Pakistan Elections Could Signal Shift in Power

The ruling party of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was handed a sizeable defeat in parliamentary elections held February 18. As the results became clear Tuesday, Musharraf's allies admitted their loss. The electoral gains of Pakistan's opposition parties could mean the end of Musharraf's rule. The two main opposition parties, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the son of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, secured a large number of seats in Pakistan's National Assembly.

President Musharraf has been increasingly criticized for dictatorial measures that threaten democracy in the South Asian nation. If the final votes reveal enough of a majority for the opposition parties, anti-Musharraf elements in the parliament could create an alliance aimed at removing the president from power. Even if Musharraf is able to hold on to power, his ability to control events within Pakistan will be severely limited by the parliament.

Whether or not Pakistan's opposition parties will form an alliance to counter Musharraf is somewhat in doubt. The two parties have found themselves at odds in the past, and either may elect to work with other groups within the parliament instead. Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, writes in a Heritage web memo that the election will help steer Pakistan toward civilian rule and that the United States should recognize Musharraf's diminished capacity and take steps to work with the new Pakistani government.

While many observers internal and external to Pakistan feared that Musharraf would rig the elections, the polling appeared to be free and fair.

President Musharraf is now essentially a lame duck president, and the future of Pakistan's alliance with the United States in the global war on terrorism is very much uncertain. Jayshree Bajoria, writing in an analysis for the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent Washington think tank, says polling data reveals that less than 10 percent of Pakistanis agree with cooperating with the United States in the war on terror. Part of the problem, many believe, is that the United States has aligned itself too much with Musharraf and has not concentrated enough on focusing efforts on the whole of the Pakistani government.

President Musharraf is not the only loser in Monday's parliamentary elections. Radical Islamic parties did not fare well either and religious fundamentalists who won surprising parliamentary victories in 2002 saw those gains erased in the wake of the rise of Pakistan's two primary opposition parties.

Sources: CFR, Heritage