Amidst all the bickering over stolen speeches, questionable values, hope and reality, presidential candidates are keeping an eye on changes in Pakistan, a country the U.S. has identified as a crucial ally in its efforts to curb the Taliban and growing fundamentalism in the region.

Pakistanis have voted to build a credible democracy, and America's pointsman in the war on terror, President Pervez Musharraf, is not welcome to the party.  Of the 262 results announced (for the 272-seat National Assembly) so far, late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarians (PPP) --- led by party co-chair and Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari -- bagged 87 seats, while former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) went home with 67. Musharraf's supporters, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), were pretty much shown the door with 40 seats.

Those are the statistics. Here's the story. While Musharraf has said he'll work with the new government to facilitate democracy, the winning parties don't think he has the mandate to do so. They pretty much want him out, by whatever means necessary. Political rivals PPP and Sharif's Muslim League have agreed to form a coalition government.
Sharif and Zardari are themselves not in the prime ministerial race (since neither of them contested the polls). But PPP senior leader and loyalist Makhdoom Amin Fahim is all set  to be Pakistan's next Prime Minister.

Given that Sharif was unceremoniously toppled by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, it comes as no surprise that the former PM has been the loudest in demanding that the President be impeached and the judiciary (including ousted chief justice, the iconic Iftikhar Chaudhry) be restored. The PPP isn't rushing to do so, but both the parties have agreed that this is indeed the ultimate goal. The two parties don't have the required two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament to impeach Musharraf, but it is likely that they will work hard in the new Assembly to drum up enough support to do just that.

Ah! The irony of it all! If an independent judiciary is restored,  Musharraf's  re-election could be invalidated. If Musharraf goes, so will all his extra-constitutional policies and powers.  But the same independent judiciary could bring Sharif and  Zardari to justice, both of who have cases of corruption piled against them (and against the late Ms Bhutto). 

But no matter. The electorate seem have given these two men their mandate -- put Pakistan back on track and make sure Musharraf and the army steer clear of governance. The headline for Ghazala Khan's post on The Pakistani Spectator sums up what many Pakistanis feel about America's favorite ally, the "moderate" Musharraf -- 'Say Goodbye to Tyranny Forever, Lovely Pakistanis'. She writes:

President Musharraf, few weeks ago, said that he would leave when nation would want him to leave. Nation has asked him to leave by rejecting revoltingly, his hand-made Pakistan Muslim League-Quashed. Nation is rejoicing and you can sense it everywhere. Even the sun is smiling and flowers just cannot wait to come out and declare an early spring.

While the U.S. government (which has insisted that it wants nothing but a democratic Pakistan) has said it will work with whatever government comes to power, a string of reports suggest that they would much rather have the PPP cooperate with Musharraf rather than Sharif. The New York Times reported:

[...]the Bush administration has gone out of its way to express its confidence in the president as a cooperative ally in the campaign against terrorism for the last six years.
President Bush took time out of his Africa trip to call Mr. Musharraf soon after the vote, and Bush administration officials have said they would still like to see him as part of a power-sharing deal.

But that's the beauty of democracy. People will speak their minds and they may say things you don't want to hear. For the PPP to now strike a deal with Musharraf's supporters will be nothing short of a political harakiri. I think the Pakistanis have made it amply clear that they don't want him anywhere near governance.

Predictably enough, the PPP has said it will have no truck with Musharraf's supporters.

Pakistan's polls reflect what any democratic process would: a nation's desire to put its own well-being above everything else. The results give us a few pointers to where Pakistanis want their country to go next:

a) The Pakistanis first want a working democracy to be established, including all the necessary institutions like an independent judiciary and a free press. Now that will require a lot of spade work. Given the country's history, their first challenge will be to separate the Parliament from the Army and intelligence services for good. It's going to take a while (decades probably) and a lot of hard work. The Armed force is one the Pakistan's strongest institutions, and not always respectful of elected governments.
But it appears that Pakistanis have finally figured that a military dictator, however benign and well-intentioned, cannot be good for democracy. Elected leaders, however bad, can always be voted out. Military rulers don't leave on their own.

As Soniah Kamal writes at Pak Tea House:

Let us then remind ourselves of the years 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999 when either the late Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif were unceremoniously dismissed from power. In all cases, far from an uproar most Pakistanis then were rather complacent if not outright pleased. Well, here we are, 2008, and the same parties are in the majority again and this time the army, savior-in-general, is also in the doghouse. Not that the army should ever be the solution to end a democratically elected government no matter how botched a job they’re doing. As Pakistan has witnessed in the recent past, a dictator, no matter how benevolent, is at the end of the day a dictator.

b) America's war on terror is not Pakistan's priority, but its own suffering at the hands of militancy is. It's not hard to figure that many Pakistanis' frustration toward U.S. is more because the Western power supported a dictator at the cost of people's freedom, and less because of its pressure on their country to fight militants. No matter how successful Musharraf is in fighting militancy, if he subjugates his own people, he loses their support or sympathy. Naturally.

The Pakistanis have shown they do want to fight the demon of militancy. All "religious" parties, even in the troubled Northwest Frontier Province, have been decisively defeated. (Some of the extremist parties boycotted the elections. Either way, they are not in power). But first, Pakistanis need to be assured of their own rights and freedom.

The Pakistanis will probably ally themselves with America as long as they see that terror is as much a problem for them as it is for the U.S.

But nation-building is likely to take precedence. As Beena Sarwar writes in the Dawn, America will have to deal with the new Pakistani government the way it is and right now, the people want the government's focus to remain on meeting their aspirations. (Emphasis is mine)

“THE election results in Pakistan were good news, about the best that could have emerged, but what kind of democracy is it that puts the fate of the country in the hands of a Nawaz Sharif and an Asif Zardari? My lord! How weird! Help me understand...,” beseeched an American journalist, who has lived and worked in Pakistan, in a recent email to some journalist friends.

My spontaneous response: “It’s surely not worse than a democracy which puts the fate of America — and the world — in the hands of a George W. Bush...TWICE!!”
[...]
Democracy can be inconvenient when you don’t like the leadership it throws up. It can be deeply damaging when it brings in leadership whose stint in power leads to negative, far-reaching and long term consequences—like President Bush, who is responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of human lives – American, Iraqi and Afghan. And, by extension, Pakistani, when the Pakistan army under US pressure attacks its own people in a bid to win the ‘war on terror’. (The Pakistan government can take sole credit for the military action in Balochistan).
[...]
At this point in time, we in Pakistan are concerned with the transition to democracy that genuinely reflects the will of the people.
[...]
The people, by rejecting the Musharraf-backed parties, have clearly indicated that they do not want him in power. But Western powers dismiss this verdict because they find it convenient to deal with him. They fear that his removal would lead to ‘instability’. And so they will continue to prop him up.

[...] there is talk of the general dislike in Washington’s corridors of power for Nawaz Sharif: Mr Bush, even as his second term ends (plenty of time to do more damage yet), is not happy at the idea of an alliance of the PPP and the PML-N. We hear of pressure being exerted on the PPP to ally not with Nawaz Sharif but with the disgraced and discredited PML-Q.

It would be unrealistic to expect all these pressures to be magically lifted just because the people of Pakistan have willed it so. The electorate, which in no uncertain terms rejected the ‘religious’ and the Musharraf-backed parties at the polls, can only hope that their support is enough for Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari to stay strong and hold the interests of the people above all else.

c) Curiously, belying all fears, none of the militant groups made any serious attempt (thank God!) to upstage the elections. Now why is that? Maybe these forces have weakened. That's good news for everyone around, including American troops.

Or, the security arrangements were world-class. Hmmm...Now that raises red flags about why it was that bad before the polls. What changed so dramatically since then?  Was the government lax all this while? The PPP has said its first priority after coming to power would be to have Bhutto's death investigated by an international team. If they follow through, we may get some answers there.

Or is it just that the militant groups expect the new government to be far less hostile and more open to negotiations?

Any which way you look at it, America needs a new plan for the region.

As many --- including Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. Joe Biden (who was in Pakistan to observe the elections) --- have said on several occasions, the U.S. needs a Pakistan policy, not a Musharraf policy.

America will have to now deal with a government that is beholden to its voters and their aspirations.

The next U.S. president better have a Pakistan plan ready.

My previous posts on Pakistan:

Musharraf's reign nears end

Pakistan's destiny derailed, yet again

Pakistan in Emergency: Will America's ally hold up?

India, Pakistan turn 60