Pakistan takes stock after bloody council polls

Pakistan counted the dead as well as the votes a day after violence marred local polls seen as a first step to securing President Pervez Musharraf a mandate to stay in power after general elections due in 2007.

Newspapers reported at least 29 people were killed during the second stage of voting on Thursday, adding to the 16 killed a week earlier in the first phase of district council elections Musharraf revived to promote grass-roots democracy.

Provincial government officials said the figure was far lower, arguing that many of the killings were unrelated to the election, but whoever’s version is closer to the truth the overall levels of violence appeared par for the course for a Pakistan election.

“Six or seven people were killed in Punjab in a few incidents of violence, but overall the election was held in a peaceful environment,” Rahim Nawaz Durrani, election commissioner in  Punjab province.

Officially, political parties were unable to participate in the elections for 110 councils, but unofficially it has been a different story.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and its junior partners lost no time in declaring themselves winners after the first phase, while opposition parties leveled accusations of ballot box stuffing and other malpractices.

Dwindling support for Islamists
Acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar told the Daily Times that no complaints of rigging had been reported to him.

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The turnout was estimated at between 45 and 50 percent and with counting still going on, results are expected to emerge over the weekend.

The Dawn and Jang newspapers both predicted victory for government parties in Punjab and Sindh, the most populous of Pakistan’s four provinces.

Another outcome of the first phase that went in Musharraf’s favor was an apparent dwindling of support for Islamist parties, notably in North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan.

In the third and final phase of these elections, the elected councilors will vote themselves on Sept. 29 for district or sub-district chiefs known as nazims.

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The nazims’ influence is expected to play a key role in campaigning for provincial and national assemblies when general elections are held in two years time.

General Musharraf, who came to power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, is expected to stand for office in 2007 and is widely expected to be voted in by the assemblies that emerge from the general elections.

A key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Musharraf won a controversial referendum in 2002 to become president and was then endorsed by parliament.

Tainted civilian rule
His two main rivals are former premiers whose governments were tainted with graft and ran the country to the brink of bankruptcy in a decade of civilian rule that lasted until the end of the 1990s.

Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister ousted by Musharraf, both live in exile.

While they can still count on popular support, ordinary Pakistanis needing the government to provide services are less likely to vote for parties with no chance of power.

“I voted for the candidate who can resolve our problems and not because of which political party he belonged to,” said Taajamul Hussain, the owner of a public call office in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

Any stumble by the PML, a party of factions cobbled back together after Sharif’s removal, might have prompted Musharraf to reach some accommodation with Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose liberal leanings are more in step with his own image than the more conservative PML.