Seeking the solution to the Pakistani political Sudoku defies reasoning and logic. In the Pakistani conundrum you have a General as the president who desperately wants to be re-elected, by means fair and foul, for another five-year term without having to doff his uniform—his ‘second skin’. The mood in the country is against him and his political opponents see their best chance to vanquish him. Commentators at home and abroad are predicting the end of his eight-year rule because nearly all those who had been captivated by his sartorial displays and boastful lisping verbal assaults have turned against him.
But only the brave hearts should bet on his imminent departure.
Musharraf seems to have quite suddenly retrieved a lot of his lost ground in recent days. Consider this.
His botched move to sack the chief justice had seen the civil society turn against him. A ‘mass upsurge’ was taking shape when Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry started touring the country to address huge protest rallies. The lawyers who were spearheading the agitation against Musharraf had become the catalyst for starting a countrywide movement against Musharraf. Nonetheless, no sooner did the chief justice revert back to his position following a decision by the apex court the momentum built by the lawyers’ agitation started to taper off.
And now Musharraf has disclosed that he always had ‘family ties’ with the chief justice. He hoped to restore them fully, undoubtedly to pre-empt legal moves against him in the months to come.
Between the two exiled former prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto there is no doubt that the latter is a more formidable opponent of Musharraf. After weeks of flat denials and muted acceptance of talks between their emissaries it has been made public that Musharraf and Bhutto had a one-on-one meeting in Abu Dhabi. The ‘deal’ has not been made public but this much looks certain that Musharraf will get himself re-elected—without having to change to ‘civvies’--by the same legislators who had voted for him five years ago. In return he would withdraw the corruption charges slapped against Bhutto and her husband.
The matter of Bhutto’s return to Pakistan before the polls that are expected to be held around October has been kept vague. But a question that puzzles is what does she achieve even if she is able to return to Pakistan and manages to become the prime minister a third time.
If Musharraf remains the president it is inconceivable that he will delegate most of his ‘real’ powers to the prime minister. In other words the executive will be firmly under Musharraf’s control, a situation not very different from the present arrangements in which Shaukat Aziz is seen as nothing more than a rubber stamp prime minister.
Of course, Benazir is no Shaukat Aziz. She is strong willed, haughty and far too ambitious than the present prime minister of Pakistan. She would not like to be seen as Musharraf’s proxy. But what choice will she have to defy Musharraf in the event of a clash between the two? If Musharraf is able to retain his uniform, given the full American backing he enjoys, he remains the ultimate arbiter in Pakistan. Even without the uniform he is likely to remain more powerful than the prime minister, again because the Americans want it this way and the Pak military will repose more faith in him than anybody else.
Washington may not mind Benazir Bhutto coming back as the prime minister but it would prefer to see Musharraf call the shots since the Americans have by now invested so much on him as a part of their fight against a resurgent Taliban and other terrorist groups in his country. Musharraf has played cleverly enough to fool the world that he is an ‘indispensable’ leader if the US-led ‘war on terror’ is to be continued.
Such considerations should not lead to the assumption that Bhutto gets nothing out of her bargain with the General. It has been clear to one all that despite their profession of freedom, democracy, and fair play, the powerful Pakistan patrons in Washington are not really bothered how Musharraf deals with his political rivals as long as he does not hang them, as Gen Zia-ul-Haq did in the case of Benazir’s father after deposing him. Benazir probably has taken a resigned view that as long as Musharraf is in power she has to play second fiddle. Being much younger than Musharraf she has a much longer innings ahead. Besides, she can use her guile to outsmart Musharraf whenever the opportunity arises. She can do little if she remains permanently in exile.
In simple words, all she is keen on at the moment is to get back to Pakistan minus the hassle of criminal charges and court cases and then bide her time to work her way up again. Her immediate worry on landing back would be to rebuild her PPP where some cracks have developed recently.
The fight in Pakistan against terror, sham or real, is not possible without the military leadership’s acquiescence. As the chief of the army Musharraf holds full command over his forces. He had handpicked all the present corps commanders. The commanders may have recently advised him to step down but the circumstances in which that counsel was reportedly given to him no longer exists.
In the event of Musharraf being persuaded to resign from his army chief’s post there is every possibility that his cronies among the top brass will stand by him at crunch moment rather than back a civilian whether it is Bhutto or someone else. If the generals withdraw support to Musharraf then it is back to square one—undiluted military rule with the civilian leadership again thrown out of the window.
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