Musharraf’s drubbing: Nothing personal

Musharraf’s drubbing: Nothing personal

Philadelphia Inquirer: Maybe the Bush administration has finally learned that global alliances shouldn’t be personality-based, now that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf seems to be losing his grip on power.

Musharraf wasn’t on the ballot in Monday’s parliamentary elections. But voters’ rebuff of his party’s candidates served as a referendum on his leadership. Musharraf’s party won only about 40 seats in the 272-member National Assembly. The Pakistan People’s Party, whose leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, led the balloting, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The election has opened a door for the United States to retreat from its support of Musharraf. “This is an opportunity to move from a policy that has been focused on a personality to one based on an entire people,” said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who, with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., observed the Pakistani elections.

Dividend time

Biden further suggested an increase in U.S. aid to the new government, once it has been formed, as a “democracy dividend” to encourage it to continue the fight against terrorists holed up in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

That’s not a bad idea, but it will have to wait for the Pakistanis to sort out what comes next. It is possible that Musharraf could form a government with one of the other parties. But not likely.

One thing that is already clear is that the United States shouldn’t cling to the man President Bush once called “my buddy.”

Musharraf embarrassed his White House buddies in November when he fired the chief justice of Pakistan’s supreme court and arrested the president of the bar association because they criticized him. His hesitation to fight the Taliban has thwarted efforts to secure a region infested by terrorists, including al-Qaida.