In Pakistan, elections under martial law !

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today at a press conference showed the US and the rest of the world that in Pakistani politics you can have your cake and eat it too.

Musharraf pledged elections in January, though the elections will be likely held while the state of emergency is still on, according to this report in CNN.

What that means, despite Musharraf’s pledge of having international observers, is that Musharraf and the army will ensure that only the pliant will get elected to the new parliament.

Musharraf and the army already control the Supreme Court and the Election Commission. Elections and parliamentary legitimacy is all he needs to complete this sordid charade.

The US and some European countries have been urging Musharraf to move towards democracy, but Musharraf demonstrated at the press conference on Sunday that he sets the agenda in Pakistan.

As US officials have often admitted, they need Musharraf and the Pakistani army in the war against terror, particularly as key terrorists are believed to be holed out in the country’s North-Western Frontier province.

Musharraf is playing that card against the US and Europe. He is well aware that the US will not try to upset a cozy relationship that it needs with the Pakistani army.

Where does that leave Benazir Bhutto ? Her Western sophistication and British education appeals to the West, but unlike Musharraf she does not control the army. In her craze to come to power, Bhutto will in the event, make some vociferous protests for the galleries, and then perhaps settle for a deal with the generals.

That leaves the small constituency of lawyers as the only consistent opposition to Musharraf and army rule. They are a strong moral force, but cannot for long counter the repression by the police and the army.

As the army battles its own people, the war against terror moves to the back-burner. Musharraf is in no hurry to flush out the terrorists. They are his trump card against US pressure.

The break down of civil society and political institutions may however help the jihadis. As the country’s civil society finds itself more distressed and impotent, the moderates may lose ideological leadership to the jihadis.

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Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has gone ahead and declared a state of emergency on Saturday in Pakistan. Troops have surrounded the country’s Supreme Court building and physically removed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry who was earlier in the day expelled from the job. The other justices of the court are expected to be asked to take a new oath in favor of the President.

The proclamation of emergency rule, which according to some analysts is closer to martial law with the army in full control, should come as an embarrassment to the US which views Pakistan as a close ally in its war against terror.

The declaration also came in direct defiance of warnings by top American officials, reports the New York Times. The senior American military commander in the Middle East, Admiral William J. Fallon, told General Musharraf and his top generals in a meeting in Islamabad on Friday that emergency rule would jeopardize the extensive American financial support for the Pakistani military, according to the report

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally intervened twice in the past four months to try to keep General Musharraf from imposing emergency rule, including telephoning him at 2 a.m. Pakistani time in August. Today, while traveling to Turkey for an Iraq security conference, she reinforced the message, saying, “I think it would be quite obvious that the United States wouldn’t be supportive of extra-constitutional means," New York Times reports.

Don’t expect Musharraf however to reverse martial law under US pressure. For one, US pressure matters little to the President who has the support of the Pakistani army which sees Musharraf as the best way to perpetuate its control. Apart from some few violent protests, the country will settle down to another long spell of martial law.

Which should suit the US well. Although it advocates democracy in its demagoguery, and will likely issue protests, as required by protocol, at the new turn of events in Pakistan, don’t expect US sanctions on Pakistan or its military.

The US at this point needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs the US, and Musharraf factored that into his calculations. The epicenter of the war against terror is Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, where Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding. So the military in Pakistan will continue to demand more arms from the US and will get them, even if some of those arms are turned against the Pakistani people.

The US has also in the past been quite comfortable dealing with Pakistani military dictators, much to the chagrin of politicians in democratic India who believed that the two democracies should be naturally allied.

This time after a few protests for the galleries, Musharraf and the US will be back to business soon.

That however will be a big mistake for the US to make. The alienation of civil society in Pakistan under Musharraf’s rule, which is likely to get exacerbated under martial law, will only play into the hands of the Muslim fundamentalists who will now start actively recruiting among disaffected Pakistani youth. Martial law in Pakistan will only accelerate the “Talibanization” of Pakistan’s civil society.

At that point, Musharraf may once again need the US very badly. Like the Shah of Iran he will need some place to escape to. It is unfortunate that the US never learns from its past mistakes.

In Pakistan, army rule legalized by Supreme Court

The dismissal by Pakistan’s Supreme Court of petitions, challenging Pervez Musharraf from standing for re-election as President, even as he holds the post of Army chief, at one stroke removed any hope of a legal end to army rule in Pakistan. The 6-3 decision by Supreme Court judges on Friday in fact legalizes army rule in Pakistan.

On October 6, it appears that Pervez Musharraf will stand for President while also holding the post of chief of Pakistan’s army. In effect a victory for Musharraf will be a victory for the army and its continued dominance of Pakistani politics. Government lawyers, who first said that the President would resign from the army post if re-elected, later prevaricated.

The government, the Supreme Court, and the army were in fact rolled into one when under the The Oath of Judges Order 2000 the judges in Pakistan took a fresh oath of office swearing allegiance to military rule. Judges had to swear that they would not make decisions against the military rule.

The struggle for democracy will now move more dramatically to the streets. If earlier, opponents of Musharraf, political parties opposed to him, and the lawyers had hoped that the Supreme Court would rule in their favor, they will now have to take their protests to the street.

Musharraf is seeking re-election from a Parliament whose term ends in October this year, and his party has a majority in this parliament that was elected in 2002 at the peak of the General’s power. Once Musharraf is re-elected, and the army consolidate their rule, they will likely call for a general election, and they and their minions will decide who can contest and who will not. That may include former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but will very definitely exclude another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

It is only the people of Pakistan who can prevent this bizarre sequence of events from unfolding. Close allies like the US have long ago thrown their weight behind Musharraf, and are evidently proud that their boy has made it past the petitions in the Supreme Court.

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Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is very worried he may be out of a job as developments unfold in Pakistan. He wants to keep his army job just in case he is not re-elected as President of the country.

The General, now in his 60s, has a wife and family to look after. The Pakistani people have to ensure their leader does not slip at his age into the ranks of the unemployed.

The very reasonable General has, in fact, offered to quit his army job if he gets elected as President.

If elected for a second term as president, Musharraf shall relinquish charge of the post of chief of army staff soon after elections and before taking the oath of president for the second term, lawyer Sharfuddin Pirzada told the Supreme Court today, according to a report by AFP.

Musharraf is facing a petition in the Supreme Court objecting to the President standing for presidential elections in uniform. The country's Election Commission has changed the rules to make it easier for Musharraf to seek a new five-year presidential term while retaining his post as army chief. It removed a rule barring government employees, including army officers, from running for political office.

The offer by Musharraf’s lawyer to the Supreme Court will ensure that the general continues to wield power even if he loses the election, pleasing some of his supporters including the US which believes that Musharraf’s continuation is critical to its war against terror.

In a country where the army has considerable influence and has toppled elected governments, Musharraf will likely wield real power, with a say in running the country.

Musharraf’s current term in office ends November 15. Musharraf’s re-election bid will be voted for by members of the national parliament and provincial councils, where his party has a strong presence. Opposition parties have asked for early parliament elections, after which the President should seek re-election. The parliament elections are due next year.

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The US has often sworn by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf as a friend in the war against terror. Now they are backing him to the hilt as he faces civilian unrest within the country, trying to contrive a deal between the General and a former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, that would keep the General in power.

Meanwhile the General attempts to block the return to Pakistan of another Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who it appears will not play ball with either the Americans or the President.

Where does this place US President George Bush’s aim to promote democracy around the world ? Pakistan, a virtual client state of the US, would be evidently the first place to start.

The rub is that the US, we are told, is more comfortable with the President than Pakistan’s democrats in the fight against terror. The importance of having a stable, and Musharraf-run Pakistan is underscored by Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons, which the Americans fear could fall in terrorist hands if the Islamic jihadis over-run Pakistan.

This argument however overlooks conveniently that neither Bhutto or Sharif are Islamic extremists. The opposition to Musharaff in Pakistan is moderate. The continuation of an unpopular Musharraf government, with US support, will only strengthen extremist elements in the country.

Historically, the US has stood solidly behind Pakistani and its dictators, viewing the country as a gateway to the Middle East, even if it meant antagonizing a large democracy like India. That is the reason why former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed very wisely a treaty in the 1970s with the former Soviet Union. That is also the reason why India’s Leftist parties, and to an extent the scientific establishment, are wary of signing a nuclear deal with the US, that would give India access to American nuclear technology under certain conditions.

Indian’s don’t trust the Americans, and talk of the need for indigenous technology, because they have been the victims of American hypocrisy for decades.

It is now time for Bush, for all his posturing as the great champion of democracy, to set the record straight in South Asia, both within Pakistan, and in its relations with India.

To be sure, the US will say that Sharif and his family faces criminal charges in Pakistan. But Bush cannot be so naïve as to imagine that these charges are for real. Dictators are known to trump up charges, and try to compromise the judiciary, sometimes with a wink-and-a-nod from the US. Bush can’t have forgotten Musharaff’s botched attempt to get rid of the country's Supreme Court chief justice in March.