When it comes to elections, in the United States we really don’t realize how good we have it. Sure, the 2000 Florida presidential vote count debacle touches a nerve. And let’s not forget the 1972 assassination attempt on candidate George Wallace, or the 1968 murder of California primary winner Bobby Kennedy. But, while voter fraud and violence are the exception here, in Pakistan, vote-rigging and political murders are commonplace; it’s a country where, a veteran journalist told me, “… politics goes hand in hand with corruption and violence.”
   

I’ve never been to Pakistan, so I checked in with some journalists who have. To shed some light on recent developments, I asked them do it “on background,” so it’s more like a conversation in a bar instead of a formal, uptight debrief. If I were to go to Pakistan, these are exactly the kind of conversations I’d have with colleagues before and upon arrival. These conversations are cynical and politically incorrect, but help to illuminate a place that has nuclear weapons, the extremely unpopular and dictatorial Pervez Musharraff (Bush’s warrior on terror), and al-Qaida and Taliban extremists who have their own caliphate or Islamic fiefdom in the northwest. From this bastion of backwardness, these jihadists continually terrorize the Pakistani populace with suicide attacks and murder, and oh yeah, the terrorists really want to get their hands on those nukes.    

“All I really came in contact with were piss poor guys around 25-30 years old, all wearing dirty shalwar kameez [traditional Pakistani dress] shuffling towards the mosques — they seemed really sad. They seemed like a beaten-down people with nothing to look forward to. Too many poor people surrounded by a few rich people.”
   

It was here in Rawalpindi, a city of more than three million, that Bhutto gave the best and last speech of her life last December. Veteran Bhutto watchers say it was much like Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Mountaintop” speech in Memphis the day before he was assassinated, and when he knew he was not long for this world.     
   

“Rawalpindi, about 40 minutes drive from the capital, is often described as a garrison town. Essentially it’s where a large number of army personnel live, both enlisted and commissioned. So Bhutto got whacked right in the army's back yard … a bit like someone assassinating Obama while he was visiting Andrews AFB [the home of Air Force One].”
    

Is it any wonder that polls state that the majority of Pakistanis think Musharraf was complicit in Bhutto’s assassination? Despite the fact that his buddies in the Bush administration orchestrated her return from exile, Musharraf considered Bhutto a nuisance at best. He imposed martial law just after Bhutto returned from exile, jailing and beating political opponents, yet not going after the al-Qaida and Taliban elements that were killing and maiming his people. Declaring martial law may not only have hurt Musharraf in Pakistan, but also at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where a correspondent I know said, “I was told by U.S. sources [that] the White House was livid with anger expressed along the lines of ‘You have embarrassed the President.’”      In the run-up to February’s election, the threat of suicide bombers forced political parties to avoid mass rallies and ride around in convoys of cars honking their horns, imploring voters to go to the polls. Political parties’ offices were bombed, parliamentary candidates were kidnapped, and many voters were turned off by the violence. But, enough Pakistanis voted, and Musharraf’s party was trounced in February’s elections. Pakistanis also repudiated President Bush and his cozy relationship with Musharraf. John Q. Pakistani didn't like the fact that Dubya had given the Pakistan Armed Forces billions since 9/11 while their economy slid into the abyss.
    

Slain candidate Bhutto’s party came out on top followed by former (extremely corrupt) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif and other politicians warned that Musharraf would rig the election and steal it. He didn’t, and the polls indicating that 70 percent of the populace wanted Musharraf out didn’t shock the hacks I know: 
   

“Surprise? Well yes and no. If the election were going to be free and fair, then it’s no surprise the opposition would do well. Bottom line, everyone wants Mushy out.”
    

In a country where vote rigging is commonplace, maybe President Musharraf did the right thing whether he liked it or not.
    

 “Surprised that it's free and fair? A little. But even Musharraf must have realized the gig was up, with opinion polls putting him in the toilet [oddly enough his numbers have plummeted in tandem with Bush's], and the parliamentary elections largely seen as a referendum on his presidency, then not even Musharraf would have enough chutzpah to rig this, because the backlash could well have been the country's final straw.”    

Last November, I wrote a chilling “Global Affairs” column, warning that if the terrorists overthrew Musharraf, or if extremists could somehow get elected democratically, that the country’s future was dim, if not deadly, for the world because of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
   

But, believe or not, there are reasons for optimism despite Bhutto’s assassination and almost daily acts of terror. The election signals the beginning of the end of Musharraf, and that is a good thing. Already, the Bush administration is turning its back on the defeated Pakistani president, with U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson saying the U.S. would support whomever won the elections. With more than 30 percent of the 164-million plus Pakistanis living below the poverty line, many Pakistanis are just worried about surviving another day. Here’s a not so politically correct description of rural Pakistan by one of my journalist friends:  
   

“The place sucks. Even when I went with a dude whose father is a big shot [Pakistani] diplomat, the place was gross. Peshawar is a dusty, almost biblical place: donkeys, goats, chickens in the dirt streets, etc. I guess it might be what Jerusalem was like 2,000 years ago.”
    

The impoverished are ripe recruits for al-Qaida and the Taliban, though, as my friend saw in Peshawar in northeastern Pakistan before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan after 9/11:
   

“There were mud buildings everywhere and there was a lot of Taliban hanging around. The madrassas [Islamic religious schools that are recruiting grounds for Taliban/al-Qaida] were doing a booming business and the war was yet to begin. We went to a madrassa where the headmaster was a good friend of Osama’s. He told us straight up that if there was a war with the U.S., he'd kill Americans — even us. Nice guy.”
    

Clearly there are two Pakistans: the democratic-leaning, somewhat westernized Pakistan; and the extremist, fundamentalist Islamic Pakistan. Fortunately, the democratic-leaning Pakistan outnumbers the extremist Pakistan by tens of millions of people. Unfortunately, however, the fundamentalist extremists (or fundos as reporters refer to them) have their own state about the size of Maine known as the North-West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan. Musharraf’s troops have had their successes such as the recent killing of a top Taliban commander, but they have had mostly failures fighting a force of about 40,000 homegrown holy warriors (jihadists). The North-West Frontier Province has become a quasi-state for al-Qaida and the Taliban, and as most terrorism experts will say, the mountains bordering Afghanistan are home to Osama bin Laden. Imagine if the U.S. had Maine as an al-Qaida/Taliban satellite state. That’s just the reality in Pakistan. OK, this is bad.
   

Pakistan has an educated and vocal white-collar class living in its two largest cities, Islamabad and Karachi. But, don’t think these folks are in love with the good ole USA. As recently as 2007, one-half to one-third of them had a favorable opinion of bin Laden and al-Qaida. Not because they were ready to strap on a suicide bomber’s vest, but as terrorism expert Peter Bergen told me, they like how al-Qaida/bin Laden stands up to America. But, the rash of suicide bombings and other violence in Pakistan in the past year has changed this attitude, and a recent poll by Terror Free Tomorrow says al-Qaida’s favorable rating “has plummeted to the teens.” OK, this is good.
   

Terrorism is backfiring in Pakistan, and even the legitimate (Musharraf- supporting) Islamist political parties got trounced in the recent elections.
   

“The good news on this is that the Islamic nutbags backing Musharraf are not as crazy as the Islamic nutbags in the North-West Frontier Province. Essentially, the chance of the crazies getting hold of the nukes through the ballot box is practically nil.”
    

Democracy staggers along in Pakistan, but I don’t think the “democracy on the march” cliché applies. Since achieving independence from Britain in 1947, a series of generals have run Pakistan, with civilian leaders finding the end of a noose (such as Bhutto’s father, Ali, did in 1978), or retreating into exile after a military coup. In both the Cold War and the War on Terror, U.S. presidents have always supported the generals running Pakistan. But, in another positive sign, the current head of the Pakistani Armed Forces, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, wants out of politics.    
   

“[In] his first meeting last year, he warned his senior officers that they get involved in politics at the peril of their careers. He is old school, son of a soldier, and is seen by Washington as a bright spot in an otherwise pretty miserable situation.”
   

So, even if you’re disgusted during our election cycle here in the U.S., remember, you can actually go to a speech without the fear of a suicide bomber, and some fundo isn’t going to kick in your door and tell you not to vote.      “Miserable and dangerous, yet not as bad as it seems” can describe Pakistan as it limps toward democracy, and even its current tenuous situation is better than Islamic extremists with nuclear weapons.    Matt McFetridge is a two-time Emmy Award-winning television producer who has covered 20 wars in 20 countries over 20 years. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it