Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif appealed to all parties to join him in tackling Pakistan’s mountainous problems after securing victory in historic elections that defied Taliban violence. Partial, unofficial results from Saturday’s election represented a stunning comeback for a man deposed in a 1999 military coup – but he looked short of an outright majority, raising the prospect of another weak coalition government.
The party of former cricket star Imran Khan – whose promises to end corruption resonated with middle-class and youth voters – conceded defeat but vowed to form the next provincial government in the restive northwest, where Khan has vowed to end US drone strikes.
Reporting by South Asian Media Net, providing in-depth news coverage from across the South Asian region. The South Asian Media Network Cyber Community is an effort to promote understanding among the people of South Asia and facilitate free flow of information across the region.
The landmark polls mark the first time an elected civilian administration completed a full term to hand power to another through the ballot box, in a country where there have been three military coups and four military rulers.
Official results were emerging only slowly early on Sunday but TV projections suggested no single party would win a simple majority of 172 seats in the national assembly.
According to the private TV network Geo, Sharif’s centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) was leading the race with 126 seats and Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had 34.
With just 32 seats so far, the Bhutto clan’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — which led the outgoing government with 125 seats in the old national assembly — was relegated to a humiliating third place.
Flanked by his brother Shahbaz and his daughter Maryam, Sharif gave a victory speech late Saturday to hundreds of jubilant supporters at PML-N headquarters in Lahore.
“We should thank Allah that he has given PML-N another chance to serve you and Pakistan,” he said, after nearly 60 percent of the 86 million electorate turned out to vote despite polling day attacks by the Taliban that left 24 dead.
Sharif, who has vowed a pro-business agenda to revive Pakistan’s crippled economy, struck a conciliatory tone following Khan’s high-voltage campaign.
“I appeal for all parties to come to the table and sit with me and solve the country’s problems,” Sharif said.
The election was fought over the tanking economy, an appalling energy crisis that causes power cuts of up to 20 hours a day, the alliance in the US-led “war on terror” and chronic corruption.
Prime minister twice before in the 1990s, Sharif’s historic third term will begin only after he brokers a deal with political rivals to form a coalition.
But his supporters hailed a new day for the nuclear-armed country. Youths in Lahore danced in the streets holding stuffed tigers — the PML-N’s election symbol — and people offered sweets to celebrate the win.
Political analysts said the result would most likely be a hung parliament in which the PML-N would have to team up with its former opponents from the outgoing government led by the PPP.
“(Sharif) needs to solve the issue of terrorism and other problems crippling the economy. If he delivers quickly, fair enough, if not then he will face crisis and criticism,” pundit Hasan Askari told AFP.
Chief Election Commissioner Fakharuddin Ebrahim praised the authorities for their cooperation “which enabled us to hold free and fair elections” and recorded a turnout of nearly 60 percent, the highest since 1977.
Both Sharif and Khan won at least one of the seats they had contested, but the PTI, which had promised a “tsunami” of support, quickly conceded defeat.
Asad Omar, a senior PTI leader, sent his congratulations to Sharif’s party and said Khan, who is in hospital after falling from a makeshift lift during a campaign rally, was taking the results like a sportsman.
Newly elected PTI member Shaukat Yousafzai said: “It is very clear that PTI has emerged as the largest party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, so we will form our government here with the help of like-minded political parties.”
Besides the 342-member national assembly, voters also elected four provincial assemblies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a hotbed of militancy. Both Sharif and Khan have vowed to talk to the Taliban and have tapped into the Pakistani public’s deep hatred of the US drone war against extremists on the Afghan border.
More than 600,000 security personnel deployed to protect the vote and Pakistan sealed its border with Afghanistan and Iran to boost security after pre-election violence killed at least 127 people, according to an AFP tally.
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Comment: by the compiler of this story, Tony Henderson.
“The emergence of a third political power means the end of the stalemating two-party situation in Pakistan as it is expected that the Imran Khan party will provide a healthy and constructive opposition and both parties have similar aims and both see that negotiations with the Taliban is the way forward. It has to be understood that the demonised reputation of the Taliban is an unfair one as, just the same as other parties and groups, the extremists get all the headlines leaving the moderates and standard Taliban members to make amends as best they can for what they believe is the best way forward. In a democracy those voices must also be heard!”
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Additional
Abridged from AsiaPeace archive: From “It’s Morning in Islamabad”, By Mosharraf Zaidi, writing prior to the election in Foreign Policy: “No one will accuse Pakistan of being a model of tranquility. It remains shackled by security, economic, and political challenges. Things are not great in Pakistan, but they’re better than anyone could have expected. And on the eve of a historic, if bloody, election, that’s worth remembering.
Yes, it’s broke, violent, and tumultuous. But here are five reasons Pakistan is better off than you think.
1. Feisty democracy: This first-ever transition from one elected government to the next is a big deal, partially because Pakistanis are depressingly familiar with military interventions preceding power transfers. But it’s also important because Pakistan’s recent experience with democracy has been so unpleasant.
And yet, after enduring these calamities Pakistanis are not only engaged in a major political debate about the future, but also likely to break records for voter turnout on May 11.
What Pakistan has gone through since 2008 would have wiped out any chance of another free election in the Pakistan of the past. Yet there is now confidence and hope that not every government will be as feckless the last. Whatever the election result is on May 11, a young and fragile democracy is going to take a giant leap.
2. Activist judges: When then President Pervez Musharraf tried to fire him in 2007, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry refused to go quietly into the sun. Like his predecessors, Musharraf had used the judiciary to help him discredit and imprison political opponents, and then disposed the judges that grow a conscience or chose a different team.
Instead of rolling over, Chaudhry fought back. He rallied some of the lawyers he knew, and within days, a movement emerged. Lawyers across the country gathered in support of a single cause: the reinstatement of Chaudhry.
Yes, Chaudhary’s model of activism is fraught with all kinds of political and institutional risk, and will contaminate the imagination of the next generation of Supreme Court judges, some of whom will seek to grab more power than Chaudhry currently wields. But his activism has helped create a vital venting mechanism for Pakistan.
The most poignant sign of the judiciary coming of age is its treatment of Musharraf: The former dictator was jailed in April in the house he built to retire in. Once again, Chaudhry has showed Pakistan that the military is not above the law.
3. Freer media: Despite threats of violence from insurgents and terrorists, the media continues to hold up a remarkably candid and brutal mirror to the face of powerful Pakistanis – be they in uniform, robes, or the suits and shalwar kameez of politicians and businessmen.
There is, of course, much room for improvement. Pakistan ranks 159th in Reporters Without Borders’ 2013 Press Freedom Index, just below Egypt.
4. Youth surge: More than 100 million of Pakistan’s 177 million people are below the age of 25 – and they’re referred to in Islamabad as a “ticking bomb.” Yet Pakistani youth are increasingly raised in cities, to families that can broadly be categorized as middle class. They are the apple of marketers’ and advertisers’ eyes; as regional and global telecoms and consumer goods manufacturers seek to expand beyond the BRICs, they are coming to countries like Pakistan. Pakistani youth have access to the Internet, to mobile phones, and to the ideas and information these technologies bring.
And this election has become about them. Presidential candidate Imran Khan, whose status as a Pakistani icon was sealed when he won for his country the cricket World Cup in 1992, became even more cherished when he raised money for the construction of Pakistan’s premier cancer hospital in the mid-1990s, as a memorial to the mother he lost to the disease. Despite accusations to the contrary, Khan has an excellent record of public service and integrity, which drives his appeal among youth. For 16 years, he peddled these qualities in a Pakistan whose politics was dominated by Benazir Bhutto and the pro-business Nawaz Sharif. And then something shifted. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it was – maybe the fatigue from the tired and broken rhetoric of the traditional parties. But in October 2011, more than 100,000 Pakistanis, many young and middle class, came together in Lahore to demand “change.”
Khan’s rhetoric has not changed since the 1990s. It is raw, simplistic, and incredibly powerful: He wants an end to patronage and corruption. The crowds Khan is drawing across all four of the country’s provinces are reminiscent of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s cross-ethnic, cross-provincial appeal (though Bhutto didn’t deliver on many of his promises). Then, as now, a national leader rode to power on the back of young people. Khan may not win the election on May 11, but he is the trigger-man for an entire generation of Pakistan and its engagement with politics. Their continued and sustained involvement in the affairs of their country could help mold a Pakistan that holds itself accountable for its actions – internally and externally.
5. Indian thaw: Since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, there has been a predictable hardening of opinion in India about what Pakistan represents: instability and violence.
But in Pakistan, India no longer represents the first, or even the second, most important villain. Sometimes, it’s no longer even seen as a public enemy. It could be because of a new preoccupation with the United States as the principal tormentor, or because of domestic crises unrelated to India. Perhaps most importantly, Pakistan’s elite have decided to prioritize trade and regional prosperity over disputes that neither country will outright win.
This is not to say that Pakistanis embrace their neighbor. They are still smart about India’s role in separating Pakistan from Bangladesh, and still view with acrimony India’s administration over large parts of Kashmir. Yet for all the bitterness and baggage, even the juiciest volleys from India are now returned with a disengaged “meh.” This will likely remain the status quo for a while. As long as it does, the doors remain open for India to tap into an unprecedented national appetite for normalcy.”
