Pakistan: Musharraf's Mistake

By Indranil Banerjie

Eight years ago, on 12 October 1999, when General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff (COAS), dismissed the civilian government headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and installed himself as what he called the country's Chief Executive Officer, the crowds that came out on the streets were jubilant. Eleven years of faltering democracy in Pakistan had proved to be a disappointment. The country's two principal mainstream political leaders – Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto – had alternately ruled the country since 1988 when another Pakistan Army chief, General Mirza Aslam Beg, had mandated democracy. But neither Sharif nor Bhutto had been able to deliver. Most ordinary Pakistanis considered them to be incompetent and corrupt. Worse, the Pakistani economy was in a mess: foreign debt had piled up to dangerous levels, exports were not growing and macro indicators were out of balance. There was also a sense of despondency in the streets. The country was languishing and the only upbeat sections of society were the Islamists, who were rapidly consolidating their position in the polity.

Today, the crowds are once again out on the streets of Pakistani cities. Only this time, they are hardly jubilant. If anything, they are angry. The target this time is Musharraf and the demonstrations are against his dictatorship. The last time, Pakistan had seen such large pro-democracy rallies was in 1988 following the death of the previous dictator General Zia ul Haq. At that time, elections were in the air and a massive pro-Benazir wave was sweeping across the country. Today, Pakistanis are railing against Musharraf and the military. They want a free press, a free judiciary and free elections. Thousands of Pakistanis have been incarcrated, beaten and intimidated for protesting but they have not been cowed down. The protests, though somewhat muted, continue.
The immediate provocation was General Musharraf's decision to declare a national emergency on 3 November 2007. Musharraf suspended the constitution, jailed several justices and lawyers of the Supreme Court including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudary, ordered the arrest of political dissidents and human rights activists, and shut down all private television channels. This move was perhaps the worst mistake of his political career. For, as soon as emergency was declared, the crowds were out on the streets. Judging from the public demonstrations, most Pakistanis want Musharraf out and an elected government in its place. The question is what went wrong? How did Musharraf fall from public grace?

What appears to have precipitated the imposition of emergency is the judiciary, particularly Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has of late become a rallying point for pro-democracy forces. Chaudhry had proved to be a singularly straight minded judge who resisted pressure from the military establishment and its friends. For instance, he passed a scathing judgement against the government in the selling of Pakistan Steel Mills to a group including Arif Habib, a former client and friend of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. The list of complaints against him mounted and finally in March this year, Musharraf reportedly summoned the judge and told him to mend his ways or resign. The Justice agreed to do neither. Finally, on 9 March, he was dismissed and charges of abuse of office were instituted against him. If Musharaff thought he had tied up the judiciary, he was mistaken. Firstly, the move invited widespread protests from lawyers across the country and even the judiciary itself was incensed by what the General had done. Not surprisingly, on 20 July this year, the Supreme Court re-instated Justice Chaudhry and dismissed the charges instituted by Musharraf. The reinstatement was cause for national jubilation and the public mood was clearly swinging away from the General.

When Musharraf had seized power in 1999, he had publicly promised that his tenure in power would be a short one and that whatever he had done was with the aim of stabilising the country. However, General Musharraf had not dismissed Nawaz Sharif because the country or because the economy was in a bad shape. He had seized power because Sharif wanted to sack him for his increasing interference in government affairs and his refusal to allow an amendment that would establish civilian supremacy over the military. Musharraf and his fellow officers were getting increasingly alarmed over Sharif's tendency to free his country of the military's stranglehold. Just that year, Pakistan had recovered from a disastrous border war with India in Kargil. The war had nearly precipitated a nuclear crisis. The generals,including Musharraf, were not contrite but if Sharif thought he could reduce the power of Pakistan's capricious generals, he was sadly mistaken. On 12 October 1999, Sharif passed an order dismissing Musharraf and installing another general in his place. A furious Musharraf, who was out of the country at that time, boarded a flight to return to Pakistan. A frightened Sharif ordered that the aircraft carrying the General should not be allowed to land in the country. However, the military clearly called the shots and Musharraf did manage to land in Karachi. Sharif was not only dismissed but arrested. Subsequently, he was tried and found guilty of terrorism and other charges and given a life sentence. Some feared that a vengeful Musharraf would hang him just as Zia had hanged Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Nawaz escaped thanks to the Saudi royal family. He was pardoned by Musharraf and sent into exile in Jeddah in December that year.

From then on, Musharraf has been gradually but surely tightening his grip on power. As a BBC profile on Musharraf remarked: "The pivotal moment in General Musharraf's presidency was 11 September, 2001." The Twin Tower bombing drew the United States back into the region. From a supporter of the Taliban, General Musharraf was chain ganged into the coalition against the Taliban and Islamist extremism. The Pakistan army was allowed a honourable, if hasty, exit from Afghanistan and billions in economic and military aid once again began pouring into Pakistan. The economy once again boomed, foreign debt was generously re-scheduled and in all Musharraf found he had got it all. During this period, Musharraf also tried to improve relations with India and lower the temperature on Kashmir.

One major problem with Musharraf and many of his fellow military officers was their faith and reliance on political Islam. Ever since the Islamisation of the Army during the Zia years, its top brass in Rawalpindi has looked upon the Islamists as their principal ally. The army has promoted the Islamists including parties like the Jamait Ulema e Islam (JUI) led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Jaish e Mohammad, Jamaat e Islami etc.. These parties have been used for several tasks both domestic and external. They have been utilised to promote the Kashmir jihad and the Taliban conquest of Afghanistan. These groups along with the army's secret service ISI covertly aided the al Qaida and its sister organisations to set up base in Afghanistan and parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) in western Pakistan. The Islamists have been used in domestic politics by Musharraf to take on the mainstream political parties.

Fearing a threat to his rule from the mainstream parties led by Bhutto and Sharif, Musharraf has done everything to emasculate the mainstream parties. Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has been splintered into various factions and the Pakistan Peoples' Party has been hit both by the Islamist parties and by the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), which has chosen to support Musharraf. In the elections under Musharraf, Islamists have been able to contest the polls thanks to the change in an election clause which no longer required graduates to have passed from recognised universities. By allowing the Madrassah educated to contest elections, Musharraf changed the country's political landscape. Mainstream political support has been shrinking with the Islamist parties gaining in stature, support and influence. Probably the worst use of the Islamists have been in the Balochistan province where an anti-government movement has been suppressed by arrests, killings and the disappearance of thousands of Balochis. The Islamists are actively aiding the army to hunt out its enemies and establish a reign of terror over the civilian population of that province.

Worse, there is every reason to believe that Musharraf, till recently at least, ran with the hares and hunted with the hounds. While claiming to the West's best ally against terrorism, he did nothing against major Taliban and al Qaida bases within Pakistan. Extremist groups like the Jaish were told to maintain a low profile and many overt centres were asked to shut down. Just below the surface, political Islam and extremism continued to thrive. Every time Washington accused him of going slow against terrorism, Musharraf pulled a terrorist out of his military hat. When distrustful foreign dignitaries visited Islamabad, the General reeled off statistics of terrorists apprehended and challenged anyone to do better. This game would not have gone on for ever. Sections of the extremists, many of whom were being sacrificed, were getting increasingly distrustful of Musharraf.
The Lal Masjid events in July this year, where a besieged Maulana and his armed supporters took on the military, probably marked the end of Musharraf's entente with the more extreme sections of the political Islamists. The first to explode was Waziristan where the Pakistani army continues to fight extremist forces. Recent reports suggest that other FATA areas like Swat too are slipping out of government control. Pakistani army soldiers have been deserting on the grounds that they cannot fight the Islamists. The attempts to Islamise the Pakistani army have finally come home to roost.
A beleaguered Musharraf finding his strategy coming rapidly unstuck and his Western allies increasingly annoyed with his chicanery, realises that he needs to hold on to power now more than ever before. With the extremists and the mainstream forces arranged against him, Musharraf cannot look forward to a cosy post-retirement scenario. Prodded by the United States to introduce a semblance of democracy by shedding his uniform and making a deal with Benazir Bhutto, the General knows he has to remain the country's president, calling the shots and remaining in business. In order to ensure ths, he had himself re-elected President in an election in October, which no one believed. The Supreme Court stated that it would decide on the legitimacy of that elections and whether the General could be re-elected for another term. This was not good news for Musharraf, especially now that Benazir Bhutto was back in the country and Nawaz Sharif was trying to make a comeback. As long as Justice Chaudary headed the Supreme Court, Musharraf's chances of making it were slim.

The General's solution was simple and dictatorial: On 3 November 3 this year, a state of emergency rule was declared, the Constitution suspended, and the chief justice dismissed. In a speech justifying his decisions, Musharraf declared that the state of emergency was imposed in the country to safeguard national interests and counter growing terrorism and the downward trend of economy. In response, the feisty Chief Justice Chaudary immediately quashed the provisional constitution order, declaration of emergency and the suspension of the constitution, and ordered all civil and military personnel to ignore the order. General Musharraf reacted by ordering that the Supreme Court premises be stormed by the 111th Brigade of the army. Chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudary along with seven other judges of the of the Pakistan supreme court were removed from office and put under house arrest.

The new set of judges appointed by the General have approved his actions and will doubtless rubber stamp his re-election as President. But that will clearly not solve the General's problem. For, he has lost the most basic credential for staying in power: public approval.