Daily Times : VIEW: Musharraf Must Go

VIEW: Musharraf has to go

President Musharraf is delaying the growth of the political process by continuing in power. He might have a vision about the nation’s interest but the fact remains that he is now hindering the growth of the political system

by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa

Leonid Brezhnev, former Soviet president, once went to Bulgaria. To make him happy, the Bulgarian government decided to arrange for him his favourite sport of bear-hunting. Unfortunately, the animal captured for the purpose managed to escape. To avoid diplomatic embarrassment, the bureaucrats quickly got hold of a bear from a near-by circus. But the circus bear, as trained, snatched a bicycle from one of the men and started to ride it. Brezhnev, who by then was sitting atop a tree, swooned from astonishment and fell down. The fall caused a greater diplomatic disaster.

Moral of the story: real issues cannot be hidden by choreographing events.

The manner in which the Lal masjid crisis is unfolding, the pace of events, is not just about the government’s apt handling of the crisis but also about how the issue is being managed to divert attention from other important matters such as the ongoing judicial crisis or the political future of the country.

Although the entire country is happy that the government has finally taken on the blackmailing mullahs of Lal Masjid, the question on everyone’s mind is: why did it take so long for the government to take some action? The issue of timing is important because this government generally reacts much more sharply to any challenge to the writ of the state, Nawab Akbar Bugti being one such example.

Hopefully, the regime and its allies will have no issues with the media which has been diligently covering every minute of the Lal Masjid drama. I remember meeting some MQM stalwarts in London who were unhappy with the media for giving such coverage to the CJ’s visit to Lahore. They were irked by the fact that the CJ got more attention than President Pervez Musharraf, though the president appears on television nearly every day. I tried to explain to them that the media’s coverage was not a sign of any malicious intent but symptomatic of the profession. The media go where the story is. The CJ’s 26-hour journey from Islamabad to Lahore was covered because that was a hot story and that was what people wanted to see. Now the media is providing live coverage of Lal Masjid and concentrating more on that than the all-parties conference taking place in London.

The Ghazi brothers have also provided comic relief to people who were thinking of the tragic conditions of Balochistan where people are in dire need of assistance. Most have forgotten to ask the question of why the government is not prepared to provide assistance to the people just as it had failed to provide help to the flood-affected people of East Pakistan.

I am sure the concerned authorities will not be too happy to read my scepticism. I am quite certain that the attitude will be that this is endless nagging against the regime and the president. But I am not alone in this. I have heard other people, who have nothing to do with politics, talk about the Lal Masjid operation with a lot of suspicion. So, are we being ungrateful? Certainly not!

It is recognised that the government has done the right thing and called the bluff of the Ghazi brothers. The act of bringing sanity to the situation is much appreciated. The scepticism is not even about the people’s inability to generously support the good the government is doing. The real issue is that no matter what good the president does, he has to realise that he is fast reaching a point when people will be sceptical of everything he does. This is the cycle of nature according to which a military ruler cannot be tolerated beyond a certain point.

Pakistan is no exception. Chile, for instance, where General Pinochet seemed to have done wonders with the economy, showed the same frustration with continued army rule. This is the nature of politics. It does not follow the norms and discipline a general is used to. Politics is the game of constant negotiations and bargaining between different stakeholders including the establishment and the public. People become depressed in an environment and a system where they are unable to negotiate freely.

After a while people tend to ignore the high cost of irresponsible civilian leadership not because they have short memories or are uneducated but because military rule tends to suppress the stake-holder’s ability to bargain; this is worsened when the generals are seen to be distributing resources to their clients. Everyone who does not have access to the military’s patron-client system is left out.

In a political system the common man can use his vote to change the configuration. While in a patronage-ridden system the political leader too can exact a cost from those who do not support him, there is always room for compromise and manoeuvre for both sides. There is also corruption involved in such compromises. Political processes always carry some form of patronage. However, the fine-tuning of this system to a degree where it increases the power of the voter versus that of the politician really depends on the process of negotiations and bargaining going through repeated cycles. It must not be interrupted.

President Musharraf is delaying the growth of the political process by continuing in power. He might have a vision about the nation’s interest but the fact remains that he is now hindering the growth of the political system. He has very much been a part of the state and the government for the past seven to eight years. Even if he takes off his uniform and becomes acceptable to the political parties, which are already engaged in negotiations with him, he would still be part of the system. His presence, in fact, is bound to generate greater instability.

Just imagine a scenario in which President Musharraf and the newly elected prime minister have a face-off. Musharraf has enjoyed unfettered power and it won’t be easy for him to put up with an assertive PM. The two will get into a confrontation and we will again have instability. This is very likely if Musharraf remains a part of the government.

So, if the nation is eager to have a change and the president wants to contribute to the process, he has to take a deep breath and think about leaving the army and the government. If he realises how important it is for him to recede, perhaps people will remember his good deeds, including the way he has handled the Lal Masjid crisis.

The writer is an Islamabad-based independent defence analyst and author of the book, Military Inc, Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy