AS expected, it has been announced that parliamentary elections are to take place in India over a five-week period next month and in May, with counting starting on May 16. There is a possibility that the Congress-led alliance of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could lose because of the economic crisis and the Mumbai bombings. But whoever wins, what is not in doubt is the strength of Indian democracy. In marked contrast is the situation in Pakistan. There, the future of democracy itself is in question. The responsibility for that lies not with the economic crisis or the unpopular war against terrorism or public hostility to the government and military’s links with the Americans. It lies with the elected politicians.

So much has changed in so short a time. Just 12 months ago, when elections took place, there was international admiration at the way Pakistani democracy had seemingly triumphed. The perception was that it had matured, particularly the electorate’s rejection of religious hard-liners. The picture today could not be more different. As feared, the rivalry between the election victors, the PML-N led by Nawaz Sharif and the PPP of President Asif Ali Zardari has finally broken into open warfare as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to confirm the ban on Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from holding political office and then Zardari’s decision to sack the PML-N-controlled provincial government of Punjab. The result has been anti-government demonstrations and riots. More worryingly, there is growing disillusionment, not simply with the government but with the entire democratic system. It can only play into the hands of the extremists. To what extent that has already happened will be seen in next week’s elections for the Senate.

The extremists, however, are not the immediate problem. The question is what would the military do. If the present political crisis goes from bad to worse, there is a real danger it will intervene. It is not going to sit on the fence.

The judiciary cannot be blamed. The Supreme Court is no more government-controlled today than it was when President Musharraf sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry for delivering verdicts he did not like or, after Chaudhry’s reinstatement, when Musharraf sacked him again and other members of the Supreme Court because Musharraf feared they were about to nullify his re-election as president. The judiciary is independent and the PML-N knows it; it campaigned for the reinstatement of the 63 judges removed by Musharraf, 57 of whom have been reinstated. Unfortunately it is not the perception among PML-N supporters and others. It adds to present disillusionment with the system.

The case went to the Supreme Court simply because of an appeal by the Sharifs on a lower court ruling. There is no justification for the protests; the law has taken its course. But equally, there was no justification for Zardari sacking the entire Punjab government and putting the province under direct rule and now planning a PPP administration there. The court did not bar the PML-N. It is still by far the largest party in the Punjab Assembly. It should have been given the right to negotiate a new coalition and nominate a new chief minister. What has happened is a slap in the face for Pakistani democracy. It hardly helps the country’s stability when democrats subvert democracy.

Rifles revolt in Bangladesh

HASINA Wajed now has to add military reform to the other difficult tasks of stabilization in a Bangladesh only just back on its democratic feet, said The Guardian in an editorial yesterday. Excerpts: Bangladesh’s short history is spotted with blood. Violence has attended the country’s political history since, and frequent coup attempts have marked its zigzags between democratic and authoritarian rule.

Last week’s uprising by members of the Bangladesh Rifles, the country’s border security force, in which a large number of army officers have been murdered by the mutineers, was not a coup attempt. But it is, nevertheless, a reminder that the country must put that history of violence and military intervention behind it if its latest democratic new start is to prosper. The paradox is that the very army which has prided itself on putting the country’s political house in order has apparently neglected its own military backyard. In January 2007, the army installed an interim government, locked up the two main political leaders, and pursued other politicians and officials on corruption charges. Its methods were irregular and unfair, involving many injustices.

But it was true that the rivalry between the two main parties and their two leaders, Hasina Wajed of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had become very destructive, and that government was deeply penetrated by corruption. The interim administration, as promised, prepared the way for new elections, which were won by Hasina Wajed last December. Yet the one area it neglected was the military. The Bangladesh armed forces are underfunded, too large for any likely defensive tasks, and internally divided. In the case of Bangladesh, these divisions go back to the foundation of the state.