An election that threw up the unexpected

General Pervez Musharraf may have learnt the hard way that there is only one thing worse than fixing an election. It is fixing an election without getting the desired results. Pakistan's October 10 election has resulted in a hung parliament, something Musharraf and the military establishment has always sought.

But the voters have also enhanced the leverage of Pakistan's religious parties who had, until recently, been dismissed by Musharraf as representing a minuscule minority.

Musharraf must now give due deference to Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami, whom he had singled out for criticism as "having psychological problems" not long ago. The religious parties' success will also have implications for Musharraf's dependence on, and support for, the United States.

In many ways, the biggest loser on polling day was the intelligence-military establishment of Pakistan, which feels it has a monopoly over defining the national interest. The establishment did everything in its power to keep out the mainstream political parties – the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif.

It helped create the PML's Quaid-e-Azam (QA) faction, nicknamed the King's Party, and toyed with election rules to help it gain a majority. The establishment's manoeuvres disillusioned a majority of voters, resulting in a low turnout.

But those who did bother to go to polling stations also cast a vote against the establishment and its prescriptions for the country. The combined votes of the opposition parties outnumber those of the King's party and other pro-Musharraf factions.

The alliance of religious parties, Mutahhida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), benefited from the anti-American sentiment among the Pashtuns in the provinces bordering Afghanistan.

Musharraf would have been able to cash in on this fact in Washington if his own policies had not contributed to the MMA's success. The state's relentless propaganda against the main parties and their leadership, coupled with the public's lack of empathy with the King's Party, left the religious groups as the only untried group for the people to turn to.

The PPP and PML-N had to overcome a new hurdle almost every day of the already shortened campaign. Their leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, were barred from the election and could not campaign for the parties.

The MMA, on the other hand, had no hurdles put in its path by the military regime. None of its leaders faced disqualification, none were in exile and none could be described on state TV as 'looters and plunderers' for having been part of previous regimes.

The establishment had created a political vacuum but its fantastic dream that the King's party should fill it was unacceptable to the people. The religious parties offer the 'new faces' Musharraf so much wanted from the political process.

Islamic identity

While the vote for the MMA should alarm Musharraf and his associates, it need not bother the world that much unless the Pakistani establishment manipulates it for strategic advantage. Pakistan's religious parties have been around for a long time and their leaders have, at different times, shown flexibility in political matters.

Unless they are pushed in the wrong direction by the establishment, the Islamic groups can be expected to be pragmatic in parliamentary politics. The Islamic groups were in politics long before Jihadi militancy was introduced in the aftermath of the anti-Soviet Afghan operation and the Kashmiri militancy.

Politics of Islamic identity, rather than violence and militancy, were the hallmarks of the religious parties until the Eighties. It may be in Pakistan's interest to help the religious parties revert to the political, as opposed to the militant, phase of Islamic revivalism.

If, however, Musharraf and his colleagues try to gain advantage in Washington by using the MMA's success as an alarm bell, there could be increased militancy fomented by covert groups.

The October 10 election was not the first time that the people surprised a Pakistani military leader at the ballot box. In 1970, General Yahya Khan's plan for a hung parliament was foiled by the clear victories of the Awami League in East Pakistan and the PPP in West Pakistan.

In 1985, General Zia's appeal to return more pious parliamentarians was not heeded and most of his cabinet ministers seeking election were defeated in the same way as those on Musharraf's short-list for the future cabinet lost last week. The Pakistani electorate, it seems votes in the opposite direction of the "guidelines" given to it by its military rulers.

Zia wanted the election of more religious people while Musharraf sought a secular parliament. On both occasions, the people's wisdom ran contrary to that of the self-imposed patriarchs. Perhaps it is time for the establishment to learn the real lesson from all elections it has conducted and accept that the Pakistani people resent its model of manipulated politics.

The European Union Chief Election observer, John Cushnahan, summed up Pakistan's political problem when he declared, "The holding of a general election does not in itself guarantee the establishment of a democracy".

After methodically listing the many ways in which the election was manipulated, the EU regretted that: "The Pakistan authorities engaged in a course of action, which resulted in serious flaws in the electoral process."

The government spokesman's response to the EU's report has been, typically, unimaginative. Instead of a letter of resignation from the Chief Election Commissioner (who as Supreme Court Chief Justice had legitimised Musharraf's military takeover), we got "the statement is baseless" comment that has become the hallmark of official statements in Pakistan.

Having been in the unhappy position of a government spokesman in Pakistan myself, I know the limitations of the job well.

Weak response

But denials and cliched statements are hardly a response to political realities. Pakistani officials have, over time, described Bengali political activists as 'miscreants' (during the 1971 Bangladesh crisis); denied that the country was being used as a base of operations for Afghan Mujahideen (during the anti-Soviet resistance); denied that the country was developing nuclear weapons (throughout the 1980s and early 1990s); and denied that there are any restrictions on free expression or free politics (through much of the country's independent existence).

It is unlikely that the spokesman's statement will enhance the credibility of the electoral exercise and diminish the value of the EU's findings.

Musharraf can draw some comfort from the lack of criticism of the Pakistani election by the Bush administration. But it is only a matter of time before the U.S. joins the European Union in recognising that the election was seriously flawed.

The patterns of conduct of Pakistan's intelligence-military establishment are predictable for those of us who have observed them for several decades and many in the U.S. also know them. U.S. concern for the war against terrorism, rather than a genuine optimism about democratic conduct on the part of Musharraf, is the reason