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September 7, 2008
Posted: 1614 GMT
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After my pre-election blog with metaphoric ruminations about gathering storm clouds, downpours, damped spirits and political battles, I wasn’t too surprised when the heavens did open halfway through voting. Fortunately I’d brought a rain jacket with me — but it did cross my mind that I’d rather tempted fate talking about the weather so close to the lawmakers casting their ballots. 
Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s new president, faces some of the toughest challenges of any world leader.
 In the parliamentarians’ car park in front of the National Assembly building I counted about a dozen satellite trucks feeding live signals for Pakistan’s numerous independent local TV stations. Many of them were pumping out live pictures of the voting, interspersed with breaking news analysis of quotes between rival representatives of the three different candidates. As we set up own portable live transmission facility I couldn’t help but reflect how far the tools of democracy have advanced here during the past decade. It took what amounted to a dictator to do it, but under the ousted president, military leader General Pervez Musharraf, the media in Pakistan multiplied. When Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup nine years ago, his men only had to take control of PTV, the state broadcaster, to get the message out that Musharraf was the new boss. Today, thanks to Musharraf’s enlightened approach, he’d need to take over a whole host of broadcasters if he wanted a repeat of his 1999 power grab. That’s not to say that he didn’t try to do just that and close many media outlets down during his waning months in office. But you get the point. The country is now awash with unvarnished, if sometimes a little inaccurate, TV reporting it never had before. And the man many media organizations here had helped hound from office was the man who helped get them off the ground in the first place. Strange maybe, but Musharraf more than earned his ticket to retirement by long overstaying the welcome he came to power with, abusing his authority with transparent but, nonetheless, undemocratic manipulations to keep control of the country. But enough of Musharraf. Saturday was all about the new guy. A three-way race. Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, began the day as favorite. We spent the morning by the path parliamentarians were using to reach the National Assembly and vote. Every so often we stopped one or two of them to ask their opinions. No one bucked the trend. Zardari still seemed to be the man. That’s not to say they we are fans of his. Many of the opposition candidates were particularly vocal on what they expected Zardari to do if he won the vote: hand power back to the National Assembly taken by Musharraf. They wanted, they told us, a president who is a father figure for the country, who can unify and not divide. In short they want him to shed his party affiliation as well as his power. It was while we were by the path that the rain began, slow at first, then heavier and in bigger splashes that discolored the tarmac. After a quick wry smile about my previous blog, I decided that was the moment to go and watch the historic event unfold firsthand. As I came through the door high in the press gallery overlooking the parliamentarians in their chairs below, it took me a moment to orientate myself to the pictures I’d seen on TV. There was the prime minister way below me and the ballot box on the raised table in front of him and next the chairman of the electoral commission. It was as if one had entered the upper circle at a theatre, with the prime minister in the front row of the stalls and the electoral officer on the stage. But no theater has such a sense of awe and power as soon as you step inside it. The people below are not actors: they carry their power, privileges and responsibilities home with them every day. I suppose there is a solemnity to it but I had a very real sense of history being made here. You could say that’s foolish; after all, the deals to secure the votes were made days, weeks ago. But the men and women below me were turning their trust in those deals to ticks in a box. It’s a moment of faith for them — and I felt caught up in that moment. In hushed whispers a Pakistani journalist next to me pointed to the female parliamentarians below and told me it was Musharraf who had done much for women during his rule. It was true to a degree but I couldn’t help wondering if a fear of what the next president might bring was at the root of his re-rationalization of history casting Musharraf as some paragon of democracy. When I came out it was raining harder than ever and I was greeted by the news that a suicide car bomber had attacked a police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, killing and wounding dozens of people. The blast was so powerful stores near the checkpoint had collapsed, people were still stuck inside, and the storm clouds of the day before had been a portent. A few hours later, when we saw on the local TV stations live pictures of a garden banquet for lawmakers hosted by the president elect Asif Ali Zardari, we called contacts for a last-minute invite. Not only were we invited but I was allowed one question in what I was to later find out was an exclusive one-on-one interview with the new president. I couldn’t help myself. I asked three. Well, what else can a reporter do when you’re given first shot at a new president? He’d won as expected more than two-thirds of the vote. In one province of 164 lawmakers, none voted against him. Anyway I was chastised, hopefully tongue-in-cheek, by his very media-savvy press aide for my enthusiasm. What struck me, as Zardari explained his victory as a significant step towards a fully democratic Pakistan, was how he framed it as a tribute to the aspirations of Benazir Bhutto, his late wife and former prime minister. It made me realize how hard it will be for him if he is to divorce himself from party politics. When Bhutto was assassinated, Zardari took over leadership of the party because he was judged as the best person to stop it from breaking apart. I’m not sure his party believes that he’s any less necessary to unity than before. On the issue of handing back powers to the parliament taken by Musharraf, Zardari said he was committed to it, adding: “I shall hand over all the powers the parliament desires.” A few minutes later the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told me working out the details would be easy because both men are both from the same party. As we drove back from the opulence of banquet, I was struck by the emptiness of the streets. It was around 10pm and apart from a few police we saw no one. When the results were announced a few hours earlier, small noisy crowds had gathered outside the National Assembly. I’ve seen these types of crowds before. If you ignore them they go away, but point a camera in their direction and they animate and energize as if a switch were flipped. Even these stalwarts of political celebration had gone. Strange. One would think there was something to celebrate. The election was the first fully democratic vote in over a decade, and Zardari had successfully built a political consensus and engineered Musharraf’s removal without bloodshed. No easy task. But no one we could find was dancing in the streets. Was it because he is still tarnished in popular perception with charges, he refutes, of corruption? Or because he refuses to reinstate the Chief Justice sacked by Musharraf that many here feel is a test of his commitment to democracy? Or because people have no faith in any of their politicians? To be successful Zardari will have to win over the people. His and the country’s battles ahead are numerous and complex. Tackling the tanking economy and take on the Taliban will both require popular and informed consent. From what I have learned from my Pakistani journalist friends, Zardari has a short window of opportunity now to get the increasingly influential media in his corner or face their relentless scrutiny of any perceived failings. He has a tough job ahead. Posted by: CNN Senior International Correspondent, Nic Robertson |
 
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