Date:07/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/07/stories/2008090759821400.htm

International

Bonhomie replaces grimness

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: As voting in the presidential election got underway, the atmosphere in the National Assembly could not have been more different from time Pakistan’s legislators gathered to choose Pervez Musharraf as President just 11 months ago.

General Musharraf’s decision to contest the October 2007 election — he was then still the Army chief — had led to the resignation of several opposition parties from the Assemblies, and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) abstained and walked out. On voting day, only the PML (Q) and MQM, his two political allies, were present in the hall and the tensions due to the legal challenge to his candidature while holding another office was palpable. On Saturday, the grimness of that last election was replaced by a bonhomie that seemed to acknowledge that despite the tensions between the PPP and PML (N), and the controversies that accompanied the candidature of Asif Ali Zardari, this was a democratic process at work.

Legislators greeted each other and chatted as they awaited their turn to vote. Mr. Zardari’s daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, one of them holding a poster of their assassinated mother Benazir, watched the proceedings from the visitor’s gallery.