Pakistan at crossroads

For the first time since its creation as a state, Pakistan has an opportunity to organise reasonably free and fair general elections next week.

Initial attempts by elements within the military to exclude some parties and efforts by some groups to organise a boycott front have failed, and we are witnessing the most widely contested polls Pakistan has seen.

The only danger now is that the entourage of President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf may be tempted to fix the results to ensure their continued hold on power.

It is not difficult to see why Musharraf might find it hard to resist the temptation of committing electoral fraud.

Last year he had to declare a state of emergency, purge the Supreme Court of unfriendly judges and bulldoze his way to re-election by a legislature filled with his supporters.

It is normal that Musharraf might not wish to take the gamble.

As a paratrooper he has often depended on short and sharp operations designed to take him out of a tight corner. A nice little scheme of fixing the election results, something in which the Pakistani bureaucracy excels, would represent precisely such an operation.

As things stand, Musharraf could pull off the trick without great difficulty.

The Pakistani political elite is still too divided and confused about its strategy to put up much of a resistance. The military, under General Ashfaq Kiyani, appear determined to stay out of politics - at least for the time being.

The United States, under a lame-duck administration, would have to go along with whatever Musharraf does until after the November American presidential and Congressional elections.

Nevertheless, Musharraf should resist the temptation. Fixing the results of this election might save the Musharraf presidency for a while but could wreck Pakistan.

Let's face the facts.

While the global media is fixated about events in South Waziristan, which accounts for less than one half of one per cent of Pakistan's national territory, little attention is paid to the bigger picture.

Bigger picture

That bigger picture reveals breakaway trends in all the four provinces that together form the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

In Balochistan, the largest in terms of territory but the smallest in terms of population, the recent "targeted killing" of Akbar Bugti, a local tribal chief and veteran rebel, has triggered a blood feud that may not be forgotten soon.

The idea of an independent Greater Balochistan, which would incorporate Iran's 2.2 million Baloch plus a further 1.2 million who live in Afghanistan seems to have become more popular than ever.

Sindh is also witnessing the rise of secessionist groups. Within Sindh, Karachi, a mammoth urban sprawl of some 20 million people, is the theatre of a civil war within a civil war.

There, the immigrant Muslim communities who came from the rest of the Indian subcontinent are trying to affirm themselves against both the Sindhis and the Pakistani state in general.

The Northwest Frontier province, where ethnic Pushtuns form a majority, has always been receptive to a secessionist discourse.

The Pushtun-jihadi alliance dreams of conquering the Pushtun parts of Afghanistan, creating a Greater Pushtunistan that would then serve as a springboard for further global conquests in the name of Taliban-style Islam.

That leaves Punjab, the province that accounts for more than 60 per cent of Pakistan's population of 170 million.

The Punjabis of Pakistan look across the border to the half of the historic Punjab that remained part of India and see a different picture.

They see democracy at work, with governments changing through elections rather than coups d'etat and insurgency. They see India enjoying economic growth rates topping 10 per cent per annum while Pakistan barely manages half of that.

All this does not mean that Pakistan is doomed.

In fact, I have always maintained that a sense of Pakistani-ness has taken shape over the past six decades and that, though an artificial state, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is loved by a majority of its citizens.

What Pakistan needs, has always needed, is a system in which the public space reflects the diversity of the nation. Such a system cannot work without free and fair elections.

Musharraf is not the typical military dictator as Ayoub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia ul-Haq were. Unlike his military predecessors, he has not engaged in self-enrichment or despicable behaviour.

He has tried, not always successfully, to preserve at least a veneer of legality and constitutionality. However, it is only now that Musharraf is being put to the supreme test of his character.

Few military leaders have sacrificed their careers to the greater cause of genuine pluralism.

The latest opinion polls show that in the coming Pakistani election, Musharraf's political allies cannot win more than 20 per cent of the votes.

Will he allow the elections to reflect the true sentiments of the Pakistanis, even though these might go against his political positions? Or, short of trying to change a people who might not agree with him, will he try to write the script in his favour?

Next week's election could provide the answer.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.