Worries Surround Pakistani Elections

Fairness of Process Is Widely Doubted; Violent Reaction by Losers Seen Likely

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 6 -- Despite the candidates' colorful posters papering road signs and storefronts, the political atmosphere two weeks before Pakistan's parliamentary elections is as bleak and foreboding as the gray winter sky shrouding much of the country.

Candidates have largely abstained from any meaningful campaigning given their fears of bombings and the government's decision to discourage large public rallies. The December assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has left the opposition without its most popular leader and cast a persistent pall over the run-up to the elections.

Many Pakistanis are convinced that the Feb. 18 polling will be systematically rigged by the caretaker government and that, as a result, angry opposition supporters will erupt in violence. While U.S. and European officials have pressed Pakistan to proceed with the vote, some here still expect the elections to be postponed at the last minute. Even if the vote is held, its credibility will be in doubt.

"The conditions are so abnormal that many people are questioning the very meaning and validity of the exercise, and they fear the results in such a polarized atmosphere can lead to mass bloodshed," said Rifaat Hussain, a defense and political analyst. "Whoever is defeated will have an easy excuse not to accept the results."

President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly promised that the elections will be free and fair. But opposition groups charge that the president, who stepped down as army chief in November, will manipulate the outcome to favor his political party and preserve his role in power.

Leaders of both major opposition parties have alleged that their election workers have been harassed and that the apparatus and influence of district administrations have been used to fix the vote. Hundreds of local officials, with the duty to play a neutral role in the elections, have close relatives running for office.

"It is not a question of whether the elections will be fair, but of how much unfairness people are willing to stomach," said Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, director of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency. "Even if all goes well on election day, people fear a period of serious instability and confrontation will follow."

Independent institutions, including the electronic media, the judiciary and the legal establishment, are still suffering from the effects of emergency rule imposed by Musharraf in November and lasting six weeks. The former chief justice of the Supreme Court and other senior judges are still suspended; after three opposition leaders from the legal community were released from custody recently, authorities rearrested them almost immediately.

Plans to monitor the vote are being constrained by insecurity. Several Pakistani civic groups hope to place monitors at the polls in all 272 voting districts, and an election team from the European Union is here. But an observer mission from the United States has been pulled out, and the army has rebuffed requests from political parties to patrol on election day.

A suicide bombing Monday that targeted an army medical bus, killing 11 people and injuring 45 in the garrison city of Rawalpindi just outside the capital, served as a stark reminder of the violent insurgency by Islamic extremist groups. Seeking to sabotage Pakistan's stability and progress toward democratic rule, they have defied both military assaults and political negotiations.

Authorities have blamed such groups for the assassination of Bhutto, whom the extremists despised as a secular leader. But threats are also being made against candidates from conservative Islamic parties, whose influence is said to be waning as younger militants become more radical. One such figure, Maulana Fazlur Rahman of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islami party, has been reduced to campaigning via phone and CD after warnings of a suicide attack.

Bhutto's followers say they are determined to compete in the elections, and candidates from her Pakistan People's Party are hoping to benefit enough from a wave of sympathy to win control of Parliament. But they say they fully expect the official results to go otherwise -- and then will have no option but to take to the streets.

"The people of Pakistan want to take revenge by the ballot, but they will not accept government manipulation," said Mahmad Matloob, a party official from the region of Jammu and Kashmir. "We are in this election only to struggle for democracy. We do not believe in the gun. But if our vote is stolen, it will be a great danger for peace."

The other major opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League faction led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, is also formally fielding candidates but has denounced the polling as a farce. Raja Zafar ul-Haq, the usually circumspect party chairman, this week predicted there would be "vast rigging," leading to "chaos" and "a serious public reaction."

In theory, the elections could offer a rare interregnum chance for Pakistanis to make a clear choice between democratic change and the top-down status quo; a chance for the military to withdraw from politics after years of meddling; and a chance for progressive forces to defeat politically weakened religious parties.

With the credibility of the process in serious doubt, however, some analysts say the elections could do more harm than good at this tense moment. No significant issues are being debated, turnout is expected to be very low, and any result is likely to produce fraud allegations and violence. If the government wins, no one will believe it; if the opposition wins, the country may be in for an ugly confrontation between Parliament and the presidency.

"These elections are unique in Pakistan's history, but there is such huge uncertainty surrounding them," said Hussain, the analyst. "Musharraf's future is riding on the outcome, and the perception is that the results are a foregone conclusion. But nobody knows what the aftermath will be."