Conventional wisdom has it that the results of the recent parliamentary elections in Pakistan have been a setback for President Musharraf. Is that really so?

By giving the Muttahida Majlis-e Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious parties, a significant minority of seats in the National Assembly and a landslide victory in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Pakistani electorate has certainly signaled its displeasure over Gen. Musharraf's brashly pro-US stance. In particular, the results in NWFP show that, in this province on the Afghan border, the pro-Jihad sentiment which brought forth the Taliban is, if anything, stronger than it was before the US-led campaign in Afghanistan. And even in the rest of the country, electoral support for the religious parties has obviously increased several-fold. All this, it is said, represents a worrying failure for Musharraf, indicating an inability to establish his legitimacy with the people. Perhaps so, but then, perhaps not.

There are at least three positives for Gen. Musharraf in the outcome and the aftermath of the election.

First, with no party --- including the "royalist" PML-Q --- winning anything close to a majority, the President is able to stand aside and watch a remarkable tableau of self-humiliation by the politicians. As avowedly liberal stalwarts from the Pakistan Peoples Party and champions of
tolerance from PML-Q grovel for support before the most reactionary moulvis, the general who has often expressed his contempt for the political class looks increasingly credible. Following his bloodless coup d'etat, and especially in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Gen. Musharraf had built up a reservoir of confidence with most Pakistanis. He squandered this almost entirely in the course of his self-serving "referendum" fiasco. Now the antics of the elected legislators have enabled him to recoup some of his losses. A strong bloc by one party in the legislature might have led to the quick formation of a government and the emergence of an alternative leader with a mandate. The three-way division resulting from the elections has precluded this and reminded the electorate why they despised the politicians that Musharraf overthrew in the first instance.

Second, while their relatively strong showing in the elections may have given the religious parties some crowing rights, it has given them little real power. It has, however, co-opted them into the system. If there is now a problem, they are part of the problem. If they sit in the opposition (which appears likely at the time of this writing), they will have little influence and will almost certainly disinegrate into their usual factions. The compromise required for consensus does not come easily to true-believers, and, without the prospect of an imminent election, the diverse groups in the MMA will probably revert to their doctrinal and tactical disagreements. Musharraf could even use this to tie them up in political argument, leaving them less able to launch militant actions.

Third, even though the religious parties have no real power, the spectre of their ascendancy is already proving to be a powerful motivating factor in Musharraf's favor. He can --- with some credibility --- claim that he is all that stands between Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and the rising tide of militant fundamentalism. Until recently, this argument was just an assertion; now it has support from electoral results. Until the election, a lot of mainstream Pakistanis felt secure in their knowledge that religious parties had never captured more than a low single digit percentage of votes in any election. That security is now gone, and the decidedly secular Gen. Musharraf appears more appealing than he did after the referendum. Never mind, of course, that the increase in the religious parties' vote was a consequence of Musharraf's own policies. Most fair-minded citizens would concede that he had little choice, and did well with his limited options. Now that the elections have allowed Musharraf to make an "apres mois, le deluge" argument, both Western powers and the non-extremist electorate will be treating him much better.

Clearly, the three "positives" listed above are speculative, and any number of unexpected events could invalidate one – or even all – of them. Also, the increased influence of religious fundamentalists --- however limited --- is a worrying sign for Pakistan and the region. However, given the complexities of what might have been, Gen. Musharraf is probably not too unhappy with what has come to be.

Ali A. Minai is a Professor in Complex Adaptive Systems Lab at the University of Cincinnati.