The unpopularity and increasing isolation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 military coup, was demonstrated in the February 18 parliamentary elections — with vote rigging, military interference and violence unable to prevent a landslide rejection of pro-Musharraf candidates.
About 60% of the electorate did not vote. This was partially a reflection of a boycott campaign by left and democratic parties, and also the movement of advocates (lawyers) who led militant anti-Musharraf protests in 2007. It also reflected voter apathy and disruption of the poll by right-wing terrorists.
Those who did vote, did so overwhelmingly for anti-Musharraf candidates.
The "King's party", as Musharraf's parliamentary vehicle, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), is known, had secured only 55 out of 337 declared seats when preliminary results were announced on February 20. The right-wing religious party MMA was also rejected by voters, losing most of its previously held seats in Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The Pakistan People's Party (PPP), whose leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assasinated during the election campaign, won 113 seats. The Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) of Nawaz Sharif, another former PM, won 84, gaining the largest number of seats in Punjab — Pakistan's most populous province.
Together with the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which secured 14 seats at the expense of the MMA in NWFP, these parties are close to having the two thirds of parliamentary seats that would enable the impeachment of Musharraf. However, this would require the rival politicians to cooperate with each other and resist the temptation to cut separate deals with the dictator.
US pressure
Pressure for such a deal is coming from Washington, which promotes Musharraf as a key "war on terror" ally despite the Pakistani military's entanglement with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism — both domestically and in neighbouring Afghanistan and Kashmir.
The US is hoping for a power sharing arrangement between Musharraf and either the PPP or PML-N to stabilise the regime and allow the continuation of neoliberal economic policies dictated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The opposition that has shaken the Musharraf regime over the past year has not been led by the PPP and PML-N. Ongoing struggles against privatisation, land disputes and workers rights have been led by grassroots civil society groups, trade unions, women's organisations and left-wing parties such as the socialist Labour Party Pakistan. The LPP is part of the People's Democratic Movement (AJT), which groups together various left-wing forces.
However, it was the militant opposition of the advocates to Musharraf's purging of the judiciary that catylised a widespread genuinely mass movement for democracy. In July, this movement forced Musharraf to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who he sacked in May.
In an attempt to stabilise his regime, Musharraf entered into US-brokered negotiations with Bhutto, then in exile, facilitating her October 16 return by withdrawing corruption charges she was facing from her time in government during the 1990s.
To ensure he would be able to remain president after new parliamentary elections, Musharraf again sacked Chaudhry, along with the rest of the Supreme Court, and replaced them with judges willing to rubber-stamp his constitutionally dubious re-appointment. To carry this out, he declared a state of emergency on November 8, which also allowed for the mass arrest of the regime's opponents.
Mass movement
The advocates played a prominent part in the resistance to emergency rule, and many of them are rank-and-file PPP members. This forced Bhutto to oppose the state of emergency and support calls for an electoral boycott. However, following the official lifting of emergency rule on December 15, Bhutto again decided to participate.
Her assassination at a December 27 election rally led to mass demonstrations and riots, with the military widely believed to have been involved in the assassination. Angered by price hikes for essential commodities, crowds attacked property associated with the military, the PML-Q and the corporate beneficiaries of privatisation policies.
While the LPP saw in this spontaneous uprising the potential for the overthrow of Musharraf and the reversal of the neoliberal agenda, the left had an insufficient mass base to win leadership of the movement. Hoping to capitalise on sympathy votes, the PPP, now led by Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari, announced that it would continue to participate in the elections.
The PML-N initially declared it would boycott the poll, but then followed the PPP into participation. The boycott campaign continued to be pushed by the advocates and the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), which brings together former cricket star Imran Khan's Movement for Justice, the AJT and nationalist parties from the NWFP and Balochistan.
According to a February 19 statement by LPP spokesperson Farooq Tariq, the strong showing by the PML-N in Punjab, where the advocates' movement was strongest, was due to it having, in contrast to the PPP, called for the reinstatement of the sacked judges — who remain under house arrest.
Since the election, the PML-N has retained this stance and called on Musharraf to resign. Both Sharif, from the PML-N, and Zardari, from the PPP, are technically barred from being prime minister due to outstanding corruption charges. These charges will be one of Musharraf's bargaining chips in post-election negotiations.
Both the PPP and PML-N support the same pro-Western neoliberal agenda as Musharraf. At the same time, it is opposition to the devastating impact of this agenda that is responsible for the anti-Musharraf wave that the PPP and PML-N are riding.
Tariq's statement argued: "The vote on February 18 is a vote of no confidence in Musharraf's policies. The PPP and PML-N must change the economic policies of Musharraf. Otherwise, after a brief period of honeymoon, they will be seen as those who have betrayed the wishes of masses.
"The parties of the rich and of capital, the PPP and PML-N have been able to capitalise on anti-Musharraf feelings of the masses [but] they cannot go very far [while following] the diktats of the IMF and World Bank."