A State of Disarray

One of the more troublesome phrases widely used by the political classes involve the words "seen to be." Less often do these people simply say "are" or "is."
A case in point are the comments of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband who said of the delayed Pakistani elections that "it is vital not just that we have a date for elections, but also that those elections are seen to be free and fair." Apparently, it's asking too much to have a distinguished person such as Miliband straightforwardly say it's vital that Pakistani elections are free and fair.
In announcing the delay, Musharraf said "elections will be free, fair and transparent [but] we also must ensure elections are peaceful." Of course, his support for the democratic process goes well beyond mere voting. This is the man, after all, who casually dismissed Pakistan's Supreme Court justices and replaced them with more malleable judges (an action termed a "reshuffling" by Assistant Secretary Of State For South And Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher) who would rubberstamp his "legitimacy".
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It's no surprise, then, that Musharraf's "desire" for electoral transparency is seen as farcical.
The Pakistani Dawn news site reported that Benazir Bhutto "was poised to reveal proof the night she was assassinated that the Election Commission and a shadowy spy agency were seeking to rig the elections." Bhutto's evidence reportedly included "documentation rigging tactics" using fake ballots "and were in some cases unwittingly funded by US aid."
Ah, yes. That problematic US aid.
In a January 1 letter to Secretary of State Rice, members of the US House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations reportedly threatened aid cuts to Pakistan if elections were not held as scheduled and if the government refused to hold an independent inquiry into Bhutto’s assassination. The letter reads in part, "without being satisfied that an investigation is truly impartial and independent, and with the belief that elections were postponed in order to further setback the democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people, we will focus intently on the status of these funds already withheld and may seek additional restrictions in the future appropriations bills." (Perhaps not surprisingly, shortly thereafter Musharraf announced that a Scotland Yard team would investigate Bhutto's death). Yet even as members of Congress voiced their concerns, Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract to sell Pakistan 18 F-16 aircraft.
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Given the dubiousness of Pakistan's election commission independence from Musharraf (as noted by Bhutto's reported accusations), it's impossible to take seriously Musharraf's comments that "he had wanted to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled on January 8, but he deferred to the election commission which formally announced earlier in the day to postpone them for six weeks until February 18. 'The election commission has taken a timely and correct decision," the president said."
Bhutto wrote in a December 10 column for the Christian Science Monitor that "democracy offers the best hope of containing extremism. Yet democracy depends on a fair electoral process and an independent election commission willing and able to implement Pakistan's electoral laws to prevent vote fraud. That is not happening."
No, indeed. And with US "help," it may never happen.