One week after the elections the battle for a democratic Pakistan has barely begun, reports Graham Usher from Islamabad Islamabad's sedate streets are humming with intrigue. The Pakistani capital's diplomatic corps are getting to know the country's new leaders. The United States ambassador has twice called on Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto and leader of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The British ambassador has twice visited Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's last elected prime minister and head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz faction (PML-N). They bring two tidings. Congratulations on an election win on 18 February that saw the PPP and PML-N command 60 per cent of seats in the new national assembly. And a gentle hint that the next government should not dump President Pervez Musharraf. "How they arrange their coalition is a Pakistani affair," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when asked about the American policy towards the new Pakistani government. But "the president of Pakistan is Pervez Musharraf and so, of course, we will deal with him." It's easy to see why Rice would stand by her man, despite the drubbing his parties received in the elections. For the last seven years Musharraf has been America's "most allied ally" in its "war on terror". He opened Pakistani military bases for the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Some 75 per cent of all NATO supplies in Afghanistan go through Pakistan. And occasionally the Pakistan army captures or assassinates such prized Al-Qaeda scalps as Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, the alleged brain behind the 9/11 attacks. He was picked up in a raid in the garrison town of Rawalpindi in 2003. America's fear is that a civilian leadership in Pakistan may be more in tune with its public opinion, which is viscerally opposed to US foreign policy. According to polls held just prior to the elections, 89 per cent of Pakistanis disapprove of the US "war on terror" and believe their government should have no truck with it; 64 per cent see the US -- not the Taliban or Al-Qaeda -- as the "single greatest threat" to their nation; and seven per cent want "Musharraf to resign immediately". For them the elections were a referendum on the retired General's policies home and abroad -- and the judgement was clear. Washington thinks it can be ignored. In her first meeting with Zardari the US ambassador reportedly enquired whether the PPP would abide by the "deal" initialed last year between Bhutto and Musharraf. In exchange for stepping down as army chief and allowing free elections, the late PPP leader had agreed Musharraf and the army would retain control of "national security" policies like Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The Americans also preferred a coalition without Sharif, whose ties to Pakistan's Islamic parties have long alarmed them. It took two days for the American dream to wake. On 21 February the PPP and PML-N agreed "in principle" to form a government of "national consensus". Zardari said the coalition would be open to all except "pro-Musharraf forces", i.e. those parties Musharraf and his intelligence services confected to "win" the 2002 elections. He said the PPP was ready to talk with anyone, "including those fighting in the mountains" -- a reference to nationalists fighting the army in Balochistan and the Taliban fighting it everywhere else. Above all, he said there was "no disagreement" with the PML-N on "the restoration of the judiciary". Everyone in Pakistan knows what that means. Musharraf sacked most of the senior judiciary, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohamed Chaudhry, when he imposed emergency rule last November. Pakistan's Supreme Court was about to rule his presidential "election" invalid on the constitutional grounds that no serving officer could contest the presidency or any other political position. Musharraf has ruled out the judges' reinstatement. He could, if pressed, dissolve the newly elected assembly. It's not clear whether Washington and the army would be averse to this. However, it is clear Zardari and Sharif are under enormous duress to reach an accommodation with the president and ditch the sacked judiciary. Once they may have buckled. Today it is more difficult. Aitzaz Ahsan is a deputy leader of the PPP and president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association. Last year he led a successful mass movement of lawyers against Musharraf first, botched effort to dismiss Chaudhry. Most analysts see that movement as the beginning of Musharraf's slide to perdition. The lawyers will revive their protests if Chaudhry and the other judges are not reinstated, says Ahsan. "If the judges are not restored by 9 March, the lawyers will launch a long march with the people and they together will sweep away all those who abrogated the constitution and played havoc with the judiciary." He hoped the political parties would be true to the vow they made on 21 February. Otherwise "the political centre of gravity will shift to the lawyers who will take to the streets for their demands". The PPP and PML-N leaderships know this is an arrow aimed at their hearts. It cannot be ducked. In the coming weeks they will have to decide to whom they owe their mandate: the electorate that voted them to office or those foreign and military forces that have the power to keep them there. One week after the elections the battle for Pakistan has barely begun.
