Current Affairs
Pakistan: Religious shadowon terror war
By AnwarIqbal, UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, (UPI) -- A religiousalliance opposed to the U.S. presence in the region further consolidatedits position Friday by winning 30 seats in Pakistan's parliamentaryelections, creating serious doubts about the country's futurerole in the war against terror.
The Election Commission of Pakistan hasalready confirmed its win in 25 of these seats while unofficialreports say the alliance may make more gains as results are announced.
MMA -- which stands for Joint Action Forumin Pakistan's national language, Urdu -- swept the provinciallegislature in the North West Frontier Province.
Formed after the fall of the Taliban regimein neighboring Afghanistan, MMA is opposed to Pakistan's participationin the war on terror and wants the United States to withdraw itstroops from Pakistan.
It also sympathizes with Afghanistan's formerTaliban rulers and criticizes the military government for catchingTaliban and al Qaida leaders and handing them over to Americanauthorities.
On Wednesday, al Qaida distributed a pamphletin areas bordering Afghanistan and urged people to vote for MMAand "reject secular and pro-Musharraf candidates."
"We are heading for a landslide inthe NWFP. We will form a government there," said Kazi HussainAhmad, an MMA leader who also leads Pakistan's largest religiousparty, Jamaat-i-Islami.
This is the first time in 56 years thatJamaat-i-Islami's leader has been elected to the parliament.
Ahmad, who won by a large margin, said hewas worried about a delay in the announcement of unofficial resultsand urged his workers "to be vigilant against possible riggingof results."
Ahmed also leads the anti-U.S. movementin Pakistan and has pledged to force the government to evict U.S.troops based in the country.
Pakistan held its first parliamentary electionson Thursday after three years of military rule. MMA and two majorpolitical parties -- Pakistan People's Party and the PakistanMuslim League (N) of former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto andNawaz Sharif -- contested the election on an anti-government agenda.
Commonwealth election observers declaredthat Pakistan's polls "for the most part transparent,"but said there were doubts over whether there was a truly levelplaying field.
"While our observers encountered anumber of irregularities and disturbances, we received no majorcomplaints from polling agents and on the whole, what we observedwas orderly and peaceful," the head of the team, Tan SriDato Musa bin Hitam, declared in a preliminary statement. "Asfor the conduct of elections on polling day, I consider that theyhave been well-organized and for the most part transparent."
Bhutto on Friday called for new electionsin Pakistan and alleged fraud in vote counting, as a slow countshowed a massive swing to Islamic parties, a huge lead by a pro-governmentparty and fewer seats for her party than anticipated.
The current government is led by PresidentGen. Pervez Musharraf who aligned his Muslim nation of 144 millionpeople with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 terroristattacks on New York and Washington.
MMA wants him to step down for allying hiscountry with the United States while the other two parties areurging him to restore complete democracy and return to the barracks.
But a group split from PML (N) and formeda new party called Pakistan Muslim League (Q), contesting theelections on a pro-Musharraf agenda. Till Thursday evening, PML(Q) was trailing behind other parties but by 10 a.m. Friday localtime, it had won 17 cities, giving it a respectable presence inthe parliament.
PML (N), which appeared to be doing wellon Thursday, has so far won only four seats.
Bhutto's PPP has won 14.
The situation, however, can change radicallyas results from almost 200 constituencies are still awaited.
But MMA's grip on the provincial legislatureof the NWFP appears solid, as it has already won a comfortablemajority there, the Election Commission announced Friday.
Despite MMA's victory, the military governmenthailed Thursday's elections "a historic return to democraticrule" but the opposition denounced it as stage-managed, aimedat strengthening Musharraf's grip on power.
Sporadic violence Thursday left seven peopledead, but such electoral violence is not unusual in South Asia.
Turnout was projected to be low, between25 percent to 30 percent.
Observers say the last minute constitutionalamendment that prevented both Bhutto and Sharif from returningto Pakistan from exile to contest the elections, contributed tothe low turnout.
Through these amendments, Musharraf createda military-controlled National Security Council that will vetall national policy decisions.
He has also granted himself the power tosack the prime minister and dissolve parliament.
The religious parties were also doing betterthan expected in the southern port city Karachi and in the southernpart of Punjab province, reflecting a strong undercurrent of resentmentover the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere, the race appeared close, in linewith pre-election opinion polls.
A total of 73 parties contested the electionsfor a new Parliament, Prime Minister and four Provincial Assemblies.
Despite MMA's impressive victory, politicalpundits say that the military will not allow it to form the governmentin the center. For the central government, they say, PPP and pro-MusharrafPML (Q) are the main contestants.
They predict that both the groups will winmore seats as the results are announced.
International observers monitored the electionsamid opposition and human rights workers' claims that the militarywas manipulating the vote. The government has denied those charges,claiming the elections were "transparent and fair."
But opposition parties were quick to criticizethe vote. Bhutto's party said it was concerned about the delayin releasing results and said it feared the government was tamperingwith the ballot boxes "in the darkness of the night."
Musharraf, who will remain President forfive more years after winning a referendum in April, has defendedhis hold on power as protection against a return of corrupt andincompetent politicians. He said a new Prime Minister will besworn in Nov. 1 and has promised to let him run the country'sday-to-day affairs.
Tens of thousands of heavily armed police,joined by soldiers and paramilitary rangers, stood guard at pollingstations set up at mosques and schools throughout the country,as women and men filed through separate rooms to vote.
Some 72 million people were eligible tovote and most major cities reported light to moderate turnout.
Since independence in 1947, Pakistan hasfluctuated between civilian and military rule, a never-endingconveyor belt of coups, assassinations and government dismissals.
But religious parties had never won morethan 10 seats or five percent of the total votes in 56 years ofPakistan's existence.
MMA, which is a coalition of six religiousparties, changed history and even won a seat from the Pakistanicapital, Islamabad, a city with a large population of Western-educatedpeople.
"The big news of this election is thesuccess of religious parties. It is unprecedented in Pakistan'shistory," said Shafquat Mahmood, a former member of the PakistaniSenate and a liberal intellectual.
"It may create serious problems forPakistan's alliance with the United States and will cause alarmand concerns in Western capitals," he added.
Another political commentator, Irfan Siddiqui,said that "the unity of the religious forces and the Afghanfactor played a key role in MMA's unprecedented victory."
Political analysts say that MMA is now ina position to form a government in the Frontier and Baluchistanprovinces with the help of smaller political groups.
"It may even have to be included inthe federal government in Islamabad," said Mahmood.
"This may not be acceptable to Musharrafand the West and may create a similar situation that exists inAlgeria," said Mahmood.
Early results also showed that voters haveremained loyal to old political affiliations despite three yearsof military rule.
All three major political parties -- PakistanPeople's Party, Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Muttehada QaumiMovement -- are doing well in their traditional strongholds inthe provinces of Punjab and Sindh.