Pakistan on a better path
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS in Pakistan this week have cleared a path to democratic revival in that troubled, strategically important country. The success of moderate, secular parties expresses a popular will for the return of constitutionalism, an independent judiciary, and civilian government.
Elections alone, however, are not enough to restore genuine democracy - even when the balloting and counting are conducted honestly, as they were Monday. Leaders of the victorious major parties - particularly the slain Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party - must now form a coalition government capable of restoring the rule of law and avoiding the corruption and cronyism that disfigured previous civilian governments under Bhutto and her principal rival, Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif, who conspired with Islamist extremists and Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency in two earlier terms as prime minister, has been saying he is a changed man today. If he is now calling for former army chief of staff Pervez Musharraf to step aside as president, he wants it known that he is doing so as a convert to the strict observance of constitutional rules - not out of spite for the general who toppled him in a bloodless coup.
Sharif insists that the new government must restore Supreme Court judges whom Musharraf removed from the bench. His obvious aim is to have those judges rule that Musharraf's reelection by a lame-duck Parliament last November was illegitimate. For Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari - who has been indicted in several countries for corruption - the return of the deposed judges could be problematic. They might cancel the amnesty Musharraf had arranged for the Bhuttos so that they could return to Pakistan, as the Bush administration wanted, and enter a political partnership with Musharraf.
These are some of the factors that make it far from certain the leaders of the top parties will be able to form a coalition that answers the voters' call for an honest, accountable government. One very bright spot, however, is the smashing success of the secular Awami National Party in the Northwest Frontier Province, the Pashtun homeland where the Taliban and other Islamist extremists have been active and where a coalition of religious parties came to power in the rigged elections of 2002.
With 10 seats in the new Parliament, this nationalist Pashtun party could, if taken into a governing coalition, provide a bridge to the populace in Pakistan's most turbulent province. Washington also should take note of this rejection of religious extremism. It suggests there is a path to stability for Pakistan that passes through democratic procedures and institutions. This means that a military leader like Musharraf may not have been the best option for overcoming the jidahist threat. 