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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Jan. 2 he will deploy the army during the general elections scheduled for Feb. 18. He did not say what would happen to anyone brazen enough to question the results.
The political situation in Pakistan is chaotic and delicate. The Dec. 27 assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto undid most of the political compromises made in the past several months — Bhutto was widely expected to be invited into the government in the aftermath of the upcoming elections. Now Pakistan’s various factions — especially those within the military, the only institution in Pakistan that truly matters — are all scrambling for alternatives.
For Musharraf, Bhutto’s departure from this world is a mixed blessing. While it certainly complicates his efforts to maintain control — Bhutto would have, after all, been joining his government — it also forces everyone else into a new round of negotiations with each other. As president and, until recently, military chief, Musharraf holds an institutional advantage in that race. He is one man with an apparatus at his back, rather than a collection of men who need to consult and build an alliance.
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