The Saudi decision to send Sharif to Pakistan may be part of a bigger agenda

The expected return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan will certainly rattle both President Pervez Musharraf and another former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The return of Nawaz Sharif, the man Musharraf overthrew in a 1999 coup to gain power, could bolster the opposition to the President ahead of crucial parliamentary elections on January 8, according to this CNN report.

Unlike Bhutto who returned to Pakistan, hoping for a deal with Musharraf, brokered by the US, Sharif has played his cards well so far by refusing to negotiate with Musharraf. This has diminished Bhutto's credibility with the public, while Sharif’s stock soars.

Bhutto, incidentally, never even whimpered a protest when Nawaz Sharif was deported to Saudi Arabia after his return to Pakistan. It is only when Musharraf, declared emergency in the country, and spurned a deal with Bhutto, that she started talking about opposition unity.

That said, her Pakistan People’s Party is talking of participation in the polls which are being held under emergency regulations which limit civil and political rights, according to this report.

Musharraf meanwhile continues to make a mockery of the institutions in Pakistan. A puppet court, set up in his fashion after emergency was declared, has cleared his election as president even while in army uniform. Musharraf ousted the independent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a few days before he was expected to deliver an order on this petition that was likely to go against Musharraf.

Having ensured a veneer of legality to his re-election as President, Musharraf may now well resign from his army post, and control the army by proxy. Holding the election under emergency will help the President’s party win a majority in the Parliament, thus ensuring his control of Parliament, Judiciary, and the army.

Musharraf has done well for himself. Despite spurning US demands that remove the emergency, he continues to get US support, as the US is totally dependent on the Pakistan army to fight terrorists holed in the North West Frontier Province.

But problems will start for Musharraf once Nawaz Sharif reaches Pakistan. Unlike Bhutto, Sharif knows that at this point his best hopes are with the Pakistani people than in deals brokered by the US. The army may not back Musharraf to the hilt if the opposition against his rule snowballs. The army has indicated to the US that it would like to return to the barracks, according to some reports. That could mean the nemesis of Musharraf, and an opportunity for Sharif who also insists that the army should go back the barracks.

The army is not about to give up its control over Pakistani politics. But under pressure from the US to deliver in the war against terror, and facing public disaffection, as well as dissidence in its ranks, it may decide to lie low for a while. Saudi Arabia, which has allowed Sharif to leave despite protests from Musharraf, will also likely favor a restoration of normalcy in Pakistan, if only to reduce the prospects of Islamic fundamentalists gaining ground while the army is busy with Musharraf's political agenda. If one considers the political proximity of the Saudis to the US, the move by Saudi Arabia to let Sharif go to Paksitan clearly has a wink and a nod from the US.

A challenge for the new government in this eventuality will be to curb the army’s role in politics, to avoid more military coups in Pakistan. That resolution may however be harder to achieve.

Benazir Bhutto cozying to Nawaz Sharif in moment of rejection

Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto said this week she was working to forge a partnership with Nawaz Sharif, the man overthrown as prime minister in a 1999 coup by President Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto also formally demanded that Musharraf step down, suggesting that a rumored deal between her and Musharraf has fallen through.

Benazir Bhutto wanted to play the heroine of Pakistan, when she returned to Pakistan last month. At that point there was no mention of collaboration with the opposition, particularly Nawaz Sharif. Blessed by the Americans, and with a power-sharing deal with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf brokered by the Americans, Bhutto hoped to present the democratic face of Pakistan.

Bhutto went along with Musharraf in keeping Nawaz Sharif, another Pakistan prime minister on the margin. On his return, Sharif had been deported to Saudi Arabia to serve an agreement he is said to have made with the Pakistan government to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years. Musharraf saw Sharif as a threat and so did Bhutto, and the Americans went along with it because Sharif was not willing to do a deal with Musharraf.

A deal between Bhutto and Musharraf suited the Americans – they would use the sophisticated, westernized Bhutto as a mascot to convince the world that the US had not forgotten its agenda of promoting democracy, while Musharraf and the army would continue to control the country and fight the war against terror on behalf of the Americans.

That scenario did not pan out as scripted. Bhutto came back to Pakistan to a tumultuous, if well orchestrated, welcome which however ended in tragedy as terrorists struck. But the message was not lost on Musharraf. Bhutto was popular, and she could easily turn that crowd against him. Musharraf’s other trouble was from Pakistan’s Supreme Court which was to rule on the validity of his re-election as President.

So Musharraf surprised the Americans and Bhutto by declaring an emergency in the country, and revamping the country’s Supreme Court. He now says the Supreme Court, purged of the pugnacious former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, will clear his re-election.

Musharraf right now is no mood to concede to Bhutto’s demands, including an amendment to the consitution, that would give her a third term as prime minister. He does not need to. He has the opposition in jail and the Americans where he wants them. He knows that the Americans will not split with him or the army, as they value him far more than Bhutto as long as there are terrorists hiding in the North West Frontier province.

Bhutto can also ill-afford to do a deal with Musharraf who seems to be unwilling to make any concession to the opposition. Elections will be held in January under martial law, which will ensure that they will not be free or fair. “The emergency is to ensure elections go in an undisturbed manner,” Musharraf told the New York Times. He disagrees with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who has been demanding that he lift the emergency, he added.

Forlorn and friendless, Bhutto has now turned to Nawaz Sharif who has welcomed Benazir Bhutto's call for Pakistan's president to resign and said the opposition should unite against the military ruler. Bhutto, trying to set the agenda for Sharif, has announced her party may boycott the elections if they are held under martial law.

To be sure this is another alliance of convenience, but it will rattle Musharraf to see his two key opponents making common cause. Will that make him more receptive to American proposals when American Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte travels to Pakistan ? Or will it only strengthen his and the army’s resolve to cling to power at all costs ? Over to American diplomacy.

Related articles:

Pakistan needs statesmen not mere politicians
In Pakistan elections under martial law !

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.

Related articles:

US impotent before "buddy" Musharraf"

US support to Pakistan unaffected after martial law

In Pakistan, Musharaff declares emergency

The fragility of political institutions in Pakistan were exposed Saturday when the army-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, according to this report in USA Today.

Musharraf has declared the emergency ahead of a decision of the Supreme Court in Pakistan to a petition challenging his re-election as President, while keeping the post of chief-of-army staff.
The decision was expected to go against him.

Under President’s rule, the Supreme Court and most of the opposition will no doubt be placed under curbs, thus proving the fragility of Pakistan’s political institutions in the face of an army that will not cede control.

Earlier the US, in a bid to keep Musharraf in power, tried to broker a deal with a former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The former prime minister, who had returned to Pakistan to a tumultuous public welcome, is back in Dubai, probably apprehending the new state of emergency.

The army has played a huge role in the country’s politics, and has often deposed democratically elected governments that are not pliant. Musharraf deposed the government of Nawaz Sharif to come to power. Musharraf is facing civil unrest in the country, including demands that he step down. While he may try to say that that the emergency was declared to contain terrorism in the country’s north western frontier region, this is largely seen as a bid to cling to power.