M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Despite substantial effort
by the administration of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to ensure a
majority for his Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and the Pakistan People’s Party in
last February’s general election, it failed. Although cheated of the majority
it should have had, Nawaz Sharif's PML(N) ran a respectable second to the PPP.
Although Musharraf sought an alliance
between his loyalists and the PPP in exchange for having smoothed the way for the
Bhutto clan to resume high office, "friendly advice" from the
administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, eager to secure unified
political backing in Pakistan for its War on Terror, made Benazir Bhutto’s heir
Asif Ali Zardari cobble up an alliance between the PPP and the PML(N).
Although the PPP has a Sindhi ethnic base,
Zardari appointed a Seraiki Punjabi, Y. R. Gilani, as prime minister. Given his
ethnicity and donnish approach to politics, Gilani has very little support
within the PPP, in contrast to the more popular Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who is
from Sindh. However, this very lack of support means that Gilani is less likely
than Fahim to pose a challenge to the control that Benazir Bhutto's husband
Zardari wields over the PPP. And being from Punjab, it is expected that he
would be able to improve the tally of the PPP in that all-important province,
at the expense of Nawaz Sharif.
His numerous personal and financial
skeletons mean that Zardari has little option but to remain tethered to any
"advice" given by the Pakistan army, in particular its intelligence
wing. The army in Pakistan has mastered the art of throwing just enough crumbs
Washington's way to keep the White House happy, while in practice refusing to
dismantle or even delink from the terror networks developed under its
supervision since the 1980s.
The new "popular" administration
is following this tested policy of chiding the terror networks in public but
winking at their activities, when not encouraging them. The Indian military
says that there has been a substantial increase in jihadi infiltration from
Pakistan into Kashmir since the "democratic" government was sworn in
on March 25, 2008. Now that the civilian government is there to take the blame,
the Paskistan army seems to be shedding the restraint that it exercised when
Musharraf was in full charge.
Pakistan's new prime minister, like his
Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, may be termed a "virtual" PM, for
real leadership is exercised by Zardari in Pakistan and Sonia Gandhi in India.
For the PPP, which worked out a deal with Musharraf more than a year ago, the
wily survivor is less of a threat than Nawaz Sharif. The PML(N) is insisting on
the reinstatement of the 60 judges superseded or dismissed by Musharraf, aware
that several of them have been on course to indict the PPP supremo for
corruption and other crimes, disregarding the support given to him by
Musharraf. Should the PPP-led administration agree to the reinstatement of the
judges, it would take less than a year for the cases against Zardari to be
revived, with uncertain consequences for his continued liberty.
On the other hand, Nawaz Sharif -- who as
prime minister was known for dismissing and superseding judges as airily as
Musharraf -- has now morphed into a supporter of judicial autonomy. Few expect
such a change in policy to last beyond another stint in power for Nawaz Sharif,
whose enmity to Musharraf has made him a less-than-welcome figure to the Bush
administration.
More than six decades have gone by since
the Union Jack was lowered from the government buildings of New Delhi, yet
Western politicians find it impossible to resist the temptation to gerrymander
political change in the Third World. The fact that most such experiments have
caused substantial blowback -- as in Lebanon -- has not affected this
propensity. It was unrealistic to expect that the PPP and the PML(N) would work
together in Pakistan, a combination about as viable as a McCain-Obama ticket in
the United States.
Should Zardari go along with Sharif, he
would lose the support of Musharraf as well as expose himself to fresh judicial
scrutiny -- an unwelcome prospect. The best option would be to avoid any other
provocation that could give Nawaz Sharif the excuse he needs to emerge as an
opposition force, rather than a half-hearted ally now without the benefits of
office. However, it is doubtful that Sharif would tolerate being in such limbo
for much longer. Short of arresting him on charges of graft -- not a difficult
matter in Pakistan -- the prospects are for Sharif and his party to challenge
the PPP in the streets.
Should Asif Zardari take over the reins of
office from the inoffensive, ineffective Gilani -- again an exact replica of
his Indian counterpart -- the slide in the PPP's popularity would accelerate.
However, together with the Musharraf loyalists as well as smaller parties eager
to remain within the periphery of power, he would still command a healthy
majority in the National Assembly.
The only way out for Sharif would be to
make the country ungovernable by rousing the people against the administration,
initially on the issue of the judges but later the more deadly problems of
price rises and unemployment. Pakistan is headed for exciting days, ones that
will expose the folly of seeking through backstage maneuvering to impose alien
preferences in place of the people's will.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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