Everyone’s favorite Brooklynite, Hassan Chop, is back from a weekend in DC, where I’m sure his Pakistanti family argued about Mush-y and Bhutto and Sharif…Here’s his take on the elections. (I’m posting this because he can’t from work.)
The election results are still not official, but it looks like Bhutto’s PPP has so far won 87 out of 258 contested seats in the National Assembly (there are 268 seats being contested in the 272-seat Parliament, and results are still rolling in), and Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N) won 66 seats. Musharraf’s PML (Q) took only 38 seats, and all the major figures in his party lost in the elections. The PML (Q) has already acknowledged defeat, so it seems like Pakistan will have a peaceful transition to a new civilian government. There were scattered reports of violence, including 26 dead, accusations of vote rigging, and female voters faced intimidation, but overall, I have to say that this election seems to have gone off better than expected. That is to say, the wave of terrorist violence that many feared didn’t materialize.
So, it looks like the PPP and the PML (N) will attempt to form a governing coalition. (ED Note: bold Hassan’s.) PPP leader Zardari made some comments a few minutes ago. He said that he will form a government with all the democratic forces in the country. Some people have speculated that a PPP/PML (N) coalition might not work because the PML (N) had called for a restoration of the judges that Musharraf sacked, while the PPP, which was angry about Musharraf’s move, hadn’t made such a demand. However, Zardari just called for all judges and lawyers to be freed from jail or house arrest, so perhaps they will be able to find some common ground on the issue of the judiciary. Zardari said that his precondition for forming an alliance is that his partners in the coalition must support the call for a UN probe into Benazir Bhutto’s death. If the PPP and the PML (N) form a coalition, they’ll control nearly 60% of the seats in the National Assembly. Remember that in order to depose Musharraf, they need a two-thirds majority, so they would only need another 17 seats in the coalition to get to 66%. Let the political horse-trading begin.
One thing to note is that the religious parties were thoroughly routed. The MMA won only 3 seats in the National Assembly versus 45 in 2002, and they won just 11% of the seats in the Northwest Frontier Province. The powerful Maulana Fazlur Rehman lost in his hometown to the Awami National Party candidate. The ANP won about 40% of the seats in the NWFP, staging a strong comeback. So, even in the areas where the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda have flourished, the voters indicated that they want change from the current politics of the region. To be fair, turnout was low, only about 20%. That’s not a surprise given the likelihood of violence at the polls in those areas. Still, those who came out to vote kicked out the Mullahs. Maybe now we’ll see fewer articles in the international press about the Talibanization of Pakistan.
The Pakistan Election Commission put voter turnout for at 44.9% for 147 of the 272 National Assembly seats. According to the UPI article, the 2002 turnout was 42%. In that light, I think yesterday’s turnout is somewhat disappointing. Perhaps the threat of violence kept them away. Anyway, the story also noted that nearly 502,000 votes were rejected, but no reason was given for excluding these votes.
Everybody get down tonight! Hassan chose this shot by Warrick Page, Getty, to sum up post-election Pakistan. Will there be dancing in the streets come November in America? Unlikely, as the US is filled by with a bunch of uptight worker bees.
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February 19th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I’m so happy MMA got shredded!!!