Pakistan The Cycle Is Broken

By EDWARD W. DESMOND

Despite charges of corruption and mismanagement leveled against her, Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party were confident of winning at the polls last week. They bought victory advertisements in the newspapers even before the results were known. The ads appeared next morning, but Bhutto's victory did not. The surprise runaway winner was the Islamic Democratic Alliance, a loose coalition of eight, mostly right-leaning parties, most of which sat in opposition to the former Prime Minister during her 20 months in power. The winners captured 105 of the 216 seats contested for the National Assembly, while Bhutto's party ended with 45, down from 93 in 1988.

As the results came in, Bhutto charged fraud. "I am angry and shocked," she said, "at the way the elections have been rigged." But those allegations have received little endorsement so far from two international poll-watching teams. Said interim Prime Minister and Islamic Democratic Alliance leader Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi: "We cannot depend on the whims and fantasies of a young lady, attractive though she may be for the media at home and abroad. The country has given its verdict."

The alliance's victory is a relief for President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who dismissed Bhutto's government in August, and for the military leaders who encouraged his move. But Bhutto's drama is not over. Several pending misconduct cases could bar her from politics for seven years, and criminal charges against her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, could send him to prison for 17 years. The coalition, for its part, needs to come up with solutions to the issues troubling the country, including a critical economic situation and sour relations with Washington.

But for the moment, the alliance is savoring its defeat of Bhutto, who had seemed unstoppable since she returned from exile in 1986 to restore elected government and avenge her father's death at the hands of the late President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. Bhutto stormed the country as the savior of democracy and won enough seats in the 1988 race to form a government.

As it turned out, crusading against military dictatorship was far easier than running a government. In 20 months Bhutto's administration accomplished little besides developing a reputation for corruption, antagonizing the powerful army leadership and proving incapable of ending ethnic conflict in her home province of Sind. Citing parts of that record, the President dissolved her government in August and called for fresh elections.

Bhutto fought back. She derided her dismissal as a "constitutional coup" and labeled the charges against herself and her husband "persecution." But the appeal to Pakistani emotions did not work this time; instead, she seems to have been dragged down by the corruption charges. Said Hussain Haqqani, spokesman for the Islamic Democratic Alliance: "The nation is sick of the cycle of martial law and the Bhuttos. The cycle has to be broken."

Her opponents also scored with unsubstantiated claims that Bhutto was somehow responsible for a cutoff in $600 million in annual U.S. aid earlier this month. The reason for the aid stoppage was President Bush's inability to certify that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear weapon -- a requirement under U.S. law for the aid to continue -- and it had nothing to do with Pakistan's domestic affairs. Still, alliance leaders blamed Bhutto for the aid cutoff and at the same time accused her of cooperating with the U.S. to impede the nuclear-bomb program. Because of widespread support among Pakistanis for the covert nuclear program, the point hit home.

Although Bhutto's allegations of vote fraud have not been borne out so far by international monitoring groups, the fairness of the caretaker government and the President during the campaign left much to be desired. Like Bhutto, the alliance may discover that winning power is the easy part. Pakistan needs a new government in a hurry. Foreign-exchange coffers have reportedly dwindled to a few weeks' reserve, and talks with the International Monetary Fund for an immediate infusion of $244 million have stalled. The fund wants Pakistan to move swiftly in taking some difficult economic steps, including at least a 40% increase in gasoline prices.

The new government will also have to move quickly to repair relations with Washington if Pakistan wants to continue receiving $600 million in aid each year. In Congress there is considerable skepticism that President Ishaq Khan played fair, and lawmakers are likely to require the Bush Administration to certify that the elections were untainted before releasing the aid. Perhaps far more important, Islamabad will have to satisfy Washington on the nuclear issue. The alliance leadership championed the bomb in its campaign as a counter to the threat from India, but the U.S. has long viewed the arrival of the Pakistani bomb as a decided threat to world stability. Given the problems ahead, Bhutto may be relieved to be sitting in opposition.

With reporting by Kathleen Evans/Islamabad and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington