Ballots Over Bullets

Dem

ocracy, even in diluted form, can shock, undo and turn over the established order, as it did in both Pakistan and Kashmir last week. For President Pervez Musharraf, the election was intended to fulfill his promise to end one man rule—while ensuring he retained his own stranglehold on power. Early returns, however, indicated a fundamentalist coalition, the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), was the unintended beneficiary of Musharraf's banning of past political powerhouses Benazir Bhutto and Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif from standing for office. The startling result calls into question Musharraf's grip on power and his ability to closely support America's war on terror.

Meanwhile, the wholly unexpected results in Kashmir were a cause for optimism as a family dynasty crumbled—and a rare ray of hope shone from its rubble. The dynasty was that of Omar Abdullah,a fresh-faced 32 year old whose grandfather and father have controlled Kashmiri politics since India got its independence. Omar was supposed to rejuvenate the clan's National Conference party; if it won the election, he would have become the state's chief minister. When votes were tallied at a local convention hall (named after his grandfather) in Omar's intended constituency of Gandherbal last Thursday, his supporters eagerly followed the count. But Omar broke away and parked himself beneath a tree, where he sipped coffee and flipped morosely through an airport thriller. He knew it wasn't going well, and was right: the National Conference won 28 seats in the 87-seat state assembly. Omar himself was not elected.

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Omar's disappointment, however, was probably the best news out of the embattled region in ages—and a possible breakthrough in the Kashmir Gordian knot. Kashmiris embraced the democratic process as a means of somehow going forward: turnout was 44%, compared to the pointedly apathetic participation in 1996 elections. They trusted India's vow that the polls wouldn't be rigged (as they have been in the past) and India came through. That's an amazing show of mutual good faith following 13 years of anti-Indian militancy and more than 36,000 lives lost. Militant groups attacked polling stations and assassinated candidates—in total, 800 people died. Far from discrediting the poll, the chaos actually gave it greater credibility: Kashmiris risked their lives to cast their votes. "Kashmir doesn't want to be caught in the cross-fire anymore between India and Pakistan," says Talat Masood, a political analyst in Islamabad. "They want a peaceful solution."

Omar Abdullah paid for the sins of his father and grandfather and the corruption in their governments. A surprise beneficiary from the elections is Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who insisted on a fair election no matter what the outcome. That put him at odds with his own Bharatiya Janata Party and Omar's National Conference, which is a partner in Vajpayee's ruling coalition. Vajpayee even declined to campaign in the state—which Kashmiris took not as a slight but as a signal that the Prime Minister saw the elections as part of a healing process, not an opportunity for political gain.

Just over the border in Pakistan, Musharraf was stung by the success of Kashmir's poll. He loathes the prospect of Kashmiri acceptance of India's rule, which the successful election suggests. (State-run Pakistan TV dubbed it "a farce and a sham.") In his own election, he managed to tame Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League. Together, they won less than half the places in the 342-seatNational Assembly. But unofficial estimates put voter turnout for the polls at around 30%—less than in Kashmir. And Musharraf failed to anticipate the rise of the MMA, which picked up 49 assembly seats on a platform excoriating Musharraf for hiscooperation with the U.S. (No single party got a majority, and horse trading began last week to find a compromise candidate for Prime Minister.)

In a newly hopeful Kashmir, there will now be a chief minister who does not belong to the Abdullah clan. Among the prime candidates is Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, a former Congress Party bigwig who formed his own People's Democratic Party in 1999. His daughter Mehbooba, 42, made the party a force by tirelessly campaigning for the victims of Kashmir's violence and insisting that the decades-long impasse can't continue. "We don't have anAladdin's lamp," she told Time, "but we will provide a healing touch." Her fervor registered with Kashmir's voters, as even Omar Abdullah admits. "We may have lost," he says, "but the democracy has won." As Kashmiris proved, the ballot can sometimes defeat bullies and bullets.