A good day for democracy in Pakistan

I am leaving Pakistan in a few hours and I can honestly say that I am glad came. The election was a clear success and exceeded nearly everyone’s expectations. This may seem like a bold statement so let me justify it. First, President Musharraf mobilized the military and the police to allow for a peaceful election even though he knew it was likely to spell the end of his political career. Indeed, voters soundly rejected Musharraf’s regime. Second, voters broadly accepted the results. Thus, by and large, Pakistanis view the election to be a legitimate one. For those of you who are still skeptical, the Karachi Stock Exchange gained 3% today and the Rupee appreciated slightly against the Dollar. This is a clear vote of confidence from investors. Yesterday was a good day for Pakistan and a good day for democracy. The Pakistanis deserve a break and it seems as if they have received one.

On a personal note, the folks at Democracy International did an outstanding job and I would like to sincerely thank them for their efforts. The tight time line and the security situation made this an incredibly difficult election to monitor credibly. Nevertheless, they did their best to ensure this could happen and they succeeded. I am proud to have been a member of the delegation.

Finally, I must stress that these are my thoughts, not the position of Democracy International.

Election Day in Pakistan

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.

Washington Post slams DI’s efforts in Pakistan

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.

Pakistan’s precarious political situation

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.

Blogging Pakistan’s Election

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.