PPP and PML-N Sweep Polls
Aaj Television, a major Pakistani news channel, estimates that the leading opposition parties, the People’s Party (PPP) and Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), together will receive approximately 78% of the total parliamentary seats. If the estimate holds true, the PPP and PML-N will have the ability to impeach President Pervez [...]

Musharraf-Allied, Former Ruling Party Faces Major Losses
People’s Party and Muslim-League Nawaz Lead Nationally
Awami National Party Ahead in NWFP
Shujaat Hussain, Sheikh Rashid, and Amir Hussain Defeated

Polls officially opened in Pakistan at 8AM local time (10PM, Sunday in New York) and will close at 5PM (7AM, New York). The opening was delayed in many locations due [...]

Managed Competition
Millions of Pakistanis will head to the polls today, ostensibly to select their federal and provincial representatives, who in turn will choose the new prime minister and chief ministers. Will their votes matter? To a certain extent, yes. These elections are an exercise in managed competition.

In many electoral districts, the voting public will genuinely [...]

With Pakistan’s elections scheduled for next Monday, the political parties are in their final press for votes.  As noted earlier, Asif Ali Zardari is leading the People’s Party campaigning in Punjab.  The PPP will perform well in Sindh, outside of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) stronghold of Karachi.  The real battle has been and always [...]

In a national address this evening in Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf sought to legitimize the delay in elections announced earlier in the day. He attributed the polls delay–now slated for February 18–to the infrastructural damage in Sindh as a result of the violence following Bhutto’s murder. The election commission’s offices in the province, for [...]

CNN reports that Benazir Bhutto was to give U.S. officials a “secret” document on the day she was killed. The document details measures by which Pakistan’s intelligence services would allegedly rig the elections. Bhutto intended to give the dossier first to Sen. Arlen Specter then to presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The [...]

NAWAZ THROWS HIS HAT IN THE RING
The second of Pakistan’s two major opposition parties has bitten the forbidden fruit. Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N announced yesterday that they will contest the upcoming national and provincial assembly elections in January.
The decision comes after Sharif and PPP head Benazir Bhutto failed to come to terms on [...]

The Benazir-Nawaz team is expected to release its “Charter of Demands” tomorrow or Friday.  A sticking point between the two parties is the restoration of the pre-November 3rd judiciary.  Benazir favors postponing that to after the new National Assembly comes in (if ever), while Nawaz has consistently asserted that this is a pre-condition for his [...]

Pakistan’s Election Commission began accepting nominations today for national and provincial assemblies. As a result, the Pakistani government has released thousands of political prisoners, including senior figures that could run in the elections, such as Imran Khan. Others, such as Javed Hashmi and Aitzaz Ahsan, remain imprisoned, though there have been reports [...]

Developments in Pakistan in recent days further the view for both insiders and outsiders that the country is a perplexing bowl of contradictions and political intrigue.
KSE RISES
The Karachi Stock Exchange closed at all-time highs on Monday and Tuesday. Investor confidence boosted due to Pervez Musharraf’s re-election as president (pending the validation of [...]