AFTER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION; ACTION WILL MOVE TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ISLAMABAD 002940

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/05/2018
TAGS: PGOV PK PREL
SUBJECT: AFTER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION; ACTION WILL MOVE TO
PUNJAB

REF: ISLAMABAD 2850

Classified By: Anne W. Patterson for reasons 1.4 (b),(d).


1. (C) Summary: Pakistan's electoral college will choose the
country's next president on September 6; we expect the new
president to be sworn in on September 7. Pakistan People's
Party (PPP) Co-Chair Asif Zardari is confident of victory and
has been working overtime to ensure he receives the maximum
votes possible. Last-minute campaigning is still underway,
coupled with an announcement that several deposed Supreme
Court justices may be "re-appointed" as early as this
election eve. But the secret ballot could play with the
final tally as Zardari "dissenters" in the PPP weigh their
options. Musharraf's party is disintegrating as its "forward
bloc" cuts individual deals with both the PPP and Nawaz
Sharif's party. Resigned that Zardari will win at the
federal level, Nawaz has turned his attention to retaining
his hold over Punjab government. Zardari is using several
court cases to try to keep Nawaz cooperative. End summary.

Pro-Zardari Camp Predicts Landslide
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2. (C) Pakistan's electoral college (Senate, National
Assembly, and four Provincial Assemblies) will decide by
secret ballot September 6 who will succeed former President
Pervez Musharraf. To win, a candidate needs a majority of
the votes cast. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) candidate,
Co-Chair Asif Zardari, is set to win by a comfortable
majority against Zaman Siddiqui of the Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Mushahid Hussain of the Pakistan
Muslim League (PML). The Election Commission conducts the
presidential election and is expected to announce results
late on September 6. We expect the new president will be
sworn in as early as September 7, although no official
program has yet been announced.


3. (C) Zardari has been counting and courting votes, and
trying (unsuccessfully) to convince his rivals to withdraw
from the race. Reportedly, Zardari would like to receive as
many as 500 votes of the 702 up for grabs. The PPP and its
allies control over half of the National Assembly votes (342)
but less than half of the votes in the Senate (100). Since
each province has an equal number of votes regardless of
size, PML-N's popularity in the Punjab is outweighed by PPP's
support in Sindh, the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP),and
Balochistan.


4. (C) Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) leader Altaf Hussain
confirmed August 31 that his party would stick by its
nomination of Zardari. MQM controls 31 votes at the national
level and one-third of the Sindh Assembly. In return, MQM
expects 3 to 4 ministries in the federal government.


5. (C) Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam's Fazlur Rehman, who controls 19
votes in the center, announced his support for Zardari only
after extensive wrangling. Rehman claims Zardari promised to
suspend fighting in Bajaur Agency (Federally Administered
Tribal Area (FATA)) and allow the reopening of an extremist
mosque/madrassah in Islamabad. PPP sources, including the
Ministers of Information and Interior, deny that Zardari has
given JUI-F anything more than a commitment to discuss these
issues.


6. (C) Pressure from FATA parliamentarians (18 votes in the
center) convinced the GOP to announce a "suspension" of
military operations in Bajaur, at least until September 6.
But the GOP never really suspended fighting; thus, most FATA
parliamentarians reportedly will abstain from voting for
Zardari. Tribal leader Munir Khan Orakzai said his group
reached this decision after "a non-convergence of views with
the PPP-led federal government over military operations in
the frontier."


7. (C) The PPP faction led by former Interior Minister Aftab
Sherpao (PPP-S),joined with the PPP in the ruling NWFP
coalition, is expected to vote for Zardari in this federal
level contest. Similarly, Baloch nationalist parties --
BNP-Awami and Jamhoori Wattan Party (JWP) -- part of the

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provincial coalition with the PPP in Balochistan, will
support Zardari.

Secret Ballot: The X Factor
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8. (C) Zardari is concerned about defections from his own
PPP. According to some reports, PPP members have been told
to use their mobile phones to photograph their marked ballots
as proof they backed Zardari. Estranged PPP Vice Chair Amin
Faheem has recently instructed his adherents to vote for
Zardari "and make sure you have a witness," according to PPP
contacts.

PML's Disappearing Act?
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9. (C) The other significant unknown is how legislators from
the PML (Musharraf's party) will vote. There has been
discussion of a "forward bloc" since the February 18 general
elections; it is only since Nawaz's withdrawal from the
coalition, however, that serious deal making began. PML
President Chaudhry Shujaat has been traveling the country,
essentially going door-to-door, to convince possible
defectors that he can negotiate a better deal for the entire
party, either with the PPP or PML-N, than they can
individually. Even party loyalists admit that Shujaat's
efforts have failed, though no one is quite sure how many PML
members will defect to PPP or PML-N in the presidential
voting.

10. (C) Shujaat told PolCouns September 5 that his main goal
was to keep the identity of the party intact for the next
battle over control of the Punjab Provincial Assembly. PML
was open to working with the PPP but did not want to be
associated with Zardari. The PML also wants to avoid
responsibility for the tough economic decisions facing the
government. Shujaat said he asked Zardari, "who would you
rather have in opposition, us or Nawaz?"


11. (C) PPP's Deputy Secretary General Sheik Mansoor revealed
that Attorney General Latif Khosa met with Shujaat on August
31 to ask the PML to officially abandon Mushahid's candidacy,
but offered nothing in return. Mansoor contended that the
PPP did not need the PML stalwarts, who only numbered about

20. Shujaat told PolCouns the PML would remain in the
opposition at the center, negotiating its positions on a
case-by-case basis.


12. (C) The PML also continues to negotiate with Nawaz's
party but will not merge, according to Shujaat. He believed,
actually, that Nawaz might rejoin the PPP-led coalition, if
only to stop Zardari from pushing for a court ruling against
his brother Shahbaz Sharif's eligibility to retain his job as
Chief Minister in Punjab. Shujaat noted that Zardari already
has taken away Nawaz' two main issues -- Musharraf's ouster
and the judiciary's restoration. Shujaat saw the rival
center-right PML-N as the biggest threat to his party and
would prefer to see them allied with the coming "disastrous"
performance of the PPP government.

PML-N Focused on Punjab
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13. (C) PML-N Spokesman Siddiq-ul-Farooq admitted to PolOff
September 3 that his party was resigned to Zardari's
presidential victory. He revealed that Nawaz' kitchen
cabinet was split on whether to even negotiate with PML and
that the two leagues could form a coalition "only if the PML
publicly repented for backing Musharraf." Farooq confirmed
that the religious party Jamaat-Islami, which controls five
votes, would support PML-N presidential candidate Siddiqui.


14. (C) Whether Shujaat formed a coalition with another party
or not, Farooq was certain the PML would disappear; its
members were deserting the party for the PPP at the federal
level and were going over to his PML-N in Punjab. PML-N
expected Shujaat to have much more bargaining power once
attention turned away from the federal level contest for
president. Farooq confirmed that his party was already
negotiating over Lahore not Islamabad; PPP's Mansoor insisted

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that as many as 25 PML Punjab Assembly members were now "free
agents," and his party would also make a reasonable bid for
their provincial affections.


15. (C) On the PML-N's relationship with the PPP, Farooq said
his party felt "totally betrayed by Zardari." He claimed,
however, that PML-N's Sharif had not yet authorized him to
"go hard" on the PPP. (Note: This conforms with what PML-N
leaders Ishaq Dar and Ahsan Iqbal have told us. To the
press, Nawaz has been careful not to completely close the
door to PPP cooperation and has not publicly criticized
Zardari's nomination.) The red line, Farooq added, was if
the PPP seriously threatened the PML-N's control of Punjab.


16. (C) Farooq noted that Zardari is using two levers to try
to control Nawaz, even in Punjab. The Courts have yet to
rule on challenges both to Nawaz's eligibility to be a
federal parliamentary candidate (legally, convicted felons
cannot run) and to Shahbaz's eligibility to be Chief Minister
of Punjab (because of a technical violation of election
laws). Whether by mistake (or more likely, by design),the
National Accountability Board (NAB) this week re-opened
several old cases against Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif. This
prompted accusations about political vindictiveness, causing
the PPP to quickly backtrack. Law Minister Farooq Naek
indicated that the NAB itself would be disbanded. Prime
Minister Yousuf Gilani said September 4 that the GOP would
not pursue NAB cases against the Sharifs, though was silent
whether these cases would be transferred to another entity.
PML-N's Farooq was not convinced.


17. (C) Comment: Zardari's election could calm the surface of
political waters and restore some investor confidence in
Pakistan's economy. Zardari told us that his first task will
be to fill vacant economic cabinet positions and move forward
on an immunity package for Musharraf (although what form this
package will take remains unclear). Under the surface,
however, the situation remains volatile because the PPP's
governing margin is small. The PPP/PML-N battle will now
move to Punjab. End comment.

PATTERSON