Pakistan Heads to the Polls

Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a long-time minister in Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's government and one of his closest associates, looked as if he were in mourning as he sat inside his campaign headquarters, located in a traditional fortress-like brick building with a beautifully carved wooden exterior. Wearing a black shalwar kameez, he was not his usual ebullient, outgoing self and seemed rather testy, even depressed. A popular politician who hasn't lost an election in the past 23 years, Ahmed's political future seemed in doubt by midday in Monday's crucial general elections. This has been, he said, his most difficult campaign, and the news he was hearing from his poll watchers was not optimistic. "It's a very close competition," he said of the two constituencies in which he is a candidate for the national assembly in Rawalpindi, the populous garrison city outside the capital, Islamabad.

The former information and railways minister said he was facing a protest vote against the government's performance over the past five years. High prices and shortages of essential goods were at the top of voters' minds. "There is a wheat, electricity, and gas shortage," he said. "I can't say there's no shortage. I have to admit, yes, there is.

"What can you say to people who say they can't give their children breakfast and have to send them to school without food?" he added. Not only that, he said, voters may be punishing him for the government's bloody military operation last July against armed Islamic militants who were holed up inside Islamabad's radical Red Mosque--more than 100 were killed. "That's another minus, a negative," he said.

If a formidable politician such as Ahmed is in trouble, that doesn't bode well for the electoral chances of Musharraf's political vehicle, his Pakistan Muslim League-Q faction, or for the president himself. At stake in Monday's voting is not only the party's ability to remain in power for another five years in the national assembly, but perhaps also Musharraf's political future. This election is supposed to mark a much hoped-for transition to democracy from Musharraf's nearly nine years of military rule. Under heavy domestic and international pressure, Gen. Musharraf resigned as army chief last November, soon after the previous national assembly reelected him to a new five-year presidential term in a controversial and legally questionable vote. To avoid strong legal challenges, he declared a state of emergency in November, sacked independent-minded Supreme Court and High Court judges, and temporarily jailed thousands of lawyers and opposition activists. The most influential and vocal lawyers and judges remain under house arrest.

As president, Musharraf is not a candidate in these elections, which determine membership in the national and provincial assemblies. But his PML-Q party is being hard-pressed by strong opposition from the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf overthrew in a bloodless coup in 1999. The center-left and populous PPP lost its indefatigable and charismatic leader late last December in a suicide bombing that the government and the United States blame on Islamic militants. She had rallied the party since her return from exile last October, and her death was a tragic blow to her reenergized followers. But a wave of sympathy since her passing is expected to boost the party in her native Sindh province and in the Punjab, the country's richest and most populous province. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, is heading the party until their 19-year-old son, Bilawal, finishes school in England. Early returns from Sindh show a PPP sweep there.

While the pro-government Electoral Commission rejected Sharif's candidacy for the national assembly, he has run a strong campaign in support of his center-right party. Both Zardari and Sharif have expressed deep skepticism that the voting will be free, fair, and transparent, as Musharraf has repeatedly promised. They have warned that if the voting is rigged, their parties could lead street protests against the president. Fear of terrorist violence is another electoral factor. Several recent suicide bombings aimed at political parties--the latest, targeting a PPP rally near the Afghan border on Sunday, killed 46 people--have frightened voters and may keep the turnout low.

Even so, many Pakistanis see the vote as a referendum on Musharraf's rule. According to recent public opinion polls that the president has dismissed as being biased, the president's approval rating is less than 20 percent, and a vast majority of Pakistanis would like him to resign. Inflation in essential commodities is running at more than 10 percent, and there is a shortage of basic necessities. Further, Musharraf's imposition of the state of emergency, his stifling of popular judges, and his apparent intention to cling to power no matter what the cost have turned many Pakistanis against him. As a result, the PPP and Sharif's party could do surprisingly well and may emerge from the polls in a position to form a coalition government with a strong or a two-thirds majority in the 342-member national assembly. In that event, Musharraf would face a hostile government and national assembly that could conceivably move to impeach him.