Pakistan Heads to the Polls

Nevertheless, the president's men continue to express their confidence that Musharraf's League-Q will do well enough to remain in power, perhaps by cajoling the PPP into some sort of power-sharing arrangement. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, a leading candidate for prime minister if Musharraf's party performs well, sounded wildly optimistic, predicting that his party will comfortably win 100 seats in the Punjab, where half of the directly elected seats are located, and therefore will be able to cobble together a pro-Musharraf government with the help of likeminded smaller parties. Monday's results, however, may not be as clear-cut as the three main party leaders are hoping--none of the parties may win solidly enough to easily form a ruling coalition. In that case, days of difficult horse-trading lie ahead before a viable government can be formed.

But based on anecdotal evidence, the PPP and the Sharif-led opposition party seemed to be doing well as the polls closed, hours before the official results will be announced. Unscientific exit polls of three Rawalpindi constituencies do not represent a national trend and could be incorrect and unrepresentative, but in interviews with voters either entering or exiting several polling stations in these three constituencies, Newsweek reporters found that the mood was overwhelmingly anti-government and in favor of Sharif's party and the PPP. Indeed, it was nearly impossible to find a voter who openly expressed his support for Musharraf, the government, or for PML-Q candidate Ahmed. One man named Abdullah favored Ahmed, saying, "He is a good man who works hard for the people." Nearly everyone else in the polling line laughed, saying they were either for the PPP or Sharif's party. "Nawaz Sharif is very good," said Khurshid Bibi, a women in her 70s who proudly showed off her ink-stained thumb as proof that she had voted at a station inside the Government's Post Graduate College. "He was innocent and jailed unfairly by Musharraf," she added, referring to Musharraf's imprisoning of Sharif on corruption charges after he was deposed.

At another polling station inside the Rawalpindi Satellite Town Boys College, a 19-year-old first-time voter also said he had voted for the Tiger, the symbol on the ballot of Sharif's party. Many voters in line, both at women's polling stations and men's, sported buttons with the Tiger logo. An elderly man named Salem said he was voting against high prices by supporting Sharif. A civil servant said he was voting against Ahmed. "Sheikh Rashid is the candidate of inflation and more terrorism," he said. "We need a change to stop both." Even a highway patrolman in civilian clothes proudly and loudly said he was voting for Sharif's candidate. "He's sincere," he said. "He's done a lot for the country." There were also many pro-Bhutto voices at the polling station as well. One young man shouted, "Bhutto is alive."

Even before Bhutto's assassination, the expectation had been that these would be Pakistan's bloodiest elections, and that voter turnout would be relatively low as a result. In the Punjabi capital of Lahore, the army made its presence known on eerily empty streets on Sunday, the day before the election, through a "flag march." But hours later in Lahore, a candidate from Sharif's party and three other people were shot dead outside the election office. Reports of sporadic election-related violence and irregularities have been trickling in today, with polling forced into suspension in several constituencies, but so far there have been no major attacks.

Nationwide, early reports suggest that voter turnout was low, around 35 percent, the same as in 1997, which represented the lowest turnout in Pakistan's history. "We're not unsatisfied by the turnout," said Javid Akhtar, 45, a PPP supporter. "We should be okay." In Bhutto's home province of Sindh, voter turnout may well be higher than the national average. "People have covered miles and miles on foot just to be able to vote," PPP supporter Mashhood Abbasi told Newsweek by phone from Hyderabad. "All the women at the polling station I went to vote at were crying for Benazir," he said.

Some voters went away from the polls disappointed that their names were not on the voters' lists. At one polling station in Rawalpindi, four brothers turned up with their father--they were all Sharif supporters--only to find that the father's name was not on the list, meaning that he couldn't vote. Among those turned away from the polls in Lahore was Sana Mir, 30, who recently moved back to Pakistan from Africa. "My name is not on the list, so I'm going home now," she said dejectedly. She added that her family had implored her not to vote, fearing violence, but she went anyway because she didn't want "Pakistan to become another Africa."

With Zahid Hussain and Fasih Ahmed

© 2008