Nearly three years ago Pakistan’s army chief General Pervez Musharraf led a strangely popular coup. There were no tanks on the streets, not a single shot was fired and no blood was spilt. Most Pakistanis applauded the arrival of the military after a decade of corrupt civilian governments. Musharraf promised a bright future.
Corruption would be eliminated, the economy would be rebuilt, the rule of law would be ensured and, perhaps most importantly, a decent democratic system would be restored. ”Our people were never emancipated from the yoke of despotism,” the general said. ”I shall not allow the people to be taken back to the era of sham democracy but to a true one.”
Many people gave him the benefit of the doubt. The United States ambassador in Islamabad at the time praised him as a ”moderate man who is acting out of patriotic motivation”. Pakistan’s Supreme Court gave him three years to prepare for general elections. The West turned a blind eye as a court convicted the friendless former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, of hijacking and terrorism in connection with the night of the coup.
Now those three years are almost up and Musharraf has committed himself to holding parliamentary elections in October. But is he really emancipating Pakistan from the ”yoke of despotism”? Many think not.
If the general gets his way, he will end up with unprecedented power as a president who is able to dismiss at will his unfortunate puppet prime minister. For the first time the military, through a new national security council, will have an institutionalised role in forming policy, particularly on sensitive issues such as Kashmir and nuclear deterrence.
At the heart of the problem is the poorly disguised contempt with which Musharraf regards the politicians who have ruled Pakistan in the short breaths between military dictatorships. He reserves special opprobrium for Sharif, the last prime minister, and Benazir Bhutto, who took turns in running the country during what the general calls a ”decade of disaster”.
To keep the legislators in check, Musharraf is putting the finishing touches to a list of constitutional amendments that do as much as possible to constrain future politicians. In a country where a third of the population is illiterate, he has ordered that only graduates may stand for election. As president he will be free to appoint any elected politician as prime minister. Anyone who has already served two terms as either prime minister or a provincial chief minister will not be able to hold those posts again.
Most importantly, the general is giving himself blanket powers as president to dismiss any prime minister, Cabinet or Parliament he does not like. In short, it amounts to what Musharraf describes as ”unity of command”.
In a chilling warning, he said in a speech in April that future prime ministers ”would not dare” reverse these reforms. ”I do not believe in power sharing,” he brazenly admitted. ”There has to be one authority for good government.”
In his defence, the general has made no secret of these plans, which he insists provide the only ”checks and balances” that will prevent corruption and misrule. The reforms have been floated and debated for months. Pakistan’s politicians, lawyers, journalists, clerics, academics and human rights experts have been scathing in their condemnation. Yet there has not been a single word of criticism from the West.
In the months after the coup, the British and US governments at first turned on the pressure for a return to democracy. Robin Cook, the then British foreign secretary, said Britain would ”strongly condemn any unconstitutional actions”.
Musharraf promised elections within three years and his critics appeared mollified. And so there was little complaint last year when, in a clearly unconstitutional action, he appointed himself president.
When earlier this year he decided to hold a heavily rigged referendum to endorse his presidency for another five years, the US administration dismissed it as an ”internal matter”. Britain said nothing.
Since September 11 Musharraf has been expediently promoted from troublesome dictator to crucial ally. Overnight, the little remaining pressure from abroad for reform disappeared. When British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw visited Islamabad to discuss peace in Kashmir and war in Afghanistan, he did not think to question the stark military vision of ”true democracy” that Musharraf is slowly imposing on Pakistan.
However, while the general is for now a friend of the West, he is facing dissent at home from a growing number of Pakistanis who resent the idea that their country is soon to be run like an army by a general. Looking back at the promises made three years ago, it is difficult to see what he has achieved. The general appears to have slowed the infiltration of Islamist militants into Kashmir, something a political leader may have found difficult. He has also created a system of new local councils that have challenged the colonial-era dominance of bureaucrats and have given a rare voice to women.
Yet in many other areas he has fallen short. Too many people convicted of corruption have paid their way out of jail, the economy is still struggling and the rule of law is all too frequently overwhelmed by terrorist attacks, sectarian killings or brutal and misogynistic tribal customs.
This discontent is likely to rear its head in the October elections, and the general and his entourage are said to be increasingly anxious about what the vote might bring. The Supreme Court rulings insist that every reform he has introduced and every amendment he has added to the Constitution must be ratified by a parliamentary vote. If the majority elected in the October Parliament opposes the general, he will find himself in a sticky position. Perhaps one day, his critics say, he may even stand trial for treason.
For months politicians have feared that he may delay the inevitable by postponing the elections. Now there are rumours of unhappiness among senior army officers, who feel the military’s image is being sullied.
Musharraf may be about to discover that seizing power in a bloodless coup was easy compared with imposing himself as the unassailable commander of his own ”true democracy”. — (c) Guardian Newspapers