First of all, I’m glad to admit that I was wrong in my predictions that Pakistan’s parliamentary elections, held last Monday, would lead to an escalation in violence. That’s the great thing about being pessimistic: if you’re wrong, that means things actually worked out alright.

Nicholas Schmidle at Slate felt the same:

Heading into Monday’s parliamentary elections, Pakistan desperately needed good news. Bombs, protests, and President Pervez Musharraf’s authoritarian impulses have made almost daily headlines and created the impression of a country spiraling toward chaos. Last year, Islamic militants detonated, on average, one suicide bomb per week in Pakistan, including the attack that killed more than 140 people at Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming in October and the one that assassinated her in December. As the pro-Taliban insurgency gathered strength this winter, a bloody Election Day seemed inevitable. But Monday’s poll results, while consistent with Pakistan’s recent history in their pure unpredictability, finally gave people a taste of good news. Besides being largely free of violence (two dozen died in isolated skirmishes, but suicide bombers stayed away), voters rejected the two players in Pakistani politics that scare—and confuse—Americans most: Musharraf and the Islamists.

But some difficult questions remain, both about what the elections mean and about Pakistan’s future. Sorting out what happened in the elections carries real importance, because in discussing US foreign policy it’s vital that we understand cause and effect. That’s not so simple as it sounds: many architects of US foreign policy since World War II have essentially lived in a fantasy world, with disastrous consequences for our country and others.

THE PRESENT: DECISION AND CONFLICT

First of all, we can place Pakistan’s elections in the context of a worldwide rejection of George Bush’s policies. Musharraf joins the club of leaders like Australia’s John Howard whose constituents punished them for being Bush’s allies. Though he did not stand for re-election himself, Musharraf’s party finished far behind the PPP of the late Benazir Bhutto and the PML-N of Nawaz Sharif. With Ali Zardawi (Bhutto’s widower) and Sharif poised to form a new coalition government, and the PPP deliberating over a new prime minister, many are speculating that Musharraf’s position has become precarious, though he has stated that he will not step down. Still, there is a slight possibility that the opposition may make that choice for him:

According to the BBC’s Chris Morris in Islamabad, a coalition between the PPP and PML-N raises the prospect of a government which will try to force President Musharraf from power. Though the two parties have little in common ideologically, both insist that they want to work together to re-establish full civilian democracy and the power of parliament. The two parties have more than half of the new parliament’s seats and if they can form a grouping with a two-thirds majority, they could call for Mr Musharraf to be impeached.

On some level, the opposition parties even have a mandate to sideline Musharraf. A Gallup opinion poll (worth even less in Pakistan than in the US, I’d say) indicates popular support for a coalition government, and recent polls indicate remarkably low support for Musharraf.

However, the government may not have a mandate at all. Turnout in the elections was fairly low, suggesting that many Pakistanis either did not feel safe voting, lacked confidence in any of their options, or both. Additionally, as Juan Cole notes, the federal results may conceal some real disunity at the provincial level:

At the provincial level, the election showed Pakistan’s public fragmented along ethnic and linguistic lines. The Sindh Provincial Assembly will be dominated by the Pakistan People’s Party. Sindh’s largest city, Karachi, with its Urdu-speaking majority, will likely be dominated by the MQM (Muttahidah Qawmi Movement), a secular mass party representing Urdu-speakers that had been cooperating with Musharraf.

Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province (some 60% of the whole), went heavily for the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PMLN. Its leader, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, is a steel magnate from the echt Punjabi city of Lahore.

The North-West Frontier Province, with its predominately Pushtun population, was captured by the Awami National Party, a secular, Pushtun-nationalist bloc, with the PPP likely a coalition partner there.

While Pakistan may not be united, feelings toward Musharraf remain relatively positive within the Bush administration, which has pledged continued support for Musharraf and whatever government takes shape. Musharraf himself pleaded in the Washington Post for America to assist Pakistan in “fighting terror,” still seeming to suggest that only he can hold Pakistan together. The Economist, however, saw not only the election results but even the apparent lack of vote rigging as a sign that Musharraf no longer wields the control he used to:

In defeat, he pretends that the election has little to do with him as president, that he will work with any prime minister and that his resignation is not at issue. He also claims that the result shows his sincerity in holding free and fair elections. That is debatable: their relative freeness and fairness may have had more to do with his weakness. The power to rig was no longer wholly his, once domestic and foreign pressure forced him to stand down as army chief. His successor, General Ashfaq Kiyani, deserves most of the kudos for allowing the voters their say.

The Bush administration’s support for Musharraf, it seems, ignored a lot of the changing realities on the ground in Pakistan. The new government, then, may have a lot of power to redefine the US-Pakistan relationship. This may be particularly true for US military intervention (free registration required):

American officials reached a quiet understanding with Pakistan’s leader last month to intensify secret strikes against suspected terrorists by pilotless aircraft launched in Pakistan, senior officials in both governments say. But the prospect of changes in Pakistan’s government has the Bush administration worried that the new operations could be curtailed.

Among other things, the new arrangements allowed an increase in the number and scope of patrols and strikes by armed Predator surveillance aircraft launched from a secret base in Pakistan — a far more aggressive strategy to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban than had existed before.

But since opposition parties emerged victorious from the parliamentary election early this week, American officials are worried that the new, more permissive arrangement could be choked off in its infancy.

The change in government may also squash American rumblings about a more intensive type of operation in Pakistan involving actual deployment of American troops. I certainly hope the change urges restraint on the administration. Despite a seemingly successful election, the situation in Pakistan remains delicate, and US aggression certainly wouldn’t help matters.

EYE ON THE FUTURE

Several tests for the new government are on the way. The first may be the issue of reinstating a top judge ousted by Musharraf last March.

The newly elected leaders are already under pressure to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and his fellow sacked judges on the Supreme Court. It’s one of several urgent issues that will determine the future not only of the U.S.-backed president, but also of a new government’s effort to rebuild the country’s battered democracy.

“Restoring the judges would put a bomb under Musharraf,” said Nazir Naji, a commentator for Jang, Pakistan’s top-selling newspaper. “He cannot afford to let this happen.”

Meanwhile, the PPP’s Zardari faces legal problems of his own, as Pakistani lawyers press Switzerland to try him on corruption charges. While it seems unlikely that Zardari would face the five-year prison term that can come from convictions in these matters, the case may cast further doubts on his legitimacy.

Beyond the legal wranglings in Islamabad and Geneva, the issue of the tribal areas looms. While many rightly took the victories of secular candidates in these areas as a rejection of Islamist parties, I do not think that means that a new era of stability is on the horizon in Waziristan and elsewhere. A column at Asia Times pessimistically wonders whether militants are simply biding their time, but also notes that a flurry of foreign diplomatic activity in Pakistan indicates that world and regional powers are interested in helping the new government get the situation under control:

Waiting on the sidelines, tucked away in snowy mountain redoubts, are violent militant groups known to be linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In the past, the militants have been quiet during periods of stability - only to strike when Pakistan found itself gripped by turmoil. Once again, experts say, they seem to be waiting for the Western-backed “coalition of the willing” to fall apart, possibly over the role of Musharraf, the upcoming military excursions in tribal areas or the restoration of the judiciary.

Still, this week has witnessed laborious overtures by Western diplomats. Since Tuesday envoys have met several times with Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Zardari. On Wednesday a top US official met with Shebaz Sharif, brother of former premier Nawaz Sharif and head of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N). Finally, on Thursday the Saudi ambassador sat down with Nawaz Sharif.

So it seems things could go in either direction. A new political space has opened up in Pakistan, and that makes an unpredictable country even more unpredictable. Can the new government, and the country, distances themselves from Musharraf? If so, will that improve security and stability? How will the US react? Will spring bring new fighting and violence? What consequences will Pakistan’s transition have for Afghanistan? These and many other questions remain, and this time I won’t ever dare to suggest an answer.

WHAT'S NEXT?

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