End of the road for Mr Musharraf S. Nihal Singh | The Asian Age | 03 January 2008
http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/opinion/op-ed/end-of-the-road-for-mr-musharraf.aspx Sometimes it takes a national tragedy of the scale of Benazir Bhutto's assassination to pinpoint the fault lines of a country and the rocky road that lies ahead. Pakistan, together with other countries of South Asia, has witnessed murders of their leaders. Yet Benazir's murder has an unmatched poignancy because she was killed in the very park named after the country's first Prime Minister who was gunned down there, and the prodigal daughter of Pakistan had returned home after eight years of self-exile to claim the legacy of a famous family dynasty. It is the uniqueness of Pakistani politics that its three principal politicians the other two being the Muslim League (N)'s Nawaz Sharif and the Muttahida Quami Movement's Altaf Hussain have fought their political battles from foreign shores. But then the Army, which became an entrenched power factor in the country, up front or otherwise, gave politicians few options. And the cycle of military rule alternating with circumscribed civilian dispensations cast its long shadow. It has been a familiar cycle of generals being welcomed by a stressed people tired of venal politicians, of that welcome wearing thin, of the Army becoming increasingly unpopular, and finally, the uniformed man on the white charger turning into an object of hate. By the Pakistani yardstick, General Pervez Musharraf proved to be an uncommon leader. He converted Nine Eleven, the terrorist attacks on American soil, into an American bonanza of arms and economic assistance even as he had no option but to be an American ally in its "war on terror." President Musharraf, we must remind ourselves, was presiding over an Army riddled with sympathisers, if not supporters, of the Taliban and perhaps Al Qaeda, and of security agencies playing the "war on terror" both ways. The Pakistani establishment had convinced itself of the validity of Afghanistan providing it the "strategic depth" against India and of the usefulness of "bleeding" its neighbour in Kashmir and elsewhere for political profit. But President Musharraf also had the wisdom of seeking a diplomatic solution to the Kashmir problem through his favourite slogan of thinking out of the box. The symbolic high point was during then Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's visit to Islamabad in January 2004, but Musharraf walked the talk with the successor Congress government to begin a promising phase by employing a parallel back channel. Like all generals assuming political power, President Musharraf came to believe in his own indispensability. His popularity plummeted and his American mentors pressed him to make up with the leader of the largest political party, Benazir, to shore up his regime. The lady was more than willing, having shored up her own position through intense networking with her influential American contacts. She was willing to compromise with the General because she saw it as the only route to her return home and share power in a measure. Her homecoming welcome was both fantastic and tragic with more than 140 people killed in two bomb blasts targeting her joyous journey, although she escaped unscathed. But she was living on borrowed time. Where does Pakistan go from here? A central question thrown up by Benazir's violent death is that it portends the end of the road for Mr Musharraf. The timing of his likely departure will be determined by the new military dispensation presided over by General Ashfaq Kiyani deciding to cut the Army's losses in public esteem. Some kind of a civilian arrangement to hold the fort while the political air is cleared is inevitable. The United States is foolish in insisting on conducting a flawed election on schedule. Family dynasties are a powerful factor in South Asian politics, but the princes and princesses who assume power on the death of the king or queen take time to grow and some prove inept or must wait for a while. The Pakistan People's Party's flirtation with the idea of capitalising on a sympathy vote after the fashion of Rajiv Gandhi's great victory following his mother's assassination is understandable. Whoever assumes power in the interim will face built-in constraints. America will remain a major factor in the country's politics by virtue of its military and economic largesse and continuing interests in Afghanistan that go under the rubric of "war on terror." Any regime seeking to resolve Pakistan's problems must contend with reconciling contradictions between a radicalised section which has supporters in the ruling establishment on the one hand and a moderate civil society seeking a modern future for the country and plain citizens wanting to escape poverty and deprivation on the other. Given the scale of the problems in South Asia, the peoples' love affair with family dynasties makes sense. They provide glamour to often drab lives and the illusion of garibi hatao (abolish poverty) in Indira Gandhi's case, or the roti, kapda aur makan (bread, clothing and home) slogan of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is an elixir for the proverbial common man. No wonder then that Benazir could make a compact with a general who had ousted a democratically elected Prime Minister and yet remain the darling of the masses, as her spectacular homecoming journey demonstrated. A recent encouraging trend in Pakistan's polity has been the politicisation of the country's civil society inspired by the March firing of the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, by General Musharraf. The judge's refusal to roll over, breaking a long tradition of pliant judges, set off a remarkable agitation by vast numbers of Pakistani lawyers who sparked a sympathy wave, with prosperous sections of the new middle class joining hands in support. Although Chaudhry was reinstated, General Musharraf's patience ran out and he summarily dismissed him and other judges who refused to bend, despite the imposition of the emergency. The judges remained sacked and the General's own dubious re-election as President remained outside the writ of courts when the emergency was terminated. With the traditional flexibility US administrations display in setting aside moral or political principles when necessary, the Bush administration blessed the scheduled elections. In immediate terms, the turmoil in Pakistan will be dictated by the length of time Mr Musharraf remains in power.
