Opinion

Musharraf’s Electoral Coda
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA

The General has re-secured his presidency. It does not matter that the opposition boycotted the vote. As Musharraf puts it, “Democracy means majority, whether there is opposition or no opposition. A majority – a vast majority – [has] voted for me, and therefore that result is the result.”
There is still the minor detail about the Supreme Court validating the vote. It does not matter, since Musharraf’s view is “Let them decide, [and] then we will decide.” He speaks like a Mughal emperor, awaiting with a wry smile the verdict of the royal qadi.
Of course, some find it a bit odd that a legislature which was elected for a single five-year term should be able to elect a man as president for two back-to-back five-year terms. Others find it incongruous that a president with full executive authority would be elected by the legislature and not through a popular vote. But no one is puzzled by his insistence that “unity of command” is the best way to run the country. What else would you expect from a thoroughbred military man, one who continues to wear the uniform six years after his scheduled retirement?
In the end, none of this matters. The Supreme Court was being charged with judicial activism largely by those who support military activism. It has relapsed back to its historical norm and is busy judiciously rubberstamping his edicts, beginning with the [Il] legal Framework Order. A court that does not step forward and strike down such laws by calling them a rape of the Constitution risks being called a Supine Court.
With supreme irony, the same justices who say the Doctrine of Necessity is dead on one day can rule the following day for continued rule based solely on that doctrine. If you ask why, prepare to enter into silence, a silence not unlike the one that greeted travelers in antiquity who stopped in the Giza desert to question the Sphinx.
The latest democratic monstrosity is the National Reconciliation Ordinance (the acronym being a single letter away from NERO), through which all politicians, corrupt and incorrupt (yes, one has to assume there are a few of those) have been forgiven. In the beginning of his political tenure, Ayub had to disqualify politicians to ensure his survival and passed EBDO. Toward the end of his, Musharraf has to bring back in the discredited politicians. Pakistan’s politics is but a series of poetic echoes.
When a hapless reporter told Musharraf before the presidential election that the polls showed that he was no longer popular, the General snapped, “In that case, I disagree with the polls.” Even the “Dead Certain” George W. Bush does not question the credibility of the polls. He simply says he does not govern based on them. But the General disputes the polls, as if he is still sitting on the Daily Show, sipping Jasmine Tea and enjoying his Twinkie with Jon Stewart (Ah, that sweet taste, that loving moment!).
This General is like no other. He keeps on delivering victory after victory. First was the brilliant win on the icy heights of Kargil over the absent Indian army. Second came the win over Nawaz Sharif at the Karachi airport. Third came the win in the Referendum (it does not matter that the turnout was abysmal). Fourth came the first parliamentary win (it does not matter that the US State Department called the parliamentary elections as flawed). And now has come this landslide.
No wonder the world media is confused. It had begun to give up on the General after his series of missteps beginning with the sacking of the Chief Justice, the killings in Karachi, and the Lal Masjid operation.
Now it sees a thunderous roll, like Barry Bond of the San Francisco Giants, hitting home run after home run. Musharraf hit the first one when he deported ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif unceremoniously to Saudi Arabia. He hit the second one when the Supreme Court ruled on technical grounds that his presidential election could go forward with him in uniform. He hit the third one when he got the parliament to pass the NRO, thereby neutralizing ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s threat to undercut into the credibility of the presidential election by enforcing an en masse resignation of her party’s parliamentarians. And he hit the fourth one when he won 98 percent of the votes (did anyone yell Hosni Mubarak?).
The nation, under General Musharraf, has been transformed into The Martial Republic of Pakistan. But, regardless of what one thinks of his politics, you have to hand it to him. He has turned what was going to be a guaranteed sleeper of an election into live theatre that the Bard would have been happy to stage in the Globe.
But what does the future hold for the General? The hard part is still to come. Not too many home runs can be expected from his bat. Fate, that Arch Pitcher, is going to be sending many curve balls his way.
First of all, will his presidency be emasculated once he removes the uniform? Good question. Keep pitching.
Second, how will the two-skinned man survive in only one skin? Even better pitch!
Third, as a consequence of the NRO, will he have to allow his arch-nemesis Nawaz Sharif to return and contest the general elections? Ah, but his congenial hosts may not release his passport in time. They may yet learn to regret their decision, as did one Lady Macbeth, “Here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
Fourth, will his other nemesis, Benazir Bhutto, become the next prime minister? She is already acting that way. Ah, but there is the matter of the constitutional restriction on three-time prime ministers. And the Chaudhrys will not happily go back to Gujarat. The deal may still fall through.
Fifth, is he going to win a vote of confidence in the new Parliament? If not, what’s next? A challenge in the Supreme Court? A threat of Martial Law? A fifth military interregnum, perish the thought?
Sixth, what will happen in Waziristan? It’s getting bloody by the day.
And seventh, what will happen in Balochistan?
Musharraf is well schooled by now in the ground rules of Pakistani politics. And he has the full weight of the army on his side. But before taking the next sip of that Jasmine tea, he may ponder an adage from the old mother country, “There is many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

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