Fools paradise

General Musharraf won the presidential elections by a landslide -- and it won't make a jot of difference to the various crises consuming Pakistan, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad

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Members of Pakistan's ruling coalition celebrate President Pervez Musharraf's victory in the presidential elections,

As all knew, on October 6 General Pervez Musharraf was elected Pakistan President for another five years. Out of a 702-member electorate he won 55 percent of the vote, with clear majorities in the two houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies. The main opposition -- the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by former premier Benazir Bhutto -- abstained. This was the first move in a power-sharing deal that should see her return to Pakistan later this month and all criminal corruption cases lodged against her, her husband and motley other politicians dropped.

In any other country such an outcome would spell stability. But Pakistan is not any other country. For Washington it is perhaps its most critical Muslim ally in the "war against terror", largely because it hosts not only the Taliban but also elements of al Qaeda on its borderlands with Afghanistan. Others view it as an inherently unstable and nuclear-armed state that one day could fall to radical Islam.

Finally, it is currently in the vise of its worst political crisis, certainly since Musharraf seized power in a coup in 1999, arguably since East Pakistan became Bangladesh following a civil war in 1971. The presidential election did nothing to heal those crises. On the contrary, it deepened them.

Why? One reason is the peculiar nature of the suffrage. Musharraf was not seeking a mandate from new assemblies but from old ones whose term ends on 15 November. The ruse was crystal clear to every Pakistani. The old assemblies, "elected" in 2002, were rigged in his favor. New assemblies, if based on fair elections, would almost certainly return an anti-Musharraf majority.

Another reason is the questionable legality of the poll. Musharraf has already seen off a slew of petitions against his candidacy, but others are pending. One of these is whether he can contest the presidency while remaining chief of the Pakistani army (Musharraf has said he will "take off his uniform" only if elected president).

On 5 October Pakistan's Supreme Court gave the go ahead to the election but prevented Musharraf from taking the oath of office until it rules on the merit of the petition. Most expect the judgment to go Musharraf's way. But should it not and the Court rule against his eligibility expect a dose of "surgical martial law", warns a government source, with the knife aimed mainly at the judiciary.

But the most dangerous fracture is the alienation the great mass of Pakistan's 160 million people feel toward their polity. While the PPP was quietly co-opted as Musharraf's junior partner -- and other opposition parties either resigned or called ineffectually for protest -- most Pakistanis went about their business on October 6, angered by skyrocketing prices, inflation and a widening chasm between rich and poor. For 24- year old student, Irum Butt, the presidential election was "a trick performed by monkeys". She was angered most by the "deal" between Musharraf and Bhutto.

"How can she get off free from corruption charges while, a month ago, (another ex-prime minister) Nawaz Sharif was deported to Saudi Arabia? I don't know if they're guilty or not. But both should be allowed to return and face the courts in Pakistan. That's what would happen to me and my family if we were charged with corruption".

The crisis of faith Pakistanis like Butt have toward their state is feeding what all agree is its greatest threat -- a Taliban-led insurgency that originated on Pakistan's borderlands with Afghanistan but is now spreading like a fire elsewhere. The fuse was lit in July when army commandos killed a 100 to regain control of Islamabad's pro-Taliban Red Mosque. Since then more than 200 soldiers have been killed in suicide and other attacks and 250 more have surrendered to pro-Taliban tribesmen.

The violence took a further hike over the weekend with pitch battles in North Waziristan that left 70 dead. The army said 50 of these were "militants" and the rest soldiers. But local people talk of villages being indiscriminately shelled by aircraft and artillery and women and children slaughtered in their homes. It is a war that is causing outrage across Pakistan. "Musharraf is fighting this war for the sake of America," said Khalil Kiyani, an Islamabad shopkeeper. "But it's not Americans being killed -- it's Pakistanis. You call them Taliban or Islamists, but they're Pakistanis".

Both he and Butt agree the only hope is if new general elections, scheduled before January 15 next year, bring forth "new leaders and new politicians". The worst is an old/new dispensation peopled by Musharraf, Bhutto and Sharif, if, as is rumored, he too is allowed to return from exile. "These politicians failed us in the past. They will fail us in the future," says Butt.

Yet failure may be what is in store -- an American choreographed "transition" in which the army remains in charge, Musharraf becomes a "civilian" president and troublesome politicians like Bhutto are co-opted into a grand coalition. This will bring the stability Pakistan needs and the West craves, says the government source. He is living a fools' paradise, answers analyst and retired General, Talat Masood.

"I think Pakistan is at a defining moment. If people lose trust in the political process -- if they again see that elections make no difference -- I fear the state will collapse, like in 1971. And it will be the Taliban which picks up the pieces".