After Monday's elections, it looks like the writing's on the wall for the Pakistani strongman:
Two politicians close to Mr. Musharraf have said in the past week that the president was well aware of the drift in the country against him and they suggested that he would not remain in office if the new government was in direct opposition to him. 'He does not have the fire in the belly for another fight,' said one member of his party. He added that Mr. Musharraf was building a house for himself in Islamabad and would be ready soon to move.
On a conference call this morning, Council on Foreign Relations scholar Daniel Markey said that this week's elections "could be the end" of Musharraf's party, the Muslim League-Q. Most of the U.S. coverage of the Pakistani elections has interpreted the results as a "blow" or "setback" to the Bush administration, but Markey noted that "A lot of Pakistanis voted for reasons that had nothing to do with Musharraf's relationship with the United States." Moreover, the major Islamist party, the MMA, lost seats in the Northwest Frontier province. It is hard to argue that elections which promote civilian rule and deal a blow to Islamic extremists are a "setback" for the United States and liberalism.
During the conference call, Markey predicted a period of tumult in Islamabad as the election winners jostle to form a coalition government. That may mean, Markey went on, that in the "near term ... all of the Pakistani political leaders will be very distracted from issues that the United States cares about." It's worth asking, though: compared to whom? Because it is not as if the generals, the ISI, and Musharraf have paid much attention recently to the "issues that the United States cares about" either.
