US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was said to have brought a ‘tough message’ for President Musharraf. Lift Emergency and take off your uniform before the elections he was reported to have told him in Islamabad. However some observers believed the US envoy was ‘tougher on Benazir than Musharraf’, as he contrary to the expectation stopped short of meeting the PPP chairperson, according to some quarters on the behest of the Pakistani president. Was Negroponte also on a mission to broker a Musharraf–Benazir patch up? If he was, he did not appear to have succeeded, as Musharraf stuck to his guns on the crucial question of lifting the Emergency before polls, which Benazir says, is a precondition for holding ‘free and fair elections’. Overtly frustrated Benazir Bhutto said that there was no point in talking to Musharraf, “if he does not listen to the US which has given $10 billion aid to Pakistan why would he listen to me’, she said.
Prophets of doom insist that Musharraf regime cannot last long. With its back to the wall, they say, it has now hopelessly run short of options to manoeuvre for survival. The imposition of Emergency was a desperate move which Musharraf thought would lend him a new lease of life, but the artificially contrived token of stability has landed the regime in more trouble than salvaging its political authority. And it is being said that one error of judgement is leading to another. The closing down of two premier private TV channels has been a disaster, which has enraged moderate circles of civil society. If the government was scared of letting the dissidents projects themselves it has by this short-sighted measure provoked the entire media to rise in revolt against the regime. According to them, the beginning of the election campaign would let loose forces of mass agitation beyond the control law enforcement agencies and then the detractors of the regime would hardly need the facility of private TV channels to air their views.
Benazir Bhutto appears to have changed her track from reconciliation to confrontation with the regime in the hope that her ‘godfathers’ would intervene to administer a truce. Being their handpicked ally for Musharraf, she rightly believed, that the Americans would not leave her in the lurch, more so because they are not entirely satisfied with the end-result of Musharraf’s war against terror. Nevertheless, what she has grossly overlooked is the clear distinction between ‘drafting an ally’ and ‘looking for an alternative’. From all accounts the Americans are not yet disillusioned with Musharraf’s role as their partner in the coalition to a degree that would be thinking in terms of replacing him with a new face, and Benazir Bhutto is certainly not their choice for a new viceroy in the region. Small wonder Musharraf has had the impunity to tell Negroponte that Emergency would remain in force as long as the security situation did not improve.
The Americans may from time to time go on making noises that Musharraf regime was not doing enough to fight the militants or express reservations about Islamabad’s self-proclaimed-transition to democracy but they are still prepared to work with Musharraf as an indispensable friend and ally, and are not likely to entertain any ideas of dumping him for the time being. Thus, Musharraf has the leverage to bargain with them and not necessarily toe their line on all matters. The best illustration of how Musharraf has managed to exercise measure of autonomy in foreign relations is Islamabad’s refusal to follow the American dictates vis-à-vis Iran, in particular holding fort for the gas pipeline project, even though the Indians have chickened out of it. To a lesser degree has been Musharraf regimes top priority to promoting economic collaboration with China on projects which do not find favour with the Americans, such as the Gwadar sea port and thereby the prospects of Chinese naval presence in the Indian ocean.
According to a school of critics the Americans are not pleased with Chinese marked presence in Pakistan, which they consider a roadblock to their desired access to Central Asia. There has been good deal of speculation that the Americans may well have been behind the recent killings of Chinese technicians in NWFP and Balochistan. Needless to say the Americans are quite capable of treachery and duplicity in their relations with who they call their ‘friends and allies’, and one wouldn’t know for sure what would be their grand design for the region in the near future. But one must acknowledge that under the circumstances Musharraf regime has the will and the capability to defy the American writ if it means transgressing into areas spelled out as ‘national interest’.
What would the Americans do if they at some stage wish to get rid of an ‘undesirable’ regime in Pakistan. They could sponsor a mass agitation, or try to engineer a military coup. Both the options are unsafe. Given the strong anti-American sentiment at the popular level, fuelling an agitation could backfire since there would always be the possibility of anti-American forces taking over the leadership of the mass movement, notwithstanding the presence of their ‘henchmen’ among the rabble-rousers. And there could be generals in the Pakistan army willing to play ball with the Americans but the key issue is do they have the ability to deliver. Needless to say, the American displeasure with Musharraf policies and style of functioning does not mean that it poses a threat of destabilisation of his regime.
In the wake of the lawyers, media men, students and human rights activist out in the streets, protesting against the Emergency and its off-shoots, and the regime finding it hard to retrieve any credibility for the re-constituted Supreme Court, opinion leaders are quite right in pointing out that uncertainty still haunts the political scene. How stable is Musharraf after securing the Supreme Court approval for his second term is the crucial question. Obviously he is not a comfortable position. His popular rating is lower than ever before, his game plan to get himself re-elected was by spoiled by the Supreme Court, and he had to bank on the imposition of Emergency to rescue his political authority. The opposition parties, including Benazir Bhutto with whom he had a power-sharing deal, are demanding his ‘skull’ as a pre-condition for participation in the electoral process. And things have come to such a pass that Benazir says, Musharraf with or without uniform is not acceptable’. Can be under the circumstances manage to bail himself out from the predicament that he is in today.
Political Pundits are prone to suggesting that he may hang on to power, despite his unpopularity at home and diplomatic isolation abroad, since there is no threat to his authority potent enough to pave the way for his exit. Ironically, he himself said in a recent interview that he had considered the option of ‘quitting’, but then it was more of rhetoric than a real possibility to project himself as a ‘patriot’ who would anything to serve the interest of the nation. Theoretically, there could have been the following potential sources of threat to his power; mass agitation, an unfriendly Supreme Court, another military coup and American intervention. The looming threat from an assertive judiciary has been taken care of, and there appears to be no reason for the army generals to harbour the urge to dump a person who has done more than anyone else in Pakistan’s history to institutionalise Army’s share in political power.
The Americans, as has been said before would not like to destabilise Musharraf regime, unless they are assured of a viable alternative to pursue their agenda in Pakistan. There have of late been some signals of a mass agitation in the making but it does not look like gaining enough momentum to create a ‘do or die’ situation. The onus of failure to bring people into the streets is on the opposition parties which have been long on rhetoric but miserably short on performance. Barring the PPP which has made a modicum of attempts to raise street power, all other opposition parties have been conspicuous by their absence from the scene of action. If the so called champions of democracy are unable to arouse the populace for their cause to a level where they are capable of paralysing the system, Musharraf has nothing to worry about being overthrown by the popular upsurge.
It does not however mean that he will have smooth sail second term in office. Much will depend on his ability to initiate a genuine process of national reconciliation, establish a credible political order which is seen as democratic and not a replica of a captive political apparatus, and ensure that the army is disengaged from active power politics. But if he does not do any such thing, he may still manage to hang on to power but for how long is anybody’s guess.
