Musharraf Suffers Major Defeat
Even though Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf’s cronies have tried to rig the Pakistani elections to a degree, his party - the PML-Q - has lost the Parliamentary elections bigtime. Early results indicate that Benazir Bhutto’s party (the PPP) and Nawaz Sharif’s party (the PML-N) have won far more seats than expected:
he PML-N had won 29 and the PPP 27 National Assembly seats after, what were called unofficial results for 87 constituencies, were known well past midnight, until when the PML-Q had won only nine and NWFP-based Awami National Party seven while nine had gone to independents, mainly in the party-less Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
The MMA, which ruled the NWFP for five years, appeared in danger of being wiped out from both the National Assembly and the Frontier legislature.
The MMA is Pakistan’s Islamist party. They had a lot of electoral success only a couple of years ago, but after having lived under Islamist rule in certain parts of the country for a couple of years, Pakistanis realize that Islamists aren’t exactly a blessing.
More at Captain’s Quarters.
I’d call this a pretty good outcome, given the circumstances. Certainly could be a lot worse.
"Pakistanis realize that Islamists aren’t exactly a blessing"
Amen.
I found the fact that the ruling party willingly conceded defeat to be an interesting refutation of the overheated predictions of rigging and despotism that flowed freely from anti-Pakistan partisans such as Swaraaj Chauhan. I’ve taken a more charitable view of Musharraf’s situation than many western (and non-western) analysts for some time, and this concession is an affirmation that such an approach might have been more correct
I agree with that. It seems to me that some are blinded by their prejudices.