Musharraf’s
Tryst with Destiny
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
Facing
the worst political crisis of his career, Musharraf
still has many options remaining. Of these, only
one is ethically and morally justified. However,
if history is a guide, it is the one that he is
least likely to adopt.
Here are the options:
• Get re-elected by the existing assemblies.
This was Plan A since his supporters are in the
majority. However, there is a good chance that
the Opposition will boycott the vote, vitiating
its legitimacy.
• Dissolve the assemblies after they approve
budgets. Hold new parliamentary elections and
get re-elected. This may require tampering the
voter list, a fear that has been voiced by former
Prime Minister Jamali. He will probably bar Benazir
Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif from contesting the elections
but this risks stirring up more violence on the
streets.
• Cancel the elections. Declare an emergency
and continue to rule. If things get out of control,
declare martial law. Of course, he has said he
will not declare an emergency or martial law.
But he has also said there is no judicial crisis
in the country. Is he in denial or what? This
is the same man who said he would retire from
the army in December 2004. He may change his mind
yet again.
• Remove the uniform and retire from the
army. Restore the Chief Justice to his office,
hold parliamentary elections and contest the presidency
as a civilian. This is not without precedent.
General Ayub handed over the reins of the army
to General Musa in October 1958. Of course, he
promoted himself to Field Marshal on the advice
of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and there is some doubt
about whether he really retired from the army.
• Exit the political stage. If things get
out of hand on the streets and the corps commanders
begin to go soft on him, declare an emergency
or better yet, martial law and hand power over
to another general (it is almost irrelevant as
to which one). This was Ayub’s solution
in 1969 when “the language of weapons”
failed to tame the crowds.
• Return power to the people. Hold general
elections, not contest the presidency, get the
military out of politics, let the country return
to the rule of law where the prime minister is
the chief executive and the president just a symbolic
head of state. If he pulls this off, it would
be unprecedented in Pakistan’s history.
Yahya attempted to go down this path in 1971 but
abruptly changed course. However, Musharraf has
often said that no one is indispensable. This
option would give him a chance to live up to the
“remarkable modernizer” image.
Which will he pick? Musharraf is not hankering
for a place in history. He lives in the present,
the here and now, a risk-taker who frequently
quotes Napoleon, one who lives “In the Line
of Fire,” a la Clint Eastwood. Displaying
an Eastwood fetish, he quipped fairly recently,
“When the going gets tough, the tough get
going.”
It is probable that Musharraf will contest his
re-election in uniform, his “second skin.”
He knows that if he were to shed his uniform,
in a future crisis the military may depose him,
like General Yahya deposed Ayub despite the latter’s
higher rank.
When he was pushed into a political corner after
the Karachi massacre on May 12, he did not turn
to the people or to the assemblies but to the
Corps Commanders. Their statement, echoing one
that the three service chiefs had issued “at
the peril of their lives” in 1977, was remarkable
in its servility.
His staying in uniform is all the more likely
since the US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte,
has given him carte blanch by saying that only
the general can decide when to doff the uniform.
Indeed, but for the unwavering support he has
received from the Bush administration, Musharraf
would have been long gone. Even though his tenure
has equaled that of a two-term American president,
the Bush White House would not mind if he stayed
on for another two.
The incoming US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne
Woods Patterson, has declared him “a remarkable
modernizer.” Experience is the best teacher.
Ms. Patterson, new to South Asia, will quickly
learn that such endorsements are more likely to
erode Musharraf’s political standing in
Pakistan than to build it.
It is unlikely that Musharraf will stay in power
through 2017, contrary to the wishes of some of
his diehard supporters. They want him to stay
on so that giant dams and ports can be finished
on his watch.
As justification for wanting to prolong his rule,
they dazzle us with macroeconomic statistics from
A to Z. If that does not have the intended effect,
they remind us that Lahore can now boast a Porsche
dealership. Even if that fails, they tell us that
the general has liberalized political discourse
in the Islamic Republic.
A typical supporter is Fareed Zakaria. Writing
in Newsweek, he has drawn a parallel between Pakistan
and Prussia. Arguing that the army would always
play a strategic role in Pakistan, he has cautioned
the Bush administration against abandoning Musharraf.
These days, even the Musharrafites are talking
in hushed tones, as if they have concluded that
their skipper is playing his last innings.
Just a few months ago, the general’s “re-election”
seemed assured at the hands of the existing assemblies.
Then came the tiff with the Chief Justice on the
9th of March. Since then, Musharraf has seen his
space for maneuver shrink with every passing day.
In the Iliad, Homer narrates how the Greeks went
to war after the Trojans had taken their Helen
to Troy across the Aegean Sea. Nine years later,
they were still floundering outside the walled
city. Then a serpent surfaced, leapt into a sparrow’s
nest and ate her eight newly-hatched chicks. As
the distressed sparrow fluttered desperately around
the suddenly emptied nest, he swallowed her as
well.
For this evil deed, the gods turned the serpent
into stone. The Greeks took this to be a good
omen, came up with the ruse of the Trojan horse,
and won the war a year later.
After ruling unchallenged for seven years, Musharraf
has now arrived at a tipping point. The street
protests by the lawyers, an unexpected political
force, have seized the national imagination. The
gloves have come off since the massacre of innocents
in Karachi on May 12th. The siege of democracy
is about to be broken.
(Ahmad Faruqui, an American economist, has written
“Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan,”
Ashgate Publishing, UK)
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