Would Musharraf Be Able to Weather the Storm?
A host of burgeoning crises are challenging the stability and even the integrity of Pakistan placing the leadership qualities of President Muhsarraf on severest test. The murder of Benazir ignited the protests and riots that have caused a havoc particularly in Sindh and claimed at least 60 lives and loss of property worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Over 500 cars were burnt in Karachi alone. Rioters have destroyed 176 banks, 34 gas stations, 72 train cars, and 18 railway stations.
Based on her will, the leadership of the PPP has been passed on to Bilawal, her 19-year old son, with Asif Zardari, her husband, serving as the regent till he comes of age, six years from now, to enter the political arena and the parliament. That has set in motion new dynamics in the political life of the country. More on this a little later.
What is right now grating the people is the stoppage of power supply for several hours a day, scarcity and sudden jump in the prices of essential commodities such as flour, pulses, sugar, kerosene oil and even vegetables. Law and order situation leaves much to be desired despite the deployment of troops in scores of towns and cities.
US Review of Support for Musharraf
Much more disconcerting is the dissipation of US confidence in the government’s ability to fight effectively the Al Qaeda and Taliban elements in the tribal belt of the country. The New York Times reported on January 6 that a top level meeting of President Bush’s national security advisers had considered a day earlier the advisability of conducting “far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan”. After years of focusing on Afghanistan, the report said, the extremist see now “a chance for the big prize –creating chaos in Pakistan itself”- the only nuclear-armed Muslim country. No wonder Pakistan became a major issue in the debates of Presidential candidates of both parties. President Bush has remained steadfastly supportive of Musharraf. Yet, the meeting yesterday (Jan.5) in the White House indicates that the top intelligence men are now considering their confidence open to review. Mr. Musharraf may proceed full throttle against Baitullah Mehsud and Qazi Fazlullah, the two pro-Qaeda Pakistani leaders of guerrillas and suicide-bombers. Mehsud is accused of having been behind the assassination of Benazir. If Musharraf makes headway in eliminating these men and their senior followers, he would succeed in rehabilitating the goodwill of Bush administration and other opinion makers.
PPP Leadership
Ironically enough, Benazir, the inveterate champion of democracy, had herself willed that her husband should inherit the leadership of the party. He anointed their son, 19-year-old Bilawal to be the Chairman and became himself the regent and Co-Chairman. Thus the party has been treated as a fiefdom and its supporters as serfs, reflecting the feudal system’s disdain for the common man declared by Bhutto senior as “the fountain-head of all power”. It also explains the indifference of the common man towards the election “drama”. It has added further to the bitterness of his cup; for, it extends the dynastic system to a political party whose very survival hinges on his support.
If there was no immediate challenge to the undemocratic will of Benazir, it was because she never allowed a rival to rise, and got herself declared, instead, as Chairperson of the party for life. And, from her grave she is causing fractures in the biggest party of the country. Adherents of democratic principles are bound to split from the devotees of Bhutto family. While Benazir had points of strength, her husband, who has been crowned by her, has too many flaws. The miasma of his corruption smells to the sky and has also kept him in jail for several years. While Benazir was educated at Harvard and Oxford, Zardari has not been to any university. He became notorious as a male chauvinist, a skirt chaser and hedonist, chief of a mafia that extracted money from its victims, and above all a builder of assets abroad through the millions in kickbacks he received from government contractors during the two stints of his wife. Making money, he once blurted out, is a pleasant pastime. Means never mattered to him. For him honesty was but a joke, plunder was patriotic.
He has a positive side too: he is a good polo player and supportive of his friends.
The biggest political party of Pakistan is now virtually leaderless.
When Benazir usurped the reins of the party from the hands of her own mother, her brother, Murtaza, made a bid to challenge her on the ground that he was the male descendent of Bhutto senior. His claim was rejected by her and when he persisted he was shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances in a police ambush outside the Bhutto family home. Zardari was accused of being the chief culprit in this crime. Benazir was the Prime Minister at that time.
Zardari’s shenanigans during Benazir’s two stints as Prime Minister will haunt the party once the current sympathy wave dies down. More than likely, he would let the country’s premier party degenerate into a patronage-based family cult overlooking all processes of decision making through debate and discussion. Even in an authority worshipping society, true respect comes from integrity and not from authority - more particularly the one from inheritance.
And, as William Shakespeare has said in “King Richard II”:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
Musharraf’s Future
His colleagues and friends regard Musharraf as a man of crisis. He handled adroitly many a crisis till he sacked the Chief Justice (CJ) in March last year to silence his voice of dissent on his own bid to secure his position as President of the country for five more years. That started dwindling his popularity. The Supreme Court reinstated the CJ placing once more the Sword of Damocles over Musharraf’s head. He imposed an Emergency - de facto Martial Law- and sacked once more the CJ and several other judges to ensure a pliable Supreme Court. He lifted the Emergency under internal and external pressures. His popularity went further south. Would he still manage to recoup his position prior to March last year? He might succeed in pulling that rabbit from the hat, particularly as the army Generals are said to be still standing by him, and there is no mass leader like Benazir to challenge him on the political landscape of the country. And, the Bush administration is still tilting towards him for want of a worthwhile alternative. The forthcoming elections may throw up young and dynamic leaders – hopefully.
arifhussaini@hotmail.com
