When President Ishaq dismissed Benazir Bhutto for corruption and inefficiency, many people believed him. They supported his action in the hope that the demise of her government might usher in a period of clean, stable, consensus politics.
But no, we live and learn. Today, the reputations of President Ishaq and PM Nawaz Sharif are in shreds, Bhutto’s stature has been partly vindicated and political power is up for grabs once again.
The President’s credibility began to sour soon after he set up an interim government designed to defeat Bhutto at the polls. The references against her followed, and her husband was imprisoned on charges or terrorism and murder. After the most controversial polls in Pakistan’s history, the President unleashed Jam Sadiq and the MQM on the PPP in Sindh, hounding it to distraction and laying waste to the province.
The Veena Hayat episode put paid to the hopes of those who still believed in the President. As his son-in-law ran amuck, the President put on his blinkers and retreated into a bunker. When Nawaz Sharif launched his plans to plunder Pakistan, the President’s stony silence didn’t fool anyone. Now his chickens have come home to roost: no less than the COAS has branded the MQM, a party the President has mollycoddled endlessly, a terrorist organisation. How can anyone pin an iota of faith on President Ishaq any more?
As for Mian Nawaz Sharif, one by one, his alliance partners — Messrs Jatoi, Qazi Hussain and Altaf Bhai — have departed, disillusioned and bitter, harbouring thoughts of vengeance. If he is still in Islamabad, it is only because he is desperately clinging to the coat-tails of an increasingly wayward President.
Two years ago, Benazir Bhutto didn’t know whether she was coming or going. She fended off conspiratorial assaults by Nawaz Sharif, dueled with President Ishaq and Gen Aslam Beg over power-sharing, and got no respite from the MQM in Sindh. Since she was kicked out into the cold, it has been a long, hard grind for her. But, at the end of the day, she seems to have been vindicated and is fighting fit.
The Presidential cases against her in the special courts have not amounted to anything in 21 months and have lost credibility. Her husband has been acquitted in two of the four cases against him while in the third the main accused is scot free even as Zardari languishes in prison. The charges of corruption against her have paled into minor indiscretions compared to stories of plunder against Nawaz Sharif. Her resilience, and that of her husband, in the face of naked oppression by Jam Sadiq and victimisation by President Ishaq has begun to evoke sympathy.
Bhutto’s strategy to improve her footing after Gen Beg’s retirement is no secret. Realising that Gen Asif Nawaz is a professional soldier unfazed by the political acrimony of the past, she has seized the opportunity to make up with the army. She supported Gen Nawaz’s efforts to rebuild relations with the US and backed his efforts to revise Pakistan’s Afghan policy. After Jam Sadiq’s death, she has laboured to consolidate her contacts with the army. When President Ishaq asked the COAS to persuade Bhutto to accept Mr Muzaffar Shah as chief minister of Sindh she read the situation correctly and agreed. When the army cracked down on Sindhi separatists and dacoits, she didn’t oppose the action. When it targeted the MQM, she was delighted. Muzaffar Shah’s majority has evaporated and left him at her mercy. More significantly, with several Sharif loyalists bitterly critical of Gen Asif Nawaz, cracks have appeared within the ruling troika and Bhutto thinks she is in with a chance again.
“This is Pakistan’s darkest hour”, says Benazir Bhutto, “Ishaq and Sharif should resign”. She is calling for fresh elections and supports the idea of a constitutional role for the army in any future power sharing arrangement. She is also threatening to resign from all the assemblies if her demands aren’t met, which could provoke a crisis for both President Ishaq and PM Sharif.
Bhutto is looking good mainly because the President and PM are both looking bad. The President’s stubborn partisanship has embarrassed even his most loyal supporters. “Maybe it is time for the old man to call it a day”, they say. As for the IJI, it has lost its raison d’etre and Nawaz Sharif’s parliamentary majority is looking decidedly thin.
“Bhutto retains her vote bank while Nawaz is rapidly losing his”, admit IJI loyalists privately, “the only way out is for him to affect a working compromise with her otherwise there will be martial law in Pakistan”. The Generals think that Bhutto has learnt her lessons and is being quite sensible now. Even the Jamaat-i-Islami, formerly a resolute PPP foe, has changed its stance: “The PPP is a patriotic party which believes in the integrity and solidarity of Pakistan”. This is a far cry from August 1990 when the Pakistani establishment and the religious lobby conspired to keep Benazir Bhutto out of politics for all time to come. But it is a reality our rulers must contend with, and quickly.