Election 08: Pakistan Edition

Well it appears that Musharraf has lost his bid to become President of Pakistan, along with just about everyone else in his party, which I guess must have been Republican. The big winners? The Pakistan People's Party formally led by Benazir Bhutto, which just goes to show you that politics is the same everywhere. People will undoubtedly want to be led by the guy just willing to steal rather than the guy who wants to steal, and blow you up.

At least Hilzoy was able to find some good news in the middle of the Cluster-F--:

"One interesting note: as far as I can tell, the Pakistani religious parties seem to have done very, very badly. Here are the results so far; the MMA is the union of religious parties, and it looks as though they are being demolished. Background here: apparently, the MMA was both divided and not very good at running things. Interestingly, the party that seems to have done best in the NWFP is a secular Pashtun nationalist party.

"I hope this means that we won't hear any more hyperventilating about the possibility that jihadis could sweep to power in Pakistan at any minute if we don't keep supporting dictators. The religious parties have never been very popular in Pakistan. They seem to be even less popular now."

So is the Iraq war in the US, but we surge on.