Will she or won’t she? Benazir Bhutto’s threat to resign en masse from the assemblies and precipitate a political crisis must have dawned on Nawaz Sharif. He may sound confident in the assembly and look good on PTV, but the facts suggest that the moment of truth for him may be near.
Mohammad Khan Junejo, the ML president, is certainly keeping his options open. He thinks that Bhutto’s resignations will pose serious problems for the government. He is also in no mood to vacate his formal authority over the ruling party in favour of the prime minister. So what is he playing at?
If Bhutto’s resignations are followed by a show of strength at rallies and lead to a disruption in everyday life, one wrong move by the government, out of nervousness, arrogance or sheer incompetence, could rebound with terrible consequences. Mr Junejo obviously thinks Mian Sahib could well botch it. So he wants to be able to offer a sensible way out of the crisis. What he has in mind is this: Thatchering Mr Sharif in the national assembly and holding out an olive branch to Bhutto by cobbling a ‘consensus’ government. What an irony of fate that would be. After all, Mr Junejo was dismissed by Gen Zia precisely because he seemed to have all the ingredients of a sensible, understated, Sindhi prime minister: ability to get along with the opposition (Geneva Accords), refusal to cow down before an almighty, unaccountable President (Ojhri disaster), good relations with the press (repeal of the notorious Press and Publications Ordinance) and a relatively clean record of running a government (no significant corruption charges).
The other person who is watching and waiting is, of course, the evergreen Mr Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi. Mr Jatoi was clever enough not to lend his shoulder to Bhutto’s proposed demonstration outside the Sindh assembly on 30th August. He sensed or knew that the army would frown on it. In the event he was right and Bhutto had to backtrack. If all signals are green for launching a movement against Mr Sharif, we should find Mr Jatoi’s resignation next to that of Ms Bhutto. If it isn’t, watch the man. He may have a better idea of what’s what.
Why has Benazir Bhutto chosen this moment for a showdown with Mr Sharif? Bhutto can say with some justification that, despite electoral rigging in 1990, she chose to stay within an imperfect system in order to give democracy a chance to work. But the government hasn’t reciprocated. On the contrary, it unleashed Jam Sadiq on her supporters, falsely arrested her husband and is now trying desperately to disqualify her from taking part in politics for seven years. Far better that she should resign now when the government’s callousness and corruption stretches mass disbelief than after she has been exiled by the Presidential references in the special courts. At least this way her decision can be sold to the public as a principled, rather than a personal, one.
Of course, this will be as big a gamble as the one she took in 1985 when she boycotted Zia ul Haq’s ‘partyless’ elections. There was no going back then and there will be no going back now. If fate hadn’t intervened to send Zia packing when it did, she might have grown wrinkles despairing at her miscalculation. Could the same sort of thing happen today? Could Nawaz Sharif, lucky devil that he is, happily ride away into the sunset, leaving Bhutto to flounder in the wilderness behind?
We think not. Nawaz Sharif can beguile some people some of the time, but not everyone all the time. Barring fate, whatever he does, motorways and all, he can never forcibly take away Bhutto’s vote-bank from her in Sindh and Punjab. Nor, in the final analysis, can he outwit the foxy Ghulam Ishaq whose game is not yet done. And if it should come to a clash between the two Nawazs, the one in khaki Vs the one in black and white, no one is likely to hedge his bets.
The game of cricket, as always, provides a memorable metaphor. Imagine Mian Nawaz Sharif at the crease, at the fag end of a tiring, last day of a One Day limited-overs match, with an overcast sky threatening rain and a formidable run rate to chase. A fiery Bhutto is running in to bowl to him from the Sindh End, with the roar of the rabble in the stands urging her on. There is Gen Asif Nawaz, stretching his back and loosening his shoulders for a Waqaresque stint from the GHQ End. With openers Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Sami ul Haq back in the pavilion after an agonisingly slow start, with star batsman Gen Hameed Gul out for a duck, and a long tail — the two Chaurdrys, old Ghaus Ali Shah, Kanju, Laleka et al — to wag, what are the chances of the man in the white overcoat, President Ishaq, saving the match? If it weren’t so absurd, the scene might reflect the ground realities better than anything else we can think of right now.