Pakistan: Holding President Musharraf to his Word Posted by Brian Katulis

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this weekend, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf promised that his country’s upcoming parliamentary elections will be clean.  “I do guarantee that they will be free and fair, yes, absolutely,” Musharraf said on CNN’s Late Edition.

Here in Lahore, where a major political party headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met today and decided to contest the elections after flirting with the idea of a boycott, Musharraf’s statement was greeted with widespread cynicism.

In the past month, Musharraf sacked the country’s chief justice and other judges, suspended the constitution, instituted emergency rule, arrested thousands of opposition figures, and shut down key media outlets.  Even before these measures, an international pre-election monitoring delegation headed by former U.S. Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle and organized by the National Democratic Institute raised concerns about the upcoming elections.

Although Musharraf stepped down as army chief late last month, the emergency rule still remains in effect and won’t be lifted until later next week – even though the elections are to be held in less than a month.  Throughout Pakistan, independent analysts as well as partisans like former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (in an opinion editorial this week) have raised concerns about possible fraud in the upcoming elections.  One key element that observers should watch on this front is what happens with Pakistan’s judiciary.

As Americans know all too well from their own 2000 presidential elections, courts can often play a decisive role in hotly contested elections.  And as President Musharraf has probably learned from events in Egypt last year, reining in independent-minded judges is a key ingredient for holding back real democratic progress.  A month before the elections, Pakistan’s Election Commission – a key body that overseas and manages the elections usually filled by judges – was incomplete because of the shortage of judges that has resulted from the actions taken last month.  Prominent lawyers and judges remain under arrest.

The United States has begun a much-needed and long overdue debate about its policy towards Pakistan, which has suffered from decades of ad hoc and short-sighted policies from Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The run-up to Pakistan’s January 8th elections will offer U.S. policymakers to make some key choices about the course it will set for the coming years.  The past few months have proved to be a bumpy ride in Pakistan, and more turbulence may be ahead.  Stay tuned….

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

The United States has begun a much-needed and long overdue debate about its policy towards Pakistan, which has suffered from decades of ad hoc and short-sighted policies from Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

OK, so let's start. What should be our policy toward Pakistan? I start off with the observation that Pakistan is one of the world's few nuclear-armed states, and borders on two of the world's other nuclear-armed states, with one of which it is in a permanent state of tension. The populations of those two bordering countries exceed a third of the world's population. Everything else takes a back seat in my mind to those stupendous facts.

[Mike M.]

Step one is that we stop backing Musharaff just because we're scared of how the Pakistani people might vote. We're just going to have to accept (and learn to live with) whatevcer government they choose. It might not be one we like.

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