After Benazir Bhutto's assassination last week left western policy towards Pakistan in tatters, a clearer picture is now emerging. If, as is likely, an election is held within weeks, party politics will reassert itself, though not necessarily with an outcome to the west's liking.
The current thinking in British and US circles was founded on a deal between Bhutto and Musharraf, whereby a transition to democracy would have led to Bhutto opening up the democratic option, but on the understanding that the military would remain in the frame. This was intended to tie in the military to the anti-Islamist agenda. But facts on the ground may force a change. If elections are held soon, a plausible scenario has it that Bhutto's party, the PPP, will emerge with a decisive win. If Nawaz Sharif - another deposed prime minister - secures a credible second place for his more conservative religious party, PML-N, the result could be a coalition between the two parties. Such a coalition could engineer the ouster of Musharraf as president by reinstating the dismissed supreme court, which would then rule that Musharraf's appointment as president earlier this year was unconstitutional.
If, on the other hand, elections are delayed for several months – Musharraf's preference – then civil unrest will break down the day-to-day running of the country. The two main parties will claim, rightly, that the extended delay is not legitimate, and is a mere excuse for Musharraf to rig the poll. The main Islamist party, Jamaat-i-Islami, which is currently boycotting the poll, will then probably come back into the fray. In this case, the "transition" hoped for by London and Washington may well become a transformation, with sufficient upheaval and instability on Pakistan's western frontier to destabilise our strategy for Afghanistan as well, which is predicated on Pakistan's military being within our ambit of influence.
Yet both the transition and transformation scenarios will be dependent on the wild card – the army. The question that really matters is whether its new chief of staff, General Kiyani, will be the Musharraf loyalist he was appointed to be, or his own man. If he intervenes to support Musharraf, the west will find itself again on the wrong side of the democratic current. If he does not and decides that the army now belongs in the barracks for a period of renewal, and therefore lets Musharraf fall, the west will have to trust the democrats, pro-Islamist as they may be. Either way, London and Washington need fresh thinking.
