February 7, 2008
Votes and bombs in Pakistan
I am in Islamabad, which is perhaps not the ideal place from which to comment on Super Tuesday. But while we still have months and months to go before the Americans actually choose their president, the Pakistani elections are coming up fast - February 18th in fact.
There are three big questions surrounding the vote:
1) Will Musharraf rig the voting? 2) If the opposition win can they form a stable government? 3) Can any government improve the security situation - which means regaining control of the wilder bits of the country and stopping the suicide bombings which are becoming a regular feature of Pakistani life?
On question one, I think every one thinks that Musharraf will rig the elections a bit. But if he rigs them so badly that his party actually wins, then the results will command no credibility and that will be it for any pretence of Pakistani democracy.
The People’s Party - which used to be led by Benazir Bhutto - looks likely to win most seats. But after her assassination its leadership is in doubt. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is showing every sign of wanting to take over on a permanent basis - and has just published her political will in the papers to show that this was Benazir’s wish. But Zardari is not running in the election and would need a by-election actually to get into parliament.
Meanwhile, something like a Pakistani insurgency is taking place. The papers here are quoting a new study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies on the emergence of a "neo-Taliban" within Pakistan itself. Suicide bombings are now taking place in major and formerly peaceful cities like Lahore and Rawalpindi. Not a great backdrop for the elections.
Islamabad no doubt saps some of the hubris of many of us who have thought the future begins now in California. You are witnessing its breached birth.
Your comments about Musharraf confirm a bias against this man that has been previously acknowledged and is shared by many, particularly Dick Cheney & Co. While this man is far from inspiring and prefers to operate under the radar, he has, unquestionably, provided sufficiently sound direction and governance over the military and the country to keep Pakistan viable during these past several years. No small feat. At worst, he is a little dictator.
Musharraf does not deserve an embrace, but it is unhelpful to demonise him in the interests of creating the clearer typecasting for a Washington script still searching for a story.
Your comments on al-Zardari confirm that good questions remain unanswered. I would suggest that much truth and more complicity is hidden in the large-scale US non-military activities based or centred in Pakistan. Look for information on the Blackwater-type security outsourcers.
Recall my account (in some old post) from the Karachi-originated, Iraqi-bound Gulf Air flight I found myself on by accident last February: as I wrote, my persistent efforts to rebook a cancelled flight put me onto a leg of this flight carrying nearly 300 weary Pakistani, Nepalese and Bangladeshi men to work for US contractors in Iraq. Their US master sat alone in what had long ago been a business-class cabin on this now-dirty A-340.
These men seemed oblivious to democracy. Reports from Iraq on how such labour is managed are often more appalling than Guantanamo. I suggest they are better and more often recounted in Urdu than in English.
By the time you get to Karachi, I suspect you will see that governing Sindhis, Punjabis, and mountain warlords is one of the planet’s least appealing mandates. Musharraf may be way over his head and his readings of George Soros may represent a pathetic fantasy, but others, opportunists like al-Zardari, may bring even greater menace.
At the same time, isn’t it amazing how much governance the rising and the setting of the sun provides in places like this?
Posted by: WCM | February 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am | Report this commentThe “Emergence of the Neo-Taliban” is a slightly misleading description as the original Taliban were sponsored by the Pakistani ISI and relied heavily on the Pakistani Medressahs for training and inspiration of their cadres. Better to think of Afghanistan as a bit of a testing ground for the real event to unfold in Pakistan, rather than as Pakistan suffering some infiltration of Taliban from the neighbouring state (huh huh!) of Afghanistan.
Have you followed the US attempts to start operating directly in Pakistan?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/088fe95c-d51e-11dc-9af1-0000779fd2ac.html
No doubt, if General Mush resists too much, the Yanks will replace him with somebody more compliant because, after their huge “successes” in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans are itching to get centre stage in Pakistan too.
That would be very bad news for Pakistan which is going to be the theatre that makes Iraq and Afghanistan (combined) look like a walk in the park for the West, a Mother of All Quagmires, if you will.
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | February 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am | Report this commentWCM must mean Asif Zardari rather than alZardari probably a little confusing for a westerner.He isn’t alone in his confusion though as Musharraf and much of Pakistan share that confusion.The sad reality is that the people who straddle the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,the Pashtuns have a barbaric culture that cannot be civilized and through numerical strength and sheer willpower will continue to destabilize both those countries.The sooner a ‘cordon sanitaire’ is created and prosperity allowed to spread in the rest of Pakistan the more likely the Pashtuns are to succumb to the force of a ‘civilized’ modern state.
Posted by: sumant rawat | February 8th, 2008 at 3:57 am | Report this commentGideon, why do you guys in the press always try to portray Pakistan as an ungovernable wild west, where people are scared to come out of their houses and loosing their sleep over ticking “suicide bomb” which is going to go off the next moment. Let me share with you some facts on the ground. I just came back to my office after having lunch at KFC outlet near my office. Despite the fact that people are more scared of infected chicken finding its way to KFC kitchen than the “suicide bomber” in Karachi, the dinning area was pretty much occupied. Its interesting that you remembered to mention Benazir’s widower AKA Mr. 10 percent (with 10 percent being his kickback from every project he helped approved during the days when his now deceased wife was misgoverning Pakistan). However you conveniently forgot to mention around 60 judges and leading lawyers of the country are still under detention for more than 60 days now. Furthermore you also skipped the juicy bit that Musharraf’s wonder boy - ex-citibanker Shaukat Aziz sneaked out of the country late last year after going got tough for his boss. Also you forgot to mention how western papers like yours egged on local version of Good Friday Agreement. For sure you didn’t feel the pain of rising food prices and increasing crime in the country as your stay in Islamabad’s top notch hotel came with the free buffet breakfast, courtesy of your hosts or your employers and I am more than sure the high flyers you met for your story in Pakistan would have been more bothered with the rising cost of stay in European hotels due to higher rate for Euro than regular power breakdowns in the country. Indeed there is always a social and economic perspective to the political problems as well, which many western journalists conveniently forget to mention. As Corporate Pakistan is disclosing its record profits, lower income groups are getting more bitter with the income gap and their declining capacity to spend and afford even basic nessaseities.
Posted by: Ordinary Observer | February 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am | Report this comment