Pakistan parliamentary elections held Monday
Published Feb. 19, 2008
Facing dangers that Americans most certainly won’t see on their way to the ballot box this November, voters in Pakistan participated in parliamentary elections Monday.
The elections will, in many ways, change the course of a country that is viewed by the U.S. as a key ally in the war on terror.
Considering the violence that has occurred in the months leading up to Monday, the elections were relatively peaceful. AAJ, a private news channel in Pakistan reported 10 deaths and 60 injuries on election day.
The election has been an issue of concern to the international community, as the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which is the political party of President Pervez Musharraf, faces significant opposition from the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N.
Although the Election Commission of Pakistan won’t release official results until today, preliminary results released Monday indicate that Musharraf’s party is coming in a distant third behind the PML-N, which is led by former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the Pakistan People’s Party, the party of the late former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated last December.
The organization also estimates that, out of Pakistan’s six provincial areas, a range of 20 percent to 49 percent of voters turned out to vote.
Musharraf, while both president and head of Pakistan’s armed forces, received significant monetary support from the U.S. to fight Islamic extremists in the country.
Musharraf claimed power in 1999 in a military coup that ousted Sharif, and despite being elected president of the nuclear-armed state in democratic elections twice, he has become widely unpopular with the Pakistani people in the past year.
According to Gallup Pakistan poll conducted in January, 81 percent of respondents agreed Musharraf should be removed from power.
Although Musharraf’s seat will not be up for grabs Wednesday, under the rules of Pakistan’s government, the president can be impeached by a three-fourths vote from the Parliament.
The majority party in Pakistan’s parliament chooses a Prime Minister that serves as the head of parliament.
Rice University student Shamoor Anis, who lived in Pakistan until 2001 and then moved to Overland Park, Kan., said Musharraf was considered popular when he took office because of his views on women’s rights and his economic policies that roped in skyrocketing rates of inflation.
Anis said his popularity began to decline in 2007 after he unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, and then temporarily suspended the country’s constitution and imposed emergency rule later in the year.
“I don’t want him to have an active role in politics anymore,” Anis said.
MU graduate Shan Siddiqi, who came to the United States in 1995 and works as a full-time researcher for the MU chemistry department, said he and his relatives living in Pakistan support Musharraf, despite his recent policy mistakes.
“He’s not the best leader in the world, but he makes good decisions for the people,” Siddiqi said.
Siddiqi said many in Pakistan think the election is a choice between the “lesser of two evils”, and that some might not take the election too seriously.
Both the PPP and the PML-N were each in power twice between 1988 and 1999. The PPP was dissolved twice on corruption charges twice, and PML-N leader Sharif lost power twice.
Sharif is still the leader of the PML-N, and Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is heading the PPP.
Anis said that he didn’t think the election would have a significant impact on the political atmosphere in Pakistan.
“After the election it will be back to politics as usual,” Anis said.
Faisal Ahmed, an MU graduate and a child psychiatrist who came to the United States from Pakistan five years ago, said the elections Monday displayed that Pakistani voters are tired of corrupt administration, and that increased media in past years has increased voters’ awareness of political issues — most importantly, he said, Musharraf’s conflicts with Pakistan’s Supreme Court and his imposition of emergency rule last November.
“This election reflects what the people want,” Ahmed said.