Word: kashmir
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Democracy, 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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...