onday's elections in Pakistan were widely seen as a referendum on Pervez Musharraf. Though he remains President of the country, his party, Pakistan Muslim League (Q), has been routed getting only 38 of the 267 seats that were directly contested for the lower house of the National Assembly. The two main Opposition parties, slain leader Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) have cornered 153, winning 88 and 67 seats respectively in the just concluded polls. The two, along with some smaller parties, are now in a position to choose their own prime minister and form the next government.
Musharraf, under rising pressure, has tried to be his generous best. He has said that he was willing to cooperate and work closely with the new government. But there are serious differences between the two main Opposition parties on whether or not to work with Musharraf.
Sharif has made it very clear that neither he nor his party members will work with Musharraf. He has now demanded that the required support in the new parliament be mobilised to impeach the President. Asif Zardari, the widower of Benazir and the co-chairperson of the PPP, has not yet stated his party's position on what is to be done with Musharraf. It is this ambiguity of the PPP that is worrying many people in Pakistan as it can lead to a fresh round of agitations, violence, and political instability in the country.
Sharif and Zardari, along with key members of their respective parties are likely to meet over the next few days to work out the modalities of the proposed coalition government. But they will also have to decide on another crucial issue–what they plan to do with Musharraf.
Musharraf got elected as the country's President last year after he declared a state of Emergency in Pakistan in November. Before that he dismissed the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftiqar Ali Chowdhry and the other senior judges of the court as he feared that they would have raised questions about the legitimacy of the electoral college that was to elect him as the President. The handpicked judges who replaced Chowdhry and his colleagues, duly validated Musharraf's election as the country's President. Predictably, he lifted the Emergency soon after.
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But now the new political players in the scene are demanding his impeachment and the restoration of the judiciary that was dismissed in November. This in effect means that they are actively preparing the ground to force Musharraf to step down.
From the time he ousted Nawaz Sharif in a coup in September 1999, Musharraf has ruled Pakistan as a military dictator for eight years. Pressure had been mounting both within and outside Pakistan against Musharraf. The series of agitations in Pakistan and the army's inability to effectively deal with the Taliban fighters along the country's border with Afghanistan, finally led his main-backer, the United States, to convince him to give up his army uniform. But before he shed his uniform, Musharraf decided to get elected as the country's President and also put his close and trusted allies in key positions in the Pakistani army. The present army chief of Pakistan, Parvez
Kayani, is said to enjoy the trust of both Musharraf and Washington.
In his lifetime, Musharraf has faced a number of situations where he found himself to have been cornered. But so far he has succeeded in getting out of all the tight spots. The growing demand for his resignation that he now faces is perhaps the tightest spots from which he has to get out. Will he manage to do so yet again? This is perhaps a question that is bothering many people in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world.
Under the circumstances, Musharraf's best bet is to strike a deal with Zardari. He may be able to remind him that it is largely because of his effort that Benazir Bhutto had returned to Pakistan. He can offer to cooperate with Zardari and the new Prime Minister that he chooses to nominate. But within the rank-and-file of the PPP there are large sections that do not want to touch Musharraf with a barge pole. Many of them hold him responsible for Benazir Bhutto's death and feel that any attempt to cooperate with Musharraf will tantamount to deal with her killers.
There are no clear choices for Zardari either. He has returned to normal life after years in the prison and now sees the opportunity to break the political isolation of the PPP and bring it into the political spotlight in Pakistan. He is mindful of the negative view that exists in the PPP on dealing with Musharraf. But he also realizes that major world powers, particularly the US, will want political stability to return to Pakistan. His refusal to deal with Musharraf can only spark off another round of confrontation and prepare the ground for fresh bouts of violence and instability.
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At the same time he has two major problems. One, he is not sure of the extent to which he can trust Musharraf. He may fear that once the political dust settles, the Pakistani President will try all the tricks he has in his bag to destabilise the PPP government and undermine it. Two, he is not sure whether he will be able to convince
Sharif to join ranks with him in a government that will have no option but to cooperate with Musharraf to bring back stability in Pakistan.
As long as Sharif and the PML (N) remain outside, they can be the potential rallying point for all the anti-Musharraf forces in the country. Will such a situation allow his government to function freely? And if it does not, then he and the PPP will have to take the blame for not being able to deliver and restore normalcy and political stability in Pakistan.
Sharif may find it difficult to forget the role Musharraf played in the coup that ousted him from power. But even if he keeps aside his personal animosity and emotions, he may be pragmatic enough to realize that before soon the honeymoon between the coalition government and the Pakistani President will get over. If he remains outside and takes a moral position by supporting the demand to reinstate the dismissed judiciary, he may continue to be relevant in Pakistani politics. Once Zardari and his PPP get discredited, he can step in to fill the space and become the true champion of democracy in Pakistan. His best bet therefore lies in keeping out of a government that strikes a deal with Musharraf. However, he will also have to ensure that discontent against Musharraf continues to boil and no opportunity is lost to discredit the government and the President.
If Musharraf fails to strike a deal with Zardari, he may fall back on the Pakistani army and the intelligence agency to bail him out. He may call on Kayani's support to deal with agitations and demands for his ouster, if they shows signs of revival. He may even ask the ISI's help in instigating some violence in the country. For if there is violence then Musharraf can once again make himself relevant and appeal to Zardari and others to give top priority in launching a coordinated effort in dealing with the Islamic fundamentalist forces.
Unfortunately, the elections in Pakistan have not been able to find answers to questions that were already there prior to the polls. Will the new government give top priority to the removal of Musharraf or will it join ranks with him to tackle the challenge thrown up by the Islamic fundamentalist forces? Whichever is given priority, it will still take time for peace and stability to return to Pakistan.
The views expressed in the article are the author's and not of Sify.com.
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