Voters reject Musharraf

Trends show that this is the end of the road for the president

ISLAMABAD: The mother of all elections has turned out to be a referendum against President Musharraf. Initial results indicate it’s the waterloo of the Musharraf-backed Pakistan Muslim League (Q), especially in Punjab which was considered its stronghold.

Fifteen people were killed  in incidents of violence across several cities of Sindh and Punjab. Voting was stopped in 12 polling stations after rival parties exchanged gunfire. But overall elections were largely peaceful.

The Pakistan People’s Party of Benazir Bhutto has reportedly bagged most of the national assembly seats in Sindh province and the Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League (N) has managed to create a major fissure in the PML (Q) vote bank.

Though the final results are not expected before Tuesday afternoon, the voting trend, as indicated by the results announced so far, signals more than a tilt in scales — the people of Pakistan have voted out Musharraf as well as the PML (Q).

As the king’s party stumbled, PML (Q) president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain lost at the hands of an unknown PML (N) candidate from the national assembly constituency of Sialkot.

Hussain lost from Gujrat as well. Ahmed Mukhtar of the PPP defeated him with a margin of 13,000 votes.

His cousin, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the prime ministerial candidate of the PML (Q), faced a similar fate as reports indicated he has lost the election from Attock and Chakwal in Punjab.

Monday also proved to be the doomsday for former information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed who has reportedly lost both the national assembly seats from Rawalpindi.

In Lahore, the PML (N) staged an impressive comeback recapturing almost 10 of the 12 NA seats with the remaining two said to have gone to the PPP.

PML (N) also swept all the five NA seats in Sialkot district.

PPP and PML (N) have reportedly won most of the national assembly seats from Rawalpindi. According to rough estimates, the PPP is most likely to win between 50 and 55 of the total 148 seats from Punjab, while the PML (N) is expected to win around 60-65 seats while the PML (Q) lags behind with nearly 20-25 seats, as against its 2002 tally of 76 seats.

In Sindh, unofficial results of almost 40% of the polling stations shows the PPP has won almost 40 of the total 61 seats of the national assembly.

The remaining seats are likely to be won by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the PML-Functional of Pir Pagara. In the North West Frontier Province, the voting trend is indicating a greener pasture in the direction of the secular and liberal Awami National Party (led by Asfandyar Wali Khan) in ties with the People’s Party. Both the parties are set to win around 35 of the total 47 National Assembly seats.

However, a mixed trend can be seen in Balochistan and the candidates of the PML-Q, PPP and Balochistan National Part (BNP) are likely to win most of the 14 National Assembly seats in the wake of the boycott of the 2008 election by the Baloch nationalist parties. 

Those closely monitoring the results of the 2008 elections believe that the PPP is likely to win between 100-110 seats of the total 268 seats (the total seats are 272; election is not being held for four seats), while the PML-N is expected to get around 60-65 seats, the PML-Q around 30 seats, the MQM about 15 and the MMA & ANP almost 10 each.

This will give the PPP, PML-N and the ANP two-thirds majority in the house, and the numbers to impeach President Musharraf as well as reinstate deposed judges of the superior courts.