At first sight, there is much to celebrate in Pakistan’s elections this month. The fact that the elections took place at all is heartening. Spiraling internal violence, especially in the tribal areas in the north west of the country, and the murder of the leading contender for Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, on December 27th, created a climate in which many felt elections would be impossible. Perhaps capitalizing on this sentiment, the military regime of President Musharraf experienced several spasms of authoritarianism in the run-up to the elections, clamping down on the media and the judiciary and initially vacillating over how long the return of democracy could be postponed

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, President Musharraf’s most pressing dilemma is whether to re-impose the State of Emergency that he recently lifted in the face of considerable pressure from the West.

The Europol Terrorism Situation and Trends Report for 2006 identified that the terrorist picture across EU countries is a multi-faceted and complex one. Foes that might have been considered to have been defeated, notably extreme left-wing groups originally formed in the 1960s and 1970s, are still in existence and showing signs of continued activity.

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