa.”
