Islamists Win Big in Pakistan Election

The biggest winners in this week's Pakistani election may well be the anti-American Islamists. A multi-party Islamist coalition known as United Action Front (or MMA) did surprisingly well, winning control for the first time of the Northwest Frontier provincial legislature, and also becoming the third largest bloc in the fragmented national parliament.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the main force in the Islamist coalition, has made clear that his goal is to establish Islamic Shaaria law in Pakistan, and to "eliminate Western culture from our country." Lutz Kleveman, writing for Der Spiegel, has what may be the first western interview with Qazi since the election. Kleveman calls Qazi the winner of the election and claims that his coalition received nearly half the votes. I can't find independent confirmation of the vote count, but what is clear is that Qazi's victory represents an upturn in Islamist and anti-American sentiment and is a slap in the face to Musharraf's alliance with the US. This is not an encouraging sign.

Some reports quote Qazi's colleagues as saying that "We are ready to cooperate with the U.S. in the war against terrorism, but they should not expect support from us in a war against Islam or Muslims". But Qazi says nothing concilliatory toward the US in the interview, only that the US was unjustified in attacking Afghanistan (which he says had nothing to do with 9/11), and that Qazi's allies the Taliban are honorable men. He says his strong showing in the polls amounts to a "revolution" (echoes of Khomeini?), and he questions whether Al Qaeda has ever existed in the first place.

I think it's important to hear the Islamists speaking for themselves. Read the whole interview, and see for yourself what one of Pakistan's most important ascendant figures sounds like. Remember that Pakistan has the world's first Islamic nuclear weapon. Qazi, for me, makes the case for pro-active non-proliferation.

(I suspect that the interview was actually conducted in English, but it was published only in German [here]. I translated it back into English. If I can reach Kleveman, I'll ask him if he's willing to share the original English version).

Bonus article: Kleveman filed a few other stories on the Pakistani election for Der Spiegel. In this article, he says that many women were actively prevented from voting. In the Tribal Areas, men who failed to prevent their wives or sisters from going to the polls were subject to heavy fines and threatened with having their houses demolished.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 13, 2002 04:39 PM