home > by publication type > daily analysis > After Musharraf Victory, Rough Ride Remains
Email
| Author: |
|---|
Supporters of a Pakistani opposition party burn the portrait of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. (AP Images/K M Chaudary)
Pakistan’s October 6 presidential elections, the focus of furious political jockeying in the last few weeks, held little suspense. Despite serious challenges to his authority this year, Gen. Pervez Musharraf easily won a new term (BBC) from parliament and provincial assemblies dominated by ruling parties. But the vote was just the first step in a complicated process aimed at sorting out the country’s leadership in the months ahead. That process will involve a Supreme Court ruling on the legality (BBC) of Musharraf's candidacy; the court threatened on the eve of elections to retroactively label it illegal if Musharraf refuses to shed his military leadership role. Also just before the voting began, Musharraf signed a “reconciliation ordinance” that drops corruption charges (CNN) against former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and sets the stage for a power-sharing arrangement with her.
To protect his future interests, the general named a loyalist, Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy service, to succeed him as the nation’s top military officer. Musharraf’s plan to shed his military role did not come easily, since he derives much of his authority from the post. But in Kiyani, Pakistan gains a skilled commander at a time of demoralization in the army, and a staunch supporter of Musharraf (Newsweek Int'l).
But a Musharraf victory, analysts warn, does not necessarily translate to stability. The army is struggling in its fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, who have aggressively expanded their influence and operations in the tribal and border areas, pushing large parts of the country beyond government control (WashPost). Pakistan’s army, like its population, is deeply divided over the “war on terror,” and analysts see recent incidents of mass army surrenders to smaller groups of militants as a sign that the military will not fight (NewKerala.com) an internal war on behalf of what many of its officers view as Washington’s interests. “This is not our war; Taliban, al-Qaeda are not criminals in our country,” a major from the Pakistani army told the Atlantic. Selig S. Harrison, an Asia expert at the Center for International Policy, warns of a radical “Pashtunistan” (IHT) should events deteriorate further. Others, citing the nuclear-armed country's miserable educational system, its faltering financial institutions (Bloomberg), and an economy which can't keep pace (PDF) with population growth, fear worse.
Unpopular views of the war on terror, already rampant in Pakistan’s ISI, which helped create and fuel the Taliban movement during the 1990s, may be even more widely held among the general public. A new survey (PDF) conducted by Washington-based research institute Terror Free Tomorrow shows that 46 percent of Pakistanis hold a favorable view of Osama Bin Laden. Musharraf and United States remain very unpopular in the country.
Bhutto scores highest in the popularity poll (with 63 percent favorable), and analysts assume (ISN) Washington sees her as the best way to secure a smooth transition to democracy. In this Online Debate, Pakistani analyst Moeed Yusuf argues that, similar to Musharraf, Bhutto has been rallying U.S. support by posing herself as the only hope to save Pakistan from extremists. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters this week the United States regards this election as pivotal in terms of Pakistan’s future but neither he nor other U.S. officials have openly discussed the Musharraf-Bhutto talks.
Still, Pakistanis see Washington’s overt support for Musharraf and the Pakistani army in a different light. Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy sums it up in Foreign Policy: “All countries have armies, but in Pakistan things are reversed. Here, it is the Army that has a country.”
A new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes that, with the exception of earthquake relief in 2005, most of the $10 billion in American aid to Pakistan since 2001 has been directed towards short-term counterterrorism objectives. The report advocates a redefined U.S. strategy where Washington pursues a broader and diversified relationship with various stakeholders including civil society and the private sector in Pakistan.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
In Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President, experts from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution propose a new, nonpartisan Middle East strategy drawing on the lessons of past failures to address both the short-term and long-term challenges to U.S. interests.
This report lays out a thoughtful agenda for U.S. policy toward the Democratic Republic of Congo, arguing that what happens there should matter to the United States--for humanitarian reasons as well as economic and strategic ones.
In this report, CFR Senior Fellow Michael A. Levi analyzes the potential use of deterrence in preventing terrorist groups from acquiring nuclear weapons and recommends a new approach to U.S. declaratory policy, as well as ways to improve U.S. capabilities to determine the sources of terrorist attacks.
Complete list of Council Special Reports.
This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR.
A selection of Foreign Affairs pieces by and about the preeminent political scientist of the last half century.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1-212-434-9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
To request permission to reuse Council materials, please email publications@cfr.org or fax +1.212.434.9859.
Please include the complete information of the requested work—author, title, sections/pages to be copied or reprinted, and number of copies to be made—along with a brief description of where and how you would like to reuse the work.
You may also request permission for Council material through Copyright Clearance Center. For more information, please click on the link below.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
Global Economy 