The News (Pakistan) : Time is running out

Time is running out

By Ghazi Salahuddin

There may have been quite a few drowsy workers in their offices on Thursday. They were up until the small hours, anxiously watching news on the independent channels and waiting for imposition of emergency that many saw as imminent. The scare had its own thrill. In a sense, the suspense had started to build when President General Pervez Musharraf unexpectedly cancelled, at the last moment, his visit to Kabul to lead Pakistan delegation to the three-day Pakistan-Afghanistan Peace Jirga that began on Thursday. It was almost like the Prince of Denmark walking out of a staging of 'Hamlet'. Was something rotten somewhere?

In any case, we also have evidence that Musharraf himself was not in his bed during those brooding hours after midnight. Around two o'clock in the morning of Thursday, he was talking, on telephone, to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as reported by foreign news agencies. That conversation is said to have lasted 17 minutes. Though it was daytime in Washington D.C. it had to be something important for Rice to disturb the president of the sovereign state of Pakistan. It is obvious to observers that she had called to advice against the imposition of emergency.

That is how the 'chase sequence' finally ended early on Thursday, though it is not certain that they would not go for a sequel of that drama. Some high functionaries of the administration, who were unavailable for any comment on Wednesday night, invited themselves for telephonic interviews to rule out the imposition of emergency in the country. Even the ones who were believed to have leaked the strong possibility of a presidential proclamation of emergency within hours were vociferous in their denial.

There is general agreement among political analysts that the United States played a decisive role in persuading Musharraf against the imposition of a state of emergency in Pakistan. Rice's telephone call was likened, by some, to that call that her predecessor Colin Powell had made soon after 9/11. There was also an indication of how America looks at our political situation in President Bush's remarks in his White House press conference.

He said: "My focus in terms of the domestic situation there is that they have a free and fair election, and that's what we've been talking to him about and hopeful they will".

All that the state department spokesman Sean McCormack said about the call that Rice had made to Musharraf was that "they talked about the ongoing involving political developments in Pakistan". But a transcript of the relevant part of the briefing on Thursday makes an interesting reading. The spokesman parried all questions that probed any relation between the phone call and the state of emergency. There was this question that only invited chuckles: "In a very general sense -- and probably any other day, you would probably answer this question frankly and forthrightly; I don't know if you will today, but I'm going to try anyway --".

It was probably like someone asking the president or his spokesman a question about the uniform. Meanwhile, opposition leaders continue to insist that a free and fair election would not be possible under Musharraf -- with or without uniform. This, in fact, is another suspense that is likely to persist for some time. All this talk about emergency, however, has made Musharraf more vulnerable. I had said in a recent column that after March 9, he has lost in every throw of the dice. Time, it seems, is running out for him.

Benazir Bhutto used this expression on Wednesday while rejecting the plan for a state of emergency. According to AFP, she "warned the country's embattled military ruler Pervez Musharraf that time is running out for them to make a deal". Incidentally, The Boston Globe had this article by Karl F Inderferth on Thursday: "Time is running out to get things right in Afghanistan". Yes, there is this sense of the situation all around becoming very critical.

As for Musharraf's increasing loss of authority, some more details of the poll conducted in Pakistan by Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) were released on Thursday. It showed that most Pakistanis -- 62 per cent -- want him to step down as head of the country's army. As many as 59 per cent said that elections held while he continued to wear his military uniform were unlikely to be free and fair.

Unfortunately, the set-backs that Musharraf has suffered in the political arena have prompted some strikingly candid views about the army's role in politics. The judicial crisis saw the crossing of a barrier during the seminar held by the Supreme Court Bar Association on May 26. It was held in the premises of the Supreme Court in Islamabad and the speeches made by some leaders of the lawyers' movement, telecast live, could hardly be possible before March 9. After all, the army and Musharraf do go together.

Take this report published in The New York Times on Thursday: "Pakistanis Express Ire at Army and Musharraf". Datelined Islamabad, the report is written by Carlotta Gall and Somini Sengupta. The very first sentence, quoting a man in the hillside village Kohu, a three-hour drive from the capital, makes a shocking statement. I am not repeating it.

The Times, London, also had an analysis in its issue on Thursday about the possibility of a state of emergency, stating that many people thought that it would be an act of desperation. It is written by Times' correspondent in Pakistan, Zahid Hussain. And this is how it concludes: "The critical thing for a military ruler is to avoid popular demonstrations, because if the military starts to think that the anger against General Musharraf could turn into anger against the army, senior generals may take General Musharraf aside and say: 'You have done well, but now it is time to go'."

This, of course, does not mean that any possible departure of Musharraf from the scene would set things right. We will still have to reap the consequences of his long rule. At one level, we are witnessing the failure of another self-proclaimed saviour. The pity is that at times, he seemed to be doing well. Fighting America's war on terror was at least economically rewarding. 'Enlightened moderation' could also be a good idea.

But what are the final gains of this largely unchallenged rule of eight long years? Let me quote from another report from The New York Times, published on Wednesday: "A World Bank assessment recently ranked Pakistan in the lowest 10th percentile for political stability and said corruption was as bad as it was in 1998. That was just a year before Musharraf seized power from Bhutto's successor, Nawaz Sharif, accusing him of gross corruption and mismanagement".

The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com