Pakistan’s rulers?military and civilian alike?thrive on deniability. They go to extraordinary lengths to defend their ?achievements?, even if they are better described as braggadocio. Plenty of this was on display two weeks ago, when President Pervez Musharraf was on a tour of European countries, though the joke was that he was also scouting for a safe place for exile, just in case things get too hot for him at home.
Two examples may illustrate the point. When he was asked about the rising tide of jehadi violence in his country, he said that Pakistan was ?a victim of misconception and distortion?, and the world should judge Pakistan on the progress it makes in its fight against militancy, not on ?idealistic, maybe unrealistic, Western perceptions of democracy?.
That?s too clever by half. Pakistan?s recent history would show that Islamist militancy, and the blowback of violence, has been rising to horrendous proportions on his watch. ?Please look at Pakistan from Pakistan?s eyes… not with the eyes of your misconceived Western views of human rights and democracy,? said President Musharraf, with no hint of irony, in response to a query about rule of law and governance in his country. However, these days, any observer of Pakistan without sympathy for his self-perpetuating agenda would frankly acknowledge the spectacular failure that General Musharraf?s eight years of rule have been on the very counts he himself had asked world leaders to track.
Now, with parliamentary elections slated for February 18, Musharraf faces tough choices. Not on staging the polls, but, as many suspect, the extent to which he must stage-manage them. He can?t allow himself to be a lightning rod for criticism by fashioning a majority for the discredited party loyal to him, the PML(Q), as he did in 2002. The religious right is absolutely a no-no. The opposition parties, on the other hand, are polarised into two groups: those like the PPP which would work with the president or those like the PML(N) which issue threats to impeach him once in government. Though he has proffered elections that will be free and fair??I have added a new word, ?peaceful?,? too, he said?he has dropped hints of a certain preference for a hung parliament. You can be reasonably sure that the uncertainty in Islamabad would only be of an approved kind.
A coalition government of the forces of ?moderation? can apparently keep all in good humour for now, the US included. The current military arithmetic in Rawalpindi may help Musharraf, too, in the near term. General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, the new army chief, has asked the forces to lie low in the political power calculus.
But what will the elected prime minister do? Last week, former premier Nawaz Sharif questioned, with a twinge of despondency, the position of the future prime minister, given the prevalence of the 17th Amendment, Legal Framework Order and the National Security Council?constitutional curtailments of the PM?s authority. ?Who will want to become a prime minister in their presence?? Sharif asked.
So the penny drops. In a situation where the army GHQ in Rawalpindi has the final say in crucial policy matters, and the President has overriding powers, the future PM could easily come off looking like a comical figure. Successive military rulers have disingenuously tried to craft ?democracy? in Pakistan, giving it various adjectival flourishes??basic?, ?partyless?, ?genuine? and ?representative??but none of them outlived its mastermind?s tenure. Then the country had an interlude of multi-party governments?which Musharraf never tires of calling ?sham democracy??that were brought to utter disgrace in part by characters like Nawaz Sharif with their corrupt and heavy-handed style of functioning. While holding elections by means fair or foul, it can?t escape Musharraf?s mind what kind of gloss is being put on the rule-based parliamentary democratic system.
During the Suez crisis of the 1950s, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden told his colleagues that he wouldn?t allow Gamal Abdel Nasser to ?have his thumb on our windpipe?. Similarly, the ?permanent establishment? indebted to President Musharraf can?t afford to have anyone else?s thumb to its windpipe, a state called Pakistan.