This time, elections in Pakistan is not the festival that it normally is, one smiling woman with five children clinging to her skirts tells me as I stop to chat to her while she is waiting in her segregated queue to cast her vote. She does not explain why she says this however and I move on. The reasons as to the absence of a truly 'election' feeling however is not hard to come bye; no democratic government in Pakistan (with the sole exception of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, 1972-1977), has yet been able to last out its full term of office and the feeling this time around, is that "this is a selection, rather than an election", as rather pithily put to me by one of Karachi's senior lawyers the day before.

For any foreign observer having the temerity to enter a country not his or her own with the task of coming to any measure of judgement on the manner in which the governance of that country takes place, there are hugely obvious drawbacks. In Pakistan, taking the full measure of the October 11th elections is even tougher for particular reasons. On the eve of the election, Pakistan embodied one of the most tense paradoxes in South Asia; what is to be done when democratic rule has proved to be disastrously corrupt and military rule is not only entrenched but used to subvert the democratic system to a degree that is highly problematic? Stir into this cocktail mix, the rise of religious fundamentalism and the effect on Pakistan of the conveniently termed war against terrorism and one has an explosive result that challenges even the most Machiavellian of planners.

Elections this month were held under a proclamation of emergency issued approximately three years when General Pervez Musharraf took control of the state and assumed the office of Chief Executive of the State, putting the Constitution in abeyance. Thereafter, the Provisional Constitution Order, (issued also in 1999), declared that though courts may continue to function, no court would have the power to make any order against the Chief Executive. Fundamental Rights were rendered largely impotent by the stipulation that only so much of it as was not in conflict with the Proclamation of Emergency and any order made under it, would continue to be in force.

This was supplemented by an order requiring judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts to take a new oath of office in which no reference was made to the Constitution. Instead, they were required to abide by the provisions of the Proclamation of Emergency and the Provisional Constitutional Order. The military regime had the option not to invite any judge to take the oath. And in a scenario reminiscent of Sri Lanka in the late seventies, some judges of the appellate courts were removed from the Bench. Six judges of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, who declined to take the oath, were retired. A later hearing by the reconstituted Court of several petitions challenging the new Orders resulted in the petitions being dismissed. In a controversial ruling, the Court declared the military take-over of October 12, 1999 to be valid under the doctrine of necessity but stated that civil rule must be restored before the expiry of three years from the take-over date. It is as a consequence of this direction that elections were declared and held in Pakistan this month.

Interestingly, the same judgement of the reconstituted Court gave President Musharraf the power to amend the Constitution if it did not offer him means for the attainment of his declared objectives, barring only change of particular provisions relating to federalism and parliamentary form of government in the context of an Islamic state. The regime was also given permission to deviate from the observance of six fundamental rights, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of business or profession, freedom of expression and protection of property rights.

April 2002 meanwhile saw the holding of an even more controversial referendum in favour of President Musharaff's term of office extending to five years beyond the scheduled October 2002 elections. Subsequent orders were issued specifically relating to the conduct of elections, increasing the seats in the Senate, National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies and setting aside reserved seats for women. More problematic orders were also promulgated, seemingly reasonable in their substance but alleged by Pakistani human rights groups to have had the sole objective of disqualifying political opponents of the military regime, notably Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). While the most famed of these orders barred anyone who held the office of Prime Minister or Chief Minister twice at any time from occupying the office for the third time, other orders introduced a degree requirement for all candidates and also disqualified those who had been subject to convictions before a court of law. Given the sequence of these developments, the mood of jubilation that had prevailed throughout Pakistan when the government of Nawaz Sharif (democratic but inept and besieged by allegations of corruption), fell in 1999 to be replaced by Musharraf's rule, soon dissipated.However, what continues to be astonishing is the vibrancy of civil rights activists in that country as opposed to Sri Lanka's civil society, which has comparatively been faced with far less gargantuan tasks of protecting the rule of law.

It was in this context that the October elections were held. The low to moderate polling witnessed on the day itself came as no surprise as was the lack of blatant polls rigging or extreme violence witnessed in Sri Lanka during the past three years. The results were again predictable even up to the wave of popular support that came in for fundamentalist provincial rule in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan. As I.A. Rehman, former Chief Editor of the Pakistan Times and a highly respected analyst said, writing to the Karachi based Dawn newspaper immediately after the elections on the "(Government's) Failed Prescription",

"by exerting itself against the established political parties beyond the limits of reason and prudence, it (Musharraf's regime) has created a big opening for the (religious fundamentalist) coalition, mindless of the consequences…."

In the era of shifting coalitions with compulsive links to fundamentalist parties that has succeeded the October elections in Pakistan, it is feared that the country will come under greater pressure to reject modernism, halt progress towards women's empowerment and the mainstreaming of non Muslim citizens. Over all, of course, presides the personality of General Pervez Musharraf who, with his military dominated National Security Council, will remain the overriding authority in the country for the next five years.

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