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Grare: Pakistan Facing Period of 'Governmental Instability'

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: Frédéric Grare, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

February 19, 2008

Frederic Grare, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says Pakistan faces governmental instability following parliamentary elections, as the leading opposition parties face a decision on whether to impeach President Pervez Musharraf. If they do not, he says, they will face the question of how to otherwise apportion power in the new civilian government. Grare regards the election not as an anti-American vote but rather driven by opposition to Musharraf, and he expects the civilians winners will try to establish good relations with Washington.

Pakistan had its national assembly elections, and the initial results seem to show a tremendous defeat for the party most supportive of President Pervez Musharraf. Do you think these numbers will hold up? And what does the future hold?

They will hold up unless there is a big surprise tomorrow [February 20], because the official results will be announced only tomorrow. As for the future, we are probably in for a long period of governmental instability. Clearly the interests of the leading opposition parties, the PPP [Pakistan People’s Party] and the PML-N [Pakistan Muslim League (N)], converge now and they are cooperating. It’s not definite that this coalition will last very long. And there are two possibilities there. If they get a sizeable majority, which is not completely clear yet, they can either decide to impeach Musharraf, and the temptation will probably be there to do so, helped by pressure from the grassroots as well. If they do so, they will eventually face off against each other and then we don’t know what will happen. If they don’t, then there is a possibility that Musharraf plays their own division against each other. So we’re basically in for a period of governmental instability. But governmental instability means no more than that.

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Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.