Surprize!
Musharraf has postponed the election until February and Nawaz Sharif, a longtime Bhutto rival, previously boycotting the election, is now running.
"The other, somewhat smaller, main opposition party, the faction of the
Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif, said it was ready to
participate in the vote on Jan. 8."
Clearly, an election, on schedule, so soon after Bhutto's assassination
would garner a huge sympathy vote and, since a lot of PPP stalwarts
can't see anything but red and blame Musharraf, well, that'd benefit
Sharif. The article also states that the US is pushing for elections earlier:
"A February election date would probably be acceptable to the Bush
administration, even though the Americans have been pushing for the
elections to go ahead on schedule, the Musharraf party member said."
At this point, all we're doing is providing Musharraf's party someone to quote and therefore someone to indirectly blame for his actions. We should take our time and watch him flounder.
Granted, they can't really hold equitable elections after the post-assassination riots:
"In 11 districts of Sindh Province, offices of assistant election
commissioners have been burned to the ground," [Elections Commission secretary] Dilshad said. "Nothing
is left."
Well played, sirs, well played. Now if our politicians could only stop trying to make a media event out of it (
that means you, John Edwards), maybe Pakistani politicians would take some responsibility for their actions.