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Politics, Musharraf-style

As international attention remains focused on the anniversary of last September's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, an interesting and intriguing electoral battle is taking shape in Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf is following the path set by past military dictators like Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Yahya Khan, and General Zia-ul-Haq, and imposing his own version of democracy on the hapless people of Pakistan.

By a series of amendments to Pakistan's constitution of 1973, General Musharraf has proclaimed himself president and chief of army staff for five years with effect from the date that his electoral process is completed. Musharraf retains the power to dissolve Parliament and make all-important judicial and governmental appointments, particularly in the armed forces.

Overseeing the working of the democratically elected government will be a national security council, in which the armed forces will be significantly represented. Musharraf obviously envisages a government in which the prime minister will be a figurehead and the parliament a rubber stamp. In reality, what he intends is that democracy in Pakistan will be a government of the army, by the army, for the army.

Musharraf has ensured that political rivals like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief are prevented from contesting the election in order to see that his hegemony is unchallenged.

The Pakistan Muslim League has traditionally had a large number of feudals who are ever ready to join hands with any military dictator and use the official machinery to ensure their electoral success. It has, therefore, not been difficult for Musharraf to split the Muslim League and form a 'King's Party' that calls itself the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam).

This party, ostensibly headed by Mian Azhar, a rival of Nawaz Sharief, was to have joined a number of others who, like them, depend on government patronage to win elections. They were to form a 'Grand Alliance' to fight Benazir's Pakistan People's Party and Sharief's PML-Nawaz. The other parties who were to have joined the 'Grand Alliance' and currently constitute what is called a 'National Alliance' include those headed by former president Farooq Leghari and former prime minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi.

Imran Khan's Tehriq-e-Insaaf has not found it possible to make common cause with these worthies, because Imran suddenly found that it was the PML-QA that was set to receive the maximum backing of the military government.

In the meantime, the mainstream religious parties, the Jamiat-e-Islami, the Jamaat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam have joined together and formed an alliance called the MMA. Given their reservations about Musharraf making common cause with the Americans against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, this group, which had backed the army and the ISI in General Zia's days, has turned against the government.

The Musharraf dispensation is sparing no effort to see that those who back it, especially from the PML-QA, are elected using all the powers at its disposal particularly in the majority Punjab province. Even the selection of candidates here for the PML-QA has been overseen by Musharraf proteges, including his principal secretary, Tariq Aziz, and a coterie of specially chosen officials in Lahore. These include the corps commander, Lahore, General Jamshed Gulzar, the chief secretary of Punjab, Hafeez Akhtar Randhawa, and the former ISI hand turned home secretary of Punjab, Brigadier Ejaz Shah.

The governor of Punjab, Lieutenant General Khalid Maqbool, has been sidelined. Reports from Pakistan suggest that the corps commanders in Sind and Baluchistan have avoided joining their colleague in Lahore in attempting to manipulate the elections. Thus, not everyone in the armed forces is overly enthusiastic about the direction Musharraf is proceeding in. But even in these provinces the local administration is pulling out the stops to make things easy for those the Musharraf dispensation supports.

While there was considerable public disaffection against political leaders when General Musharraf took over in October 1999, the good general has not particularly endeared himself to the people after his farcical, rigged referendum. Further, while Pakistan's external balance of payments may have improved after large doses of foreign assistance, the continuous rise in prices of public utilities and essential commodities and rising unemployment have only added to the woes of the common man.

There appears to be little doubt that should the election be conducted in a free and fair manner, Benazir Bhutto's PPP will do exceedingly well.

The alliance between Bhutto and Sharief to take on General Musharraf could well lead to a PPP-PML-N coalition after the election. Parties like the Awami National Party headed by Asfandyar Wali Khan in the North West Frontier Province would be only too happy to join such a grouping. But as General Musharraf would not like this to happen, every effort will be made to influence and rig the election results to produce a hung parliament that can be manipulated through government patronage and coercion.

Pakistan is headed for an uncertain and turbulent political future. Should the PPP and PML-N come back with a substantial majority, they will move to undo the constitutional amendments Musharraf has effected, either through the courts or through the parliament. This will bring them into direct confrontation with General Musharraf.

But if Musharraf does massively rig the elections as he did in the referendum for his "election" as president, he will have even less political legitimacy than he now does.

But what must be encouraging to him is the virtually unqualified support that he has received from the Bush administration. Speaking after the rigged referendum, President Bush proclaimed: "He's still with us in the war against terror and that's what I appreciate." Only a few days ago, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage went further and tacitly supported Musharraf's decision to continue as president attired in the uniform of the army chief for another five years.

But in the past, such American support has eventually ended as a kiss of death for Pakistan's military dictators and resulted in Pakistan being unable to develop a viable system of democratic governance.

New Delhi has wisely refrained from commenting on the political processes in Pakistan. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has expressed his readiness to talk to any government in Islamabad that ends the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy.

It is obvious that despite the positive statements emanating from Washington about the contribution of General Musharraf to the war on terrorism, there is a growing realisation that the epicentre of global terrorism has shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Speaking at Bagram near Kabul a few days ago, General Tommy Franks, commander-in-chief of the US Central Command, said: "Over time the war against terrorism may need to be extended beyond Afghanistan... The relations we have with states surrounding Afghanistan will permit us over time to do this work."

Put bluntly, this was a message to General Musharraf that he should act decisively against Al Qaeda and its supporters who are now based all over Pakistan, or face the prospect of American intervention in his country. Pakistan has tried to deflect the blame for the escape of Al Qaeda terrorists to Iran. But as the recent assassination attempt on Hamid Karzai showed, Al Qaeda and its supporters are most active near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

It remains to be seen how General Musharraf will deal with this situation and simultaneously manage the political challenges he faces within Pakistan.

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