The Democratic Piece

The polls have closed in Pakistan and election day was relatively peaceful. Thankfully, none of the DI teams encountered any serious problems (however I heard that our security detail had to extract teams from Multan and Peshawar when their polling stations became violent). Nevertheless, it would be a stretch to say that the election was free and fair. While I saw no outright fraud, the voter rolls are hopelessly inaccurate and it is not at all clear who will observe the physical transfer of the ballots to the official counting stations. Thus, while election day seemed to go off well, there was significant manipulation before the election and post-election vote rigging remains a possibility.

Despite the relative election day calm, Pakistan is far from out of the woods. First, the country may still erupt when the government announces the results. Second, it is still far from clear how the elections will affect President Musharraf. Third, and most important, the election is not going to resolve the problem of widespread terrorist attacks. Although most of the violence recently had occurred around political rallies, the terrorists have a long-term plan; their attacks are much more about destabilizing the country than affecting the outcome of this particular election.

I also think I have an answer for why the terrorist strikes seem so random and have begun to understand the political strategy within which these attacks are occurring. There is a fair amount of sympathy for these groups in the northern part of the country, especially along the border with Afghanistan. The attacks in that part of the country seem to be targeted at those who do not sympathize with their goals. This is in-line with the political strategies of Hamas and Hezbollah that I discussed in a recent post. Outside of this region, the attacks are far more random and their goal seems to be to undermine people’s belief that the government can protect them. According to some of the experts I have talked to, the terrorist groups know they are vastly unpopular outside the northern part of the country but don’t care since they have support there. Thus, the best guess is the terrorist groups will continue their strategy to discredit the government in order to achieve their long-term goal of taking over the country. It will take far more than an election to change this dynamic.

The Washington Post’s Robin Wright has an article on our observation team that seems a bit unfair. It’s true that this was a last-minute mission. However, this is the fault of the State Department: they wanted an observation team to give legitimacy to the election and when IRI refused at the last minute, they scrambled to find someone who would do it. There is no doubt that our presence is nothing more than symbolic but it’s the US government that wants the symbolism, not DI. Moreover, DI didn’t push for this election, the US government did. No one on our team thinks we can do anything remotely close to a legitimate observation (especially given the security situation) and her implication that we think we can is just plain wrong. The folks at DI have done an excellent job staffing this mission at the last minute and to dump US government policy failures with regards to Pakistan into the lap of DI seems to me to misplace the blame. Moreover, her belittling of DI is downright unfair. Eric Bjornlund and Glenn Cowan faced difficult challenges in building their firm and it has become a success, contrary to expectations. Eric and Glenn have too much class to ask for an apology for this screed but they deserve one.

Commentators are putting faith in Pakistan’s election on Monday.

Mort Kondracke of Roll Call stresses the stresses the importance of Pakistan’s parliamentary elections on Monday, which will determine if the U.S. ally will move towards democracy or authoritarianism… Paul Wiseman of USA Today suggests that this exercise of democracy could result in the weakening of President Pervez Musharraf’s hold on the country…Thus, Wiseman reports that the United States stands to lose as well in the election.

If Barak is right, that faith is misplaced.

Second, the election is not going to be free and fair; the bar is a credible election. I think credible means an outcome that does lot lead to more chaos than currently exists.

We can make reasonable assumptions about the outcome of this election. The important question is how key actors - the Taliban, those calling themselves Taliban, the military, an enraged public - will respond in the aftermath.

I want to be clear that my comments are personal observations only. They do not represent any official view of Democracy International.

Today was depressing. We met with the US Ambassador, leaders from two main political parties, the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q; Musharraf’s Party) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP; the late Benazir Bhutto’s party), representatives from the electoral commission, the UNDP, and the Free and Fair Election Network (a consortium of NGOs). These briefings clarified a number of issues. First, Musharraf is reluctantly holding these elections. Second, the election is not going to be free and fair; the bar is a credible election. I think credible means an outcome that does lot lead to more chaos than currently exists. Third, the country is holding its breath going into these elections. Suicide bombings at political rallies have become commonplace and the military is on its highest state of emergency for the election (i.e., mobilizing for a war). The hope seems to be for a relatively peaceful election with reasonable voter turnout.

However, it is the context of the election that is most troubling. Pakistan is entering the election facing serious political and security challenges. Suicide bombings have skyrocketed over the past year and it is not clear why. The rationale for them (other than creating chaos and discrediting the government) and the reason for targeting innocent Pakistanis is elusive. Those who attend political rallies in this environment are brave souls. It is likely that the bombings are related to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan as sympathy for the group is strong along the border region between the two countries. Moreover, given that the Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence (ISI; the country’s military intelligence agency) helped the Taliban come to power, the Pakistani military is not the most obvious choice for dismantling the organization. Neither of these explains the logic of the terror attacks, however. In addition, because Pakistan uses a first-past-the-post voting system and because its political parties are fragmented, the election, especially in rural areas, is turning on purely local concerns. Consequently, at a time when Pakistan is facing enormous political and security challenges, the election in the eyes of many voters is about patronage and local political power. To put it simply, the political situation seems to be disintegrating fast.

Tomorrow I will be traveling to Lahore, the city where I will be observing the election. I am looking forward to experiencing Pakistan’s domestic airline industry. I hope it provides a bit of relief from the country’s heavy politics.

Apropos of Jack, I am in Pakistan as an election observer with Democracy International and will be blogging about it…to the extent that I have access to the internet. We arrived in Islamabad this afternoon. The scene at immigration was reassuring in a developing country way: long lines, hot, and officials zealously stamping any papers in sight. Unfortunately, we have seen very little of Islamabad except the inside of the airport and the hotel.

I know little about Pakistan outside US-Pakistani relations and am trying to educate myself as quickly as I can so I will be able to understand its politics better. I am surprised at the freedom of the English press here (I can’t say anything about the Urdu press). On TV and in print I have seen stories that are very critical of President Musharraf and the government. I also saw a journalist on TV asking people on the street what democracy means to them. It is clear that people take politics seriously here and are not afraid to say they want Musharraf’s dictatorship to end.

The main question I have at the moment is trying to understand why there have been so many bombings at political rallies and other venues likely to kill innocent Pakistanis. Support for Al Qaeda has fallen dramatically over the past year due to these bombings. This doesn’t seem to be a logical strategy. I can understand why they would target the government. It seems to me that if they want to present themselves as a viable alternative, however, they would choose the Hamas and Hezbollah tactic of providing benefits to build public support and target attacks only against the enemy. I don’t see how preying on regular citizens advances their objective. Causing chaos in the country is reducing support for the government but it seems like a Pyrrhic victory to me as people dislike Al Qaeda as much as they dislike Musharraf. Perhaps a savvy reader can answer this question.

The (federal) Islamic Republic of Pakistan will elect its National Assembly on February 18, 2008. Georgetown Democracy & Governance students and faculty are en route to monitor the vote.

Originally scheduled for January 8, officials postponed the election after PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on December 27, 2007.

Assuming the vote is free and fair, 342 National Assembly members will be elected under a parallel or MMM system. 60 seats are reserved to women, and 10 are reserved to minority groups.

Single-member districts are apportioned to each province by population. It seems like The proportional tier relates only to the election of women and minorities. Seats are allocated to those groups from each province in proportion to their respective parties’ province-wide seat shares.

If this is correct, 242 seats are elected under FPP rules, and the 70 remaining seats make up the proportional tier.

100 senators are indirectly elected by territorial and provincial assemblies using the single transferable vote. Terms are six years, staggered.

The OSCE has again pulled out of monitoring elections in Russia. During partliamentary elections in December, the OSCE refused to send monitors because the Russian government place too many restrictions and did not process visa requests in a timely manner to make observation meaningful. The OSCE announced today that they will not monitor again, because of similar restrictions.

This is a good move by the OSCE, as it was back in December. Any type of half-ass monitoring that the Kremlin could strong arm the OSCE into carrying out would only add legitimacy to the process. Now, the OSCE needs to work with the European parliaments to make sure they do not send their own observation team of “notables.” This undermined the “Western” boycott of election monitoring. Furthermore, the OSCE needs to work hard to publicize instances of alleged election fraud in the international arena when brought by the domestic civil society groups. Just because they aren’t able to work fully on the ground, doesn’t mean the OSCE can’t serve a constructive role in the process.

Candidates running for their party’s presidential nomination have two distinct goals.  The first is the formal goal of obtaining party delegates.  The second is winning the informal quest for momentum with the end result of obtaining the status of inevitability.  In previous primaries, the informal pursuit of momentum has led to the attainment of inevitability, and consequently, party delegates.  Candidates’ decisions to embark on this path has been reinforced by the non-stop news cycle that modern technology has rendered ever so hungry.  Even in the Republican race, where, due to the majoritarian system of awarding delegates used in a number of states a candidate can trounce his opponent on Super Tuesday, the rules of the momentum game do not necessitate inevitability.  How is this possible?

In this morning’s New York Times, Adam Nagourney warns that: “the winner of the states is probably going to be known well before the delegate counts are finished, and that is going to color the way the results are reported on television and in newspapers.”  As such, on the Republican side, Nagourney explains that the two most important states to watch are California and Massachusetts: the former because polls show that Romney may pull out a tight victory there, and the latter because a McCain victory in Romney’s home state, combined with some other expected victories by McCain, could spell the end of Romney’s White House bid.  In the Republican race, acquiring delegates is an element in an equation that leads to one candidate’s popular image of inevitability.  Yet, a victory for Romney in California or his defeat in Massachusetts are the pivotal points that are likely to swing momentum in his or his opponent’s favor.

The Democratic race is similarly dependent on momentum, and perhaps even more so due to the PR system of delegate allocation mandated by the party in each state.  As a result, neither candidate is likely to have a significant lead in the delegate count when the results of Super Tuesday are finally tallied.  Thus, the real story is about momentum.  Because Clinton possessed double-digit leads in a number of Super Tuesday states until recently, the question is how close Obama will come to beating Clinton in the popular votes in important states, even though these overall totals do not matter for the delegate race.  If Obama wins, or even comes close to winning, in states like California, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, then he will continue to ride the wave of momentum that has helped him cut into Clinton’s leads across the country.

The power of momentum is in maintaining control of the news cycle.  Consider how the Obama campaign has succeeded in this venture since trouncing Clinton unexpectedly in South Carolina (despite adding marginally to his delegate count).  Obama’s impressive victory speech was embraced by the press and has received over 500,000 hits on youtube.com.  He then received the endorsement of Caroline Kennedy, who called him “A President Like My Father,” and Ted Kennedy, the longtime senator and democratic party institution.  This was followed by the announcement in late January that Obama received donations of $32 million in that month alone.  Since these events, all of which graced the front pages of newspapers and websites as well as taking up valuable airtime on television and radio politics shows, the Obama campaign has continued to dominate the news through reports on the massive crowds he has been able to draw at campaign events and the campaigning of his surrogates, such as Oprah Winfrey and the Kennedys (including Maria Schriver).  Not only has Obama gained momentum, but his momentum has become the actual story. 

In this unusual primary season, delegates may come to play a role if none of the candidates are able to embrace convince Americans of their inevitability.  But, if Obama’s momentum is substantiated by the popular votes in some of the states mentioned, he will have broken the early portrayals of Clinton as the inevitable victor, and could be on his way to embracing the democratic presidential nomination.  Formally, he’ll have to obtain enough delegates for this to happen, but informally, he will already have done so.

A few days ago, Robert Amsterdam posted video proof of what appears to be ballot box stuffing during the Duma election. This video has begun circulating around Russia and the opposition parties are pointing to it as an example of the illegitimacy of the who Russian election process.

Today La Russophobe linked to the video and a Moscow Times (english news paper) story regarding the video and the government’s response.  The Central Elections Commission claims that the video shows a registered poll worker merely processing absentee ballots and is not proof of fraud.

The article contains an interesting quote from Golos, the only domestic, independent election monitoring organization in Russia:

“We consider the vote to be illegal. Therefore, several new State Duma deputies will be working illegally,” said Lilia Shibanova, the head of Golos, which is funded by several Western governments. “Unfortunately, because we do not have documented proof of all of these violations, we cannot go so far as to call the new State Duma illegitimate,” Shibanova said. “But the voting process certainly was not legitimate.”

Putin’s great farce of an election has come and gone. Unsurprisingly, United Russia (the most pro-Putin party) received more 64%, the Communist Party received approximately 11%, the Liberal-Democratic Party (read Fascist-Nationalist Party, also pro-Putin) received approximately 8%, and the Fair Russia (also, pro-Putin) received just over 7% clearing the threshold. Because of seat allocation rules, United Russia will receive more than the two-thirds of the seats in the Duma - more than enough to press through any changes to the constitution or otherwise.

I don’t have much to say about this farce, except that the world should call it that. Russia should be dismissed from the G-8, the OSCE, and other international organization in which being a democracy is a stated requirement. To not acknowledge this blatant abuse is to appease a petty dictator and his coterie of sycophants, permitting them to continue to strengthen their authoritarian system of governing over what is one of the strategically most important countries to US interests.

Lastly, anyone who thinks this election may have even had a hint of legitimacy, I submit two items. According to the Russian Central Election Commission website:

•  Chechnya - home of a violent separatist movement for more than a decade reported turnout of more than, by 7pm had a turn out of more than 92% and I’ve seen news reports with a final turnout number of 99% with 99% of voters in Grozny, the Chechan capital, voting for United Russia.
• Ingushetia Republic - another majority Muslim region with a significant separatist movement, also had turnout of more than 92% by 7pm with total final turnout listed at 98%.

The Other Russia blog has a detailed list of vote-fraud techniques employed during the election.