A Week in Hindustan
Actually, there are many Muslims in India, as well as many Sikhs. Delhi is a cosmopolitan city. Watching the Pakistani news outlets and the Indian news outlets (between the scads of channels devoted to either singing and dancing romantically, or singing and dancing spiritually, or just plain old every-day-is-Sunday TV preachers) was interesting. Everyone is dancing on, or around, the question of what General Musharaff will do after the PML-Q is trounced.
Just as the November election will be about Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and the remainder of the primary race will be about Ohio and Texas on March 4th, and Pennsylvania on April 22nd, the election in Pakistan is all about the Punjab.
The PPP is sweeping the rural areas of the Sindh and the MQM is holding its edge in the Sindh's urban areas. Polls have the PPP at 40 and the MQM at 16 of the directly elected national seats.
The Balouch and Pakhtun nationalist parties are boycotting the election, leaving the pro-regime MMA to take some seats in Balochistan, and the PPP, PML-N and PML-Q to take the balance of the Balochistan's directly elected national seats.
In the North West Frontier Provice, where everyone from Wes Clark to Barak Obama has proposed parachuting in the Saudi Army, or the Utah National Guard, to Hunt for Red Ossama, the MMA has collapsed and Jamaat-i-Islami is now canvassing openly. Again, polling data has the PPP and the ANP (Awami National Party) spliting most of the NWFP's directly elected national seats.
But the Punjab elects 148 of the 272 directly elected seats, so to repeat the obvious, the "national election" in the Punjabi state and its occupied peripheries, governed by the Punjabi Military, is really all about the Punjab, about the balance of forces within the Punjabi state.
Its a three-plus way. The PPP is running on "revenge through democracy" and is running second in the major cities, Nawaz Sharif's PML-N is ahead in the urban areas and picking up surprise seats in Rawalpindi. Rural Punjab is divided, with candidates formerly members of the MMA now scattered to PML-N, PML-Q, the PPP, and the MMA. Like the democratic primaries to date, accumulating delegates with no strategic advantage to either remaining active candidate, the post-election construction of a majority coalition is the only issue. Will the PPP have enough to form a majority without another major party partner, the PML-N in particular? No one asks if the MNA and the PML-Q will have a majority, except through vote fraud.
Major Party Websites:
- PPP, leader: Benazir Bhutto (assassinated)
- PML-N, leader: Nawaz Sharif
- PML-Q, leader: Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi [Musharaff]
- MMA, leader: General Musharaff
As an exercise, color in the blank outline map according to the authoritative news available to you.
Remember, the title for this series is "Is Pakistan?", and related to the question "What will Mushy do if?" is the question "What will Georgie do when?"
Answers in comments.
