Click to play videoRawalpindi: Firecrackers, impromptu street dances and loud music marked the reaction of people across Pakistan as the results of Monday’s election began to trickle in.
No party has won a majority but Pakistanis say they have made a decisive decision to reject the Pakinstan Muslim League (Q) party, which supports President Pervez Musharraf.
“It was his party and his people that lost, so this is really a defeat for Musharraf,” says Rawalpindi resident Taseem Bhatti.
Restaurant owner Mansoor Khan says the elections have created hope among Pakistanis. “The fact that both the PPP and the PML (N) have been elected means that they will have to work together—I have a lot of hope for our future,” says Khan.
The ruling establishment seems defected by its defeat. Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid left the country for Europe late on Monday after losing his seat and his Lal Haveli in Rawalpindi stands silent Other PML (Q) heavyweights who have lost include PML-Q leader Chaudhury Shujaat, Chaudry Pervez Elahi and former foreign minister Khursheed Kasuri.
There is more to the symbolism in the defeat of Sheikh Rashid in particular: he was one of the ministers Benazir held directly responsible for the attack on her in Karachi, and it was here in his constituency in Rawalpindi that she was assassinated.
At the spot in Rawalpindi where Benazir was killed, her follower Sheikh Mohammad Ashraf guards her memory by handing out posters of the PPP leaeder.
"I don’t care who wins so long as BB's words are kept," says Ashraf. Democracy is the best revenge Benazir once said about her father’s death—it seems the elections have also become revenge for her killing.
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