What Next?


Written by Chris Cork • Region • September 2007

Predictions of an early end to President Musharraf's rule may be premature. He has lost local support but can and will live with it. The boys in Washington need him where he is and, at the end of the day that is what will really matters, writes Chris Cork

Sixty is no great age as nations go, and those countries which are sixty or thereabouts are the oldest of the batch that have achieved independence post-World War II. Pakistan had a blood-drenched birth and has seen far too much blood flow ever since. It is the world’s first Muslim state and after a lifetime of turbulence and struggle to shake off the pains of birth, remains mired in chronic political, social and religious conflict, is a failed democracy and high on the sick-list of fragile nations. It may also have turned a political and social corner in the last month, though the road ahead looks no less difficult than the one already travelled.

It is said with some justification that Pakistan is one of the hardest countries in the world to govern, by which standard President Musharraf has one of the world’s toughest jobs. Of late, it has got considerably harder as the tensions inherent in the flimsy construct which is large part military and lesser part civilian which governs the country, begin to rip and tear at its fabric.

The suspension of the Chief Justice opened a period of severe instability that climaxed with the furore surrounding the non-introduction of emergency rule on 9th August – which would be almost farcical were it not so serious, Things have gone very wrong for President Musharraf this year, and the media is awash with tales of his imminent demise. Demise, however, does not appear to be on his agenda and Mark Twain’s dry comment on hearing reports of his own passing – "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" – have a modern echo.

There had been chatter for months of the imposition of a state of emergency, and the media, particularly the new-ish private TV stations had talked it up; in the process losing some of their objectivity as they struggled to fill a 24/7 rolling news schedule. Just how close the nation came to emergency rule is unclear, but it didn’t and it is the ‘What next’ question rather than the ‘What if’ question that has primacy.

Emergency or not, Musharraf faces enormous political challenges if he is to remain as leader. One of those crises has only recently been revealed, and it may be the hardest one to resolve in the end. After enjoying years of support, grudging and otherwise from the wider population, he has seen his popularity as a leader plummet in the last seven months.

A survey released in mid-August 2007 is the clearest indicator yet that he has lost the support and goodwill of a majority of the population. The survey by the International Republican Institute found that 62% wanted him to resign as army Chief of Staff, whilst 59% said any elections held while he continues in uniform are unlikely to be free and fair. 47% supported the pre-election power-sharing deal between himself and the currently self-exiled Benazir Bhutto, with 37% opposed to any such move. In a country that has the military as a core component of the national soul, 55% said it should play no part in civilian government, whilst a still substantial 40% felt that it should.

Support for the President as a man has not wholly disappeared, and he still enjoys considerable respect by many for what he has achieved, and 48% said that they would support him for re-election if he resigned from the army and fought the election as a civilian. If seen outside of the sphere of party politics, this would see him re-elected, both comfortable and in the eyes of many – legitimately. What the majority of people want is clear – what they will get is another matter entirely.

Events of recent months have yet to be quantified in terms of the negative effect they may have on the economy, but Prime minister Shaukat Aziz has now openly admitted that the ‘ongoing political crisis’ and the ‘surge in militancy’ have hurt the national economy, and that a slowdown could be on the cards. Factor in the once-again disastrous effects of this year’s monsoon on Karachi, economic engine of the whole country, and suddenly you start to see an economy that is decidedly shaky, and if the economy starts to collapse, civil society may not be far behind it.

The problem with people knowing what they want is that it is often very short-term, a need for instant gratification, with little thought of consequences. Yes, people want the President out of uniform but that will not solve at a stroke the problem of internal terrorism and the failure to address the single greatest challenge facing any and all Pakistani governments – poverty; and the bulk of the population is failing to see any ‘trickle down’ effect from the boom that is making a relatively few rich; which in itself may feed future civil unrest.

The political parties both in and out of power need to set aside their parochial interests and begin to think of the post-election world in terms of something more sophisticated than windy rhetoric and sound bytes. They have had a salutary wake-up call from the non-political, or at least the overtly non-political, players that have come to the fore in recent months and in doing so have revealed the emptiness of the political establishment in all parties; perhaps triggering the insecurities that have led to a state of emergency being considered as they for the first time in decades represent a sea-change in the wider political environment. In short – the Judiciary.

What started as a crude piece of bullying and arm-twisting on March 9th was turned into a national movement by the legal profession, one that enjoyed quick and very substantial popular support – support that shows every sign of being sustained. Hitherto, the judiciary had been neither the most stain-free or popular of national bodies and the man at the vortex of the crisis was himself seemingly no paragon of virtue, but the public put aside their traditional doubts, the judiciary themselves managed to avoid the obvious pitfalls and the Supreme Court in re-instating Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry delivered a verdict that may well have changed the course of history for the nation. A sense of pride has begun to creep back, and that can be no bad thing.

Pride aside, there is the muck of elections yet to get through, and waiting in the wings are those sad old warhorses Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Both were disastrous prime ministers. Both burgled the national coffers for their own ends. Bhutto never managed to pass a single piece of legislation in her first term. Sharif did even worse economically than Bhutto. Now one at least may return, if only for cosmetic effect. Musharraf knows that somewhere along the line he is going to have to cut a deal with one or both of them and Benazir Bhutto is the least bad option as far as he is concerned. Welcome back Ms. Bhutto, now sit quietly and behave yourself.

Musharraf’s backers, few enough at home perhaps but plenty and powerful in Washington (for the moment), continue to provide political and financial support. Washington appears to have concluded that there is no viable alternative to him, and sturdy declarations of support for democracy mean little beside the compliance of an ally in the War on Terror; and if he were to give up the uniform would any of the civilian alternatives have sufficient power and weight to control the military? No.

In the event of either of the exiles returning, it will be to a different landscape to the one they left. They will be under the scrutiny of a media that comes to its job armed and dangerous these days, with sticky questions and a commendable disrespect for convention, and a judiciary who have in five months carved out a niche of probity that could translate to a populist power base if carefully managed. The grubby old politicians may come back to the stage, but they are going to have to learn a different script to the one that has served them in the past; one that has accountability hard-wired in and a lot less dribbling sycophancy.

There will be turbulent and bloody years ahead, but in the short to medium term, Musharraf and the military are going to remain the key players. The end of Musharraf? Not just yet.