Analysis of Stunning Gains by Religious Parties in Pakistan’s Elections

Good article.

I think the voting poor public has just stated how much worse could the maulvis be in comparison with the previous non-maulvi leaderships.

The success of the religious parties in Pakistan, is due to the following reasons, in my opinion.

1) The non-religious parties have not done anything for Pakistan, except bringing it to the point of being a failed state. Other than giving the already influential upper-class of Pakistan, a ``liberal`` atmosphere to have fun, they have done absolutely nothing for the poor (except make them poorer). The poor have given the non-religious army, the non-religious ethnic parties and the non-religious feudal parties a chance. All have failed them. Now they are giving the religious parties a chance.

Had the non-religious parties of Pakistan turned Pakistan into Singapore (or even Malyasia), rest assured, no one would have moved away from them, regardless of how much the US bombed any country.

2) The religious parties united as one party. Traditionally, religous parties have two or three separate unions of parties. This time they had one. They traditionally get around 7% of the vote. This time they got around 11%. So the vote count went up by 50%. But the seat count went up by 26 fold.

3) The areas where the religious parties did well share an ethnic affinity with certain groups in Afghanistan. And they were obviously unhappy with the US using Pakistan to bomb their co-ethnics.

4) In urban Sind, people were tired of the militancy, the bhatta taxes, and the virtual rule over Karachi by the MQM thugs. So they have voted the religious parties back in, in some areas. Before MQM, religious parties were quite popular there.

5) People are tired of the sardar/feudal based politics of Baluchistan, which has left that area one of the least developed in the world. They were bound to vote for a change, and the religious parties are the only ones willing to take on the feudals.

6) The candidates put up by the religious parties, in most cases, were from amongst the people they were representing. Apart from a few, they were unlike the rich candidates of PPP and PML, who spent their whole lives in Lahore and Karachi and show up in their rural areas just to get votes.

On the whole, the religious parties won fair and square. The parties they defeated (ANP, MQM, PML(Q)) are all Musharraf supporters. So, it would be wrong to state that they were brought in by the govt. PPP traditionally rarely wins even a few seats in NWFP or Baluchistan. Thus anyone who was arguing for democracy before must allow the MMA their breathing room in politics, otherwise Pakistan will end up like Algeria, Egypt and Turkey (a country which keeps banning religious parties, due to which the religious parties keep winning more and more elections).

Unfortunately, people who argued vehemently for elections during Musharraf`s martial law have quickly changed colors as the results have not been to their likings. Conspiracy theories galore!!

The feudal and racistly ethnic domination of Pakistani politics has removed the moderate middle-class individual from Pakistani politics. There are actually no non-ethnic middle class parties in Pakistan (other than perhaps PTI). The feudal parties are now trying to sell themselves as secular alternatives to religious parties. Primarily because they have nothing else to offer, other than looting the country.

I think all of this is a healthy phenomenon. Someone needs to kick out the super-upper class feudal parties. The common poor man could care less about co-education, rock concerts, and arts. He just wants a job. And the only parties willing to give the poor man a representation (rightly or wrongly) are the religious parties.

I don`t think this is a vote for religion. Pakistan could not have become religious in just three years. It is a vote for change. It is a vote for moving from a big evil (feudal parties) to a lesser evil (religious parties). This is what democracy is supposed to do. Keep getting rid of evils, until a good group emerges. Hopefully, PPP, PML and MQM will now understand that they can be replaced if they keep hoodwinking the country.

With one province under religious parties (NWFP), two under feudal parties (Sind, Punjab) and one jointly ruled (Baluchistan), it will be interesting to see which one develops the fastest. My guess is the poor of NWFP will develop the fastest, while the rich of NWFP will get fed up of the restrictions that will be put in by the MMA and move to Lahore, Islamabad etc.. However, I don`t think NWFP will develop fast enough to satisfy the people, and eventually the religious parties will be voted out also. At that point, with the feudals, Army and maulvis discredited, Pakistan should start getting moderate, progressive, honest middle class, non-racist leadership into power.

Unfortunately, all the Pakistanis who benefit from the status quo, ``failed state`` leaderships of Pakistan, will try their best to maintain the status quo and promote the feudal parties by pointing to them being more secular than the maulvis, conveniently ignoring the corruption and massive misrule of these groups. Similarly, all the groups who support religious parties will continue to point to their religionism as a reason to keep them in power. Both these groups need to be discredited. And I think that process may have just begun.

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It is easy to blame all the past problems on British colonialism and prsent one on US hegemony, exonerating ourselves of any blame.
Author has not considered the possibility of no 9/11 and no US involvement and Taliban still ruling Afghanistan. I pointed that out in my article by suggesting even worse scenario of King`s parties and religious right cooperation. Musharraf would have had much easier time, winning with less rigging, the election based upon military-mullah-PML(Q) nexus.
With or without US involvement in Afghanistan, the power of religious parties would have increased due to overkilling two major political parties as well as voter apathy.
The absence of cold-war era clear ideological divide of left and right of major political forces has contributed to voters apathy. While the tenacity and voters enthusiasm to religious parties remained constant, the traditional left-right voters lost the enthusiasm to back anybody on ideological basis. It might be useful reading, ``In defense of the left`` again with voter enthusiasm perspective.
[General Musharraf, as well as the majority party in the National Assembly, must find a way to work with MMA,.......]
Musharraf is part of the problem, not solution. Get rid of the problem for any solutioin!