South Asia Terrorism Portal
Dictator's Democracy Ajai Sahni Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management
It is not entirely clear whether a Talibanised genie was intended to appear out of the magic lamp of Pakistani democracy - but it has. The six party Islamist fundamentalist alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has not only secured 53 seats in the national Parliament[Table], but a controlling representation (48/99) in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Assembly, and largest single party status in Baluchistan, with 14 of 51 seats [Table]. Significantly, it has secured a fair presence in the other two provinces that went to elections - Sindh and Punjab - as well, both in the National and State Assemblies. The enormity of this achievement can be measured against the fact that no combination of religious parties has ever secured more than 11 seats (1988) in any previous National Assembly, and the religious parties were down to just two seats in the last elections in 1997. Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, Central Vice President of the MMA, and the head of the Madrassah Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak that spawned virtually the entire leadership of the Taliban, interprets the mandate as proof that "the masses have rejected the 55 year old tyrannical system of governance and want a just system based on Islamic values." As one of the chief architects of, and advisor to, the erstwhile Taliban regime in Afghanistan, it is not difficult to imagine what his vision of such a 'just system' would be. Somewhat ominously, even as election results were trickling in, 12 men accused of fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan were released from the Central Jail at Quetta in Baluchistan, with hundreds of jubilant supporters from the MMA at hand to welcome them to freedom. At least some Western commentators have spoken of a worrying 'Taliban comeback' through the Pakistani ballot box. These concerns can only be addressed by time, but there are reasons to believe that, while uncertainty and instability will remain the lot of Pakistan, there is evidence that the elections themselves may not alter prevailing conditions very dramatically - certainly in the near term. The democratic make-believe of elections notwithstanding, Pakistan remains firmly and unequivocally a dictatorship under its President, General Pervez Musharraf. As the European Community's chief election observer in Pakistan, John Cushnahan, noted, "The holding of a general election does not in itself guarantee the establishment of a democracy… the Pakistan authorities engaged in actions which resulted in serious flaws in the electoral process." The National Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has independently asserted that the elections were "lacking both in fairness and transparency." They came, moreover, after an extended process of 'pre-rigging', the revision of election laws to exclude 'inconvenient' candidates, and the Legal Framework Order that was gazetted in August this year, which altered some 30 Articles of the Pakistan Constituion to ensure that power was firmly retained by the General after the formation of the new National Assembly. Under the circumstances - within a reasonable margin of error - it is safe to suggest that the electoral outcome is substantially an approximation of what the General intended. He has a hung Parliament, with the Pakistan Mulsim League-Qaid-e-Azam (PML-QA), widely referred to as the 'King's Party' because of the explicit support it enjoys from (and unqualified support it offers to) President Musharraf, emerging as the single largest faction in the National Assembly. Interestingly, the EU's observers stated that the PML-QA had been one of the main beneficiaries of official attempts to interfere in the election. There is also some evidence to suggest that the results in the NWFP and Baluchistan were not quite as surprising as they are being made out to be, and one of the constituent members of the MMA, the Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith, has declared the alliance mandate to be 'bogus', claiming that it had been 'given' seats to create political instability in the country through a hung Parliament. This goes some way to confirm former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's claim that the frontier provinces were 'handed over' to the MMA and that, "Strategically, the military wants to hold a red rag up to the West and say 'Look West, you need a military dictatorship, because if there's not, then pro-Taliban parties are going to come to power.'" The alacrity with which the PML-QA President, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi declared that the MMA was "the natural ally" of his party also suggests a measure of understanding between the two formations. Democratic processes, however flawed they may be, nevertheless have a tendency to set the unexpected into motion, and can never be entirely orchestrated. With their control of religious institutions, private armies and the street power they enjoy, the religious extremist parties could well be tempted to seek to aggressively extend their areas of influence through a combination of political action, religious mobilisation and violent intimidation. Their visible success also creates the danger of relatively moderate Islamists adopting their 'model' of political action, a more radicalized agenda, and eventual resort to armed force and terrorism. As the processes of government formation are engineered, however, it is clear that the 'King's Party' will have a controlling function in the new administration at the Centre, and would also form a government in the crucial State of Punjab - which accounts for 60 per cent of the country's population and a dominant proportion of the Pakistan Army, and that constitutes the core of the power of the state in Pakistan. More significantly, Musharraf's control over the Army - and over the counter-terrorism campaign - remains entirely undiluted, though the MMA's 'electoral victories' could provide him with an argument to dilute operations against the Islamist terrorists. 'Democracy' in Pakistan, for all that it is worth, will change little in the foreseeable future.