PAKISTAN:Despite the president's poor poll ratings, a victory for the opposition is far from certain in the general election and a certain amount of rigging is to be expected, reports Jo Johnsonfrom Lahore
It is midnight and Khurshid Kasuri, foreign minister in Pakistan's outgoing government, limps home from the campaign trail. One of the most prominent members of President Pervez Musharraf's military-backed regime seeking re-election in Monday's general election, Kasuri is fighting a hotly contested rural constituency in Punjab, the populous and relatively wealthy province that accounts for a little more than half the country's 272 contested parliamentary seats.
Keepsakes from his years in government adorn the living room of Kasuri's imposing home in Gulberg, a smart district of Lahore: photographs show him with George Bush and Condoleezza Rice, others with Chinese and Indian leaders. But if a wave of sympathy for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) washes over the Punjab, triggered by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, those days might soon be at an end.
Taken at face value, national polls by organisations such as the International Republican Institute, a non-profit group dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide, suggest the two main opposition parties, the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML Nawaz), are set for a landslide. This would demolish the Pakistan Muslim League (PML Quaid-e-Azam), the party set up to support the Musharraf regime.
Its latest poll, released on Monday, found that the president's popularity has tumbled to all-time lows in the wake of Bhutto's assassination in December, growing concern over the deteriorating security situation and the worsening economy.
A number of moves that should have improved his position, including the ending of the state of emergency and his resignation as army chief, have failed to deliver a bounce in his ratings.
Three-quarters of Pakistanis now want Musharraf out of office. The pro-Musharraf PML (Q) comes a distant third, with just 14 per cent, far behind the PPP, supported by 50 per cent in the national sample, and the PML (N), which came second with 22 per cent.
Some 79 per cent of those polled said they would assume the elections had been rigged if the PML (Q) won the most seats.
Such an outcome would dash Musharraf's hopes of a hung parliament. With his party unable to hold the balance of power, he would be forced to accept a marginal role in national politics. If he failed to come to terms with his new role as third fiddle to the prime minister and army chief, the PPP and PML (N) could even move an impeachment motion against him, assuming they had the required two-thirds of parliamentary seats.
But observers of Pakistan's feudal politics say it is too soon to be writing Musharraf's political obituary. Politics in Pakistan is largely local, determined by power-plays between rivals on the ground.
"When you get down to district level, it's all about the candidate," says Kasuri, a PML (Q) politician from one of Pakistan's oldest political families. "Parties have relatively little influence."
A western diplomat, who doubts that opposition parties will be able to form a government without PML (Q) support, agrees: "The chances of anyone securing an absolute majority are nil. It could be the PPP that ends up on top, or it could be the PML (Q). It's entirely possible that both parties could get between 70 and 80 seats.
"It will all depend on the outcome of a small number of swing seats in southern Punjab."
The temptation for Musharraf to rig the poll to ensure that the PPP and PML (N) are unable to rule on their own is great. But his ability to do so seems to have been limited by the apparent desire of Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, his successor as army chief, to restore the military's reputation by withdrawing it from politics. The military intelligence wing is unlikely to help Musharraf manipulate the result, analysts say.
"There has never been a completely unrigged election in Pakistan and we've already seen evidence of significant irregularities and numerous violations of electoral law this time," says the same western diplomat. "But do I think this is going to alter the final outcome? No. The reality is that the PML (Q) got the first pick of candidates, the PPP got the second pick and the PML (N) got the leftovers."
Sartaj Aziz, a former foreign minister, predicts a sweeping opposition victory. "The level of rigging will be less than in 2002 because the army chief has asked the military to stay out of it," he says. "The PPP and the PML (N) combined will easily get a majority and if they get more than two-thirds of seats then this system of half-democracy, half-military rule can be overturned."
Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, says the military has no desire to bail out Musharraf. "The army has suffered so much because of Musharraf. They were helpless as long as he had the uniform on and they must have celebrated it as a day of deliverance when he finally took it off."
Although the military's new approach will make it more difficult for Musharraf and the PML (Q) to manipulate the result, opposition parties claim the president is relying instead on non-military intelligence agencies, the police and the paramilitaries to prevent a sweeping opposition victory.
Analysts expect the rigging to be selective. "If the result comes in and the PPP wins only 30 seats, we have a problem," says the western diplomat.