- ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Hardline
Islamic parties opposed to the U.S. role in Afghanistan made surprising
gains on Friday in Pakistan's polls, potentially giving them the balance
of power in a coalition set to take over from a military regime.
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- With most of the national assembly's 272 constituency
seats decided, a party loyal to President Pervez Musharraf led the way
but was well short of an overall majority in a election designed to restore
civilian rule after a 1999 military coup.
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- Religious parties exploited anger at Pakistan's cooperation
in the U.S.-led war on terror to virtually sweep the board in conservative
parts of western Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.
-
- Widespread voter apathy and the fact that former prime
ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were both excluded from the polls
also appeared to have played into their hands.
-
- Political commentators said the rise of religious parties
-- some of them vocal supporters of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime
-- could transform the political landscape in Pakistan.
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- "This is extremely significant and ominous,"
said Najam Sethi, editor of the influential Friday Times. "They are
a very serious force to be reckoned with."
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- With results in from 226 seats, a pro-Musharraf faction
of the Pakistan Muslim League, the PML(QA), had 70 seats.
-
- Independent and regional parties were likely to swing
behind PML(QA) -- dubbed the "king's party" for its support for
Musharraf -- in its efforts to form a coalition government.
-
- But the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) religious alliance
had won 47 seats in the national assembly, compared to just two for its
member parties in the 1997 elections.
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- It also took control of two of the country's four provincial
assemblies, in Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province.
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- AVOID CONFRONTATION
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- With the MMA parties controlling the levers of power
in those provinces "the task of hunting down the rebellious Taliban
and hostile al Qaeda will become almost impossible," said Sethi, adding
they might also start enforcing sharia Islamic law.
-
- But Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party
and MMA vice president, said the religious groups would aim to avoid confrontation
with Pakistan's powerful military.
-
- "We will adopt a prudent policy. We will work in
consultation with all internal forces," he told Reuters in his hometown
of Nowshera. "No one is a fool to put himself or his nation into trouble."
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- Musharraf's exiled main political rivals -- Bhutto and
Sharif -- were both excluded from the polls, and in their absence their
parties performed well below expectations. Both leaders accused the government
of rigging the vote count.
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- Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party had won 48 seats by 1630
GMT and Sharif's Muslim League faction PML(N) just 13 seats.
-
- "I have no doubt in my mind the worst kind of rigging
is going on," Sharif told Reuters by telephone from Medina in Saudi
Arabia, saying that pro-government candidates who had admitted defeat on
Thursday night were suddenly being declared winners.
-
- "These figures are totally contrary to exit polls,"
Bhutto said from London, claiming her information showed the PPP would
have won a narrow majority if the vote count had been fair.
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- "It has been a highly controversial election and
we believe there has been widespread rigging."
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- ALLY OF THE MILITARY
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- Musharraf has won fulsome praise in Washington for the
way he has cooperated in war on terror and the hunt for al Qaeda and Taliban
militants fleeing Afghanistan. But his closeness to the United States has
not always gone down so well at home.
-
- Ironically, the religious right has traditionally been
an ally of the military in Pakistan, used as a bulwark against mainstream
secular parties. The MMA was also one of the only groups allowed to campaign
freely in the run-up to the poll.
-
- Nevertheless its strong showing was seen by many as a
headache for Musharraf.
-
- "The problem is that the religious parties have
to satisfy their constituents, now they are in parliament," said Samina
Ahmed of the International Crisis Group. "You're going to have a major
confrontation with parliament over foreign policy."
-
- Others, though, argued that this result was just what
Musharraf wanted, and would allow him to extract more concessions from
the West as the only bulwark against Islamic extremism.
-
- "My information...is that they are giving Frontier
to the MMA," Bhutto said. "They are doing this so they can tell
the U.S 'you need a tinpot dictator strutting on the stage, otherwise the
Taliban will take over'."
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- Musharraf enjoys broad support among Pakistan's 140 million
people for fighting corruption and imposing a sense of stability after
a decade of infighting between the main parties which ended in his seizing
power from Sharif in 1999.
-
- He promised to restore civilian rule by early November,
but a series of constitutional changes enhancing his powers ahead of the
poll has convinced many Pakistanis he intends to continue to run the country
under the guise of a civilian government.
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- Musharraf has given himself the right to dissolve parliament,
institutionalized the military's role in politics and effectively barred
Bhutto and Sharif from returning or ever becoming prime minister again.
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- The changes came hard on the heels of a widely criticized
referendum that extended his presidential term by five years.
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