Compared to the recent Presidential elections, the assembly elections in Pakistan were relatively unexciting for some very obvious reasons. Under the Pakistan Constitution, the President is the central, if not the sole, repository of all power: besides being the executive head and the commander of the armed forces, he enjoys substantial powers in the field of legislation as well. The (unicameral) National Assembly is neither so powerful nor so influential in the formulation of national policies as the U.S. Congress, not to speak of legislatures in the parliamentary system. The Assembly's control of the purse is limited: its sanction is required only for the expenditures in the annual budget statement (which forms a very small part). Presidential appointments and decisions, and ministerial actions are beyond its control. The procedure for circumventing the President's veto on bills passed by it is extremely difficult and circuitous. Constitutional amendments call for a two-thirds majority with the presidential concurrence and a three-fourths majority without such concurrence. In such a situation, the President still has the power to refer the matter to referendum by the electoral college or dissolve the Assembly and seek re-election himself. Athough the question as to who would wield power for the next five years had been settled in the Presidential elections, no government likes to face a hostile legislature all the time, much less resort to special emergency provisions to circumvent the roadblocks in the path of governmental legislation put up by such a legislature. Hence the hope of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party (PML) was to pick up at least two-thirds of the seats in the Assembly and the equally determined efforts of the Combined Opposition Party (COP) were to deny the ruling party such a comfortable majority. Notwithstanding the stake of both the parties in the composition of the new National Assembly, the elections failed to arouse major interest, chiefly because the outcome of the Presidential elections had, for good or ill, seemingly cast the die. Ayub's victory had more than recouped the sagging morale of the ruling PML, effectively checkmated the fastgathering momentum of the opposition and, most importantly, seriously affected its morale. Whereas the PML was going from one resounding victory to another, the opposition was floundering in one defeat after another, moving in the course of this from demoralization to despair. The opposition's gloom in the wake of the Presidential defeat could be traced largely to the fact that the opposition not only became a victim of