Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his PML-Q Party have suffered a crushing defeat in what appears to be the freest, fairest parliamentary election in Pakistan since 1970. Give it to Musharraf: for all his dictatorial impulses, he lived up to his promise to ensure “free, fair and transparent” elections. Maybe he recognized that, in power since 1999, he's had his time. The vote certainly points that way.
The two major opposition parties in Pakistan have picked up at least 153 seats, or 56 percent, of the 272-member National Assembly. The biggest winner, not surprisingly, is the Pakistan People's Party, or PPP, formerly led by the late Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December. But the PPP won't have enough seats to form a government on its own.
The vote raises many implications for Pakistan, for US-Pakistan relations, the “war on terror,” and the low-grade al-Qaeda-Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s tribal areas alongside the Afghan border.
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