Room to breathe

Asha’ar Rehman, writing in Dawn, captured it:

IT is a perfect verdict for everyone except for those who had become a liability for people above and below them. The cake was cut in a manner to please generally. The eating part will come later.

First take the president of the country. He has been absolved of charges of rigging the vote in favour of his Pakistan Muslim League-Q. He had sent shivers down the spine of all those who considered a free election vital for Pakistan’s stability when he said that he expected his allies to obtain a majority on Feb 18. It may have cost Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain his seat in the National Assembly, but at least he can boast now that aspersions cast on President Pervez Musharraf’s role during the polls have turned out to be false.

Next is the Pakistan Election Commission, which had been until Feb 18 dubbed as the executer of the rigging plan. Its early estimates say the voter turnout could be as high as 45 per cent. This should make foreign analysts happy and the observers from abroad will soon be giving us a clean bill of democratic health, and they will not have to worry about their conscience. Only a couple of days before the polls, some of them were heard criticising all parties for violating the election code.

The results closely reflect a popular desire for change, a breaking away from the Musharrafian tradition of the last eight years or so. At the same time, manifest in the verdict is the Pakistanis’ rejection of the extremists who stand directly opposed to the president.

I think Pakistanis looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw. Benazir Bhutto’s party won 88/267 seats in the national assembly, and Nawaz Sharif’s party won 66 (Juan Cole says 272 is the total of directly-elected seats). If they want to impeach Musharraf, they can (but, in my estimation, won’t, in order to keep peace with the army).

Those two parties now predominate in the provincial assemblies of Sindh and Punjab, respectively.  Musharraf’s party retained a substantial presence only in Balochistan.

Bush and his anointed have been rejected, and Pakistan is back in the hands of the Pakistanis… at least for this moment, when the country can at last breathe.