With threats and murder they did what they could, but al Qaeda and the Taliban were the losers. The voters and the people were the real winners in the Pakistani elections.
Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies did all they could to disrupt things, killing some 300 candidates, election officers and party activists. Their sinister slogan "From Box to Box" - i.e., anyone who cast a vote into the ballot box could end up in a coffin - was posted or scribbled on many walls. The terrorists also destroyed at least 12 polling stations and stole several dozen ballot boxes.
Still, they failed. And their political allies did no better.
The Unified Assembly for Action (MMA), a coalition of Islamists, saw its share of the vote drop from almost 11 percent in the last general election five years ago to around 3 percent. It lost control of the only one of Pakistan's four provinces that it governed, and all its main leaders lost their seats. In the provincial assembly of Sindh, the MMA won no seats.
A Shiite group, heavily financed by Iran's Islamic Republic, suffered an even bigger rout. If the latest results hold, it will end up with 1 percent of the vote.
The politicians linked with the military and security agencies also lost, if not as heavily. Their chief party, the Pakistan Muslim League, lost almost two-thirds of its seats and control of the national parliament and the three provincial assemblies that it had dominated for years.
The message of this election is clear: The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis reject both military rule and its political twin of Islamism.
According to Amir Taheri Monday's election has returned Pakistan to about where it was before the government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup in 1977. The Pakistanis deserve our support. With Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan having all held legitimate elections, I'd have to say the chances for real democracy taking hold in the Middle East are better now than they have ever been in history.
The challenge with these big voter turnouts in the Middle East is that the western world doesn't always like the results. Hamas was elected in Palestine, as were many members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Not exactly who were were rooting for.
It's great that Pakistanis are getting out to vote. Just don't be surprised when they vote for things that we may not agree with. For example, 60% of Pakistanis want to live under an Islamic government, not a secular democracy.
It will be interesting to see how all of these new democracies evolve over the next 3,5 and 10 years (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan etc).
Posted by: RHM | February 20, 2008 at 12:34 PM