Is Rice Rushing to Elections?

Thousands of Bhutto supporters continued to riot on Friday, ransacking and torching the homes of former ministers of the ruling party as well as offices. There were even rumors—perhaps wishful thinking by PPP insiders—that some of Musharraf's key aides, sensing that he may no longer be able to exercise control, were advising him to resign and hand over his position to a PPP nominee to head his or her own government of national consensus.

Despite all these uncertainties, when Rice was asked Friday whether the Jan. 8 elections should remain on schedule, she replied only that it was "very important that the democratic process go forward." What Rice really meant, some of her critics said, was that the administration is desperate to find another tool to replace Bhutto and shore up Musharraf. In her condolence call to Zardari, Bhutto's husband, Rice suggested that he should push for Jan. 8 elections and have the PPP take part.

Speaking for Rice, Casey on Friday added some nuance to the official support for the scheduled elections. "If they can do it on the 8th in a way that is safe and smooth and will meet basic international standards, then by all means they should," he told Newsweek. "But if ... there's strong feeling they want to do a postponement, that's acceptable, too. I do think it would be a bad thing if there was a decision to postpone the election—period." However, Casey added that there were no meetings at the State Department he knew of to discuss new rules that might ensure that coming elections be any more "free and fair" than before—especially to ensure that the banned Sharif is allowed to run and that local election officials in the Punjab, where most seats are up for grabs, don't rig the vote. "I'm not aware that anyone has come up with a list of specific suggestions about how those elections ought to proceed," Casey said.

This is not the first time the U.S. government has been quick to anoint an "elected" ally without fully understanding that elections that are not legitimate only undermine faith in the outcome and in U.S. advice. In the fall of 2002, when Musharraf finally held parliamentary elections three years after his bloodless coup, Islamist fundamentalists won a surprising number of seats. U.S. officials swallowed hard but lauded the elections as "fair and square." But an election observer from the European Union, John Cushnahan, pointed out that there were "serious flaws" in the elections—Musharraf's government had unfairly directed state resources to his party and created laws intended to prevent Bhutto and Sharif from taking part. Washington was noticeably silent on this point. Bhutto, the former prime minister, could not even get in to see anyone at the White House at the time. "The Bush administration has been so sold on Musharraf for so long," says former diplomat Haqqani. "On the one hand, they want to promote democracy; on the other, they don't want to deal with democrats in other countries."

At Rice's urging, Bhutto earlier this year agreed to take part in the parliamentary elections, with the understanding that the Pakistani president would keep his part of the bargain by permitting her, a twice-elected prime minister, to serve for a third term (which was banned by a technical rule). Instead, Musharraf did nothing to change the law and instead declared emergency rule—a decision that President Bush did not immediately denounce. Nor did the Americans push Musharraf on the other aspects of the deal that would have allowed her to be a three-time prime minister. "The Americans left her high and dry," says a close Bhutto ally who requested anonymity when discussing diplomatic issues. "They did not keep their word." America wants an ally in Pakistan—but with U.S. credibility in the country so low, Washington would be better off not trying to name any successors.

With Fasih Ahmed in Lahore

© 2007