Moeen Qureshi’s recent visit to Pakistan has provoked a rash of rumours. Was he offered the job of interim prime minister? Is General Pervez Musharraf seriously thinking of handing power back to the civilians in October 2001 rather than in October 2002?
Since 1993, Mr Qureshi has routinely visited Pakistan every winter, spending a week or so interacting with friends and former colleagues in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Invariably, too, he has publicly drawn attention to the overarching problems of the time and delicately advised the government of the day on how to tackle them. At no stage during this time has there been a hint of any political ambition on his part or any scope of a role for him in government. So why should it have been different this time round?
We are not privy to the meeting between Mr Qureshi and General Musharraf. But Mr Qureshi was either offered the job of interim prime minister or he wasn’t. If he wasn’t, there is nothing more to be said about it. But if he was, several critical questions arise. First, what conceivable factors might have compelled General Musharraf to consider appointing a civilian prime minister in the two year run-up to the general elections? Second, given such a need, why should he chose Mr Qureshi rather than anyone else? Third, given Mr Qureshi’s own views, what sort of pre-conditions might he insist upon before accepting the offer vis a vis power-sharing and decision-making with the military?
When General Musharraf ousted Nawaz Sharif last year, he had three broad policy options before him. First, to impose martial law, summarily convict and disqualify a couple of dozen politicians and bureaucrats from holding office, etc., including Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto, hold party-based general elections within 90 days, arm-twist the new parliament into amending the constitution and accommodate him as the next President of Pakistan and Chairman of a military-dominated National Security Council empowered to sack prime ministers, cabinets and parliaments, singly or jointly as the case might warrant. Second, to follow the route that General Abdul Waheed took in 1993 by appointing Mr Qureshi interim prime minister (this time for three years instead of three months) and giving him a free hand to put things right – accountability, economic revival and foreign policy. This route could have also terminated at the same exit point as the first in terms of the newly crafted political system to be bequeathed to the civilians. Third, to establish a mid-way house in which the army would call all the shots under a civilian façade stretching over three years and ending at the same point as the first two.
In the event, the third route was taken. Unfortunately, however, it has led to the widespread perception at home and abroad that the army has failed to deliver. This continuing debacle might have convinced some generals to advocate a retreat to the second route as soon as possible in order to stop the army’s slide into general disrepute and the country’s descent into international isolation. Indeed, it is entirely possible that such generals might also wisely wish to shorten the end point of their regime’s journey from three to two years.
If Mr Qureshi has been asked to bail out the army from a difficult situation, clearly the offer would be in consideration of his perceived strengths as much as the regime’s known failings. So it must be Mr Qureshi’s seeming acceptability or proximity to two previous army chiefs, his reputation as a top-notch economist, his pragmatic political wisdom and experience and his many important contacts in the West — all highly desirable virtues in the current context of economic dependence and political isolation – that would have made him the punters’ hot favourite in recent weeks. Should he accept the job if it is offered to him?
Yes, if he is truly given a free hand to create the necessary political conditions for a sufficient economic programme of revival and growth based on a substantial debt restructuring and write-off, along with a reduction in the growth of military expenditures. This would entail negotiating fruitful entry into the CTBT, pulling out of a crippling arms race with India, establishing a relationship of “friends not masters or foes” with the West, braving the forces of fundamentalism, extremism and obscurantism which have so damaged Pakistan, and making peace in the region by calibrating support for the Taliban and the Mujahidin in conformity with the correct balance of Pakistan’s strengths and weaknesses. No, if General Musharraf and his blue-eyed Kargil boys expect Mr Qureshi to turn the economy round while they retain control over a foreign policy that has wrecked the prospects of sustainable economic development. The worst thing that could happen would be for Mr Qureshi to take over and be consigned to another clever-by-half mid-way house engineered by the military in which his civilian team is fated to meet the same ignoble end as past and present civilians in this military regime. Indeed, Moeen Qureshi’s absence from the domestic scene could turn out to be the fate of a story foretold.