It would be easy to be cynical about Pakistan?s President General Pervez Musharraf?s using his military uniform, his ?second skin?, to force his way back to power through a vote of dubious validity. Making a travesty of the ?genuine democracy? he claims to uphold, the general will get another term by the same set of national and provincial assemblies that endorsed his election as president in the so-called referendum of April 2002. Pakistan?s current parliament itself was a product of a rigged poll the same year, and its term of office expires in six weeks? time. The scenario suggests that it is the spectre of having to contest without being the Chief of Army Staff that cuts into the leadership?s deepest existential fears, not the en masse resignations by right-wing opposition legislators from the assemblies in an attempt to rob the election of credibility.
The general says the country needs to re-elect him as president in the ?national interest? to consolidate the gains made during eight years of military rule. He says Pakistan needs political stability and a firm democracy as it is strives towards ?enlightened moderation? and associated reforms to contain extremism and boost the economy still more. This is the same argument he used to renege on his earlier pledges to shed his uniform. ?Tell me if all this can be guaranteed (without him as army chief),? he once asked.
As it happens, in Pakistan, a military ruler can state without any hint of irony that he leads a ?democratic? government. The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski once likened the idea of democratic communism to fried snowballs. Can democratic military dictatorship be any different?
That bizarre logic may have endured had the military?s prestige stayed as high in the estimation of those watching the twists and turns of the US-led ?war on terror? as in the view of those in contemplation of more than just the contingencies of the country?s dilemma and complexities General Musharraf faces.
This year, as the general lurched from one political crisis to another after
March 9, his domestic popularity was seen by observers around the world to be in free fall, even as Washington voices began to contest his claim to indispensability on the eastern flank of a broad region that finds itself in the thick of the dust raised by 9/11 and subsequent US action. Was a Houdini-like clamber back from over the edge yet possible? This was in furious debate.
The US, meanwhile, got itself a new defence team under Bob Gates, and re-calculations have clearly been made. In Pakistan, the current buzzword is ?national reconciliation?. In that spirit, General Musharraf is expected to continue as a civilian president after passing the army chief?s baton to General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani. The president will still retain formidable powers, like arbitrary dismissal of federal and provincial governments and assemblies, but he will have to contend with the rival power centre in the GHQ in Rawalpindi. A deal in the making with former PM Benazir Bhutto, involving the dropping of all corruption charges against her, has seen umpteen flip-flops. If the intelligence agencies can ?manage? the next parliamentary elections to ensure the desired outcome, she may be back as PM.
Then we may see a re-run of the ?troika? system of power-sharing framed during the 1988-99 period. The presidency, the military?s civilian face, shares power with a PM who will have limited executive powers over strategic issues and foreign relations. The army chief will keep the system running and safeguard the military?s core interests. If the civilians overplay their cards, they will probably be ejected, as in July 1993. Or if the situation warrants a coup, as in October 1999, the army will oblige.
Does the ?troika? arrangement have another 11 years of dotting the ?i?s and crossing the ?t?s in it? Maybe not. But as long as the military-intelligence complex remains at the helm as the permanent establishment, it?s a consensual bet that governance in Pakistan will continue to shock, surprise and intrigue, either as fried snowballs or something that defies description altogether.