The last two weeks have been eventful. The PML rebels, headed by the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, were finally able to trump the Sharif faction in a show of strength based on the numbers game. This has prompted some people to ask whether the PML is ready for the plucking by General Pervez Musharraf.
Not to be outdone, the PPP has rallied behind Benazir Bhutto and confirmed her “chairperson for life” for the nth time. This has emboldened some people to claim that at least one province, Sindh, will forever remain out of General Musharraf’s grasp.
Meanwhile, General Musharraf has been busy tying and untying some knots of his own. Irrespective of how it is officially billed, the change of command at GHQ is most significant. General Mohammad Aziz, the former Chief of General Staff and now Corps Commander of Lahore, was one of the two coup-makers of last October, the other being the current head of the ISI, General Mahmood Ahmed. As a decisive and opinionated person, General Aziz’s stamp of authority was visible on all the major political, tactical and strategic decisions of the junta following the coup. Since many of those decisions have now come a cropper, people are right to expect a review of political policy and strategic direction in Rawalpindi. This view is strengthened by the exit of General Mohammad Amjad from the intoxicating heights of the NAB. Like General Aziz, his inflexibility stood in the way of real politik. The fact that both hard-line generals have been replaced by more amenable ones also suggests that General Musharraf is more his own man now than before. Will this lead to an improvement in the CE’s perception, performance and policy prescriptions?
Such expectations, if any, were not fulfilled during General Musharraf’s trip to the UN in New York last week. Apologists and official drum-beaters apart, his offer of a “no-war” pact to India and his readiness to meet the prime minister of India “for meaningful talks on Kashmir anywhere, any time etc” was neither new nor bold. The no-war offer, in particular, has been flogged by Pakistan since General Zia’s time and countered by India’s demand for a “no-first-strike” pact. India rejects the first because it thinks it would deprive it of conventional military leverage and Pakistan rejects the second because it thinks it would diminish its nuclear deterrent. But if General Musharraf had offered the second, India would not have been able to deny the first, and a genuinely bold breakthrough for peace in South Asia would have been credited to Pakistan’s Chief Executive.
Equally, or alternatively, if General Musharraf had given his blessings for an unconditional dialogue between New Delhi and the Hurriyat Conference/Hizbul Mujahidin in Kashmir, for the moment leaving aside the question of when (not if) Pakistan would insist on making it a trilateral exercise, the international community would have given him a standing ovation and put Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee in the dock. In the event, Mr Vajpayee’s appalling speech at the Asia Society in New York, in which he self-righteously condemned Pakistan, would have been roundly denounced, casting a shadow on his much-trumpeted official visit to the US. As it is, however, Pakistan’s cause has gone abegging once again, General Musharraf’s five minute angry flutter at the UN notwithstanding.
Finally, we have read and heard disquieting reports of General Musharraf’s encounter with the Pak-American press in New York. At one stage, we gather, the irritated General accused the “irresponsible press” of “taking money” to write “negative” stories about his government. Alas. How many times have we heard all this before! Nawaz Sharif alleged it and Benazir Bhutto bemoaned it all the while in power, even as they were dishing out tens of millions from slush funds to the perennial pro-government “lifafa journalists” on the payroll of the ministry of information. But out of power, they were always quick to laud the same “irresponsible” press and the same “negativist” journalists for their “courage”, “integrity” and “independence”. Nor should General Musharraf forget that the press and journalists he is quick to condemn and accuse today are the very ones who stood by him and gave him a degree of sorely-needed acceptability when he made his coup.
So we have a mixed bag of developments in the offing. If the Sharifs’ grip over the PML can be loosened without splintering the party and leading to a dangerous political vacuum in the Punjab, the way can be paved for a speedier return to stable civilian rule in one form or the other. But if Benazir Bhutto’s grip over the PPP cannot, General Musharraf runs the risk of deepening the fissures in the federation by sliding into an unacceptable “one-unitism” of the country.
On the other front, the GHQ shuffle augers well for potentially desirable changes in domestic and foreign policy. But General Musharraf’s increasing irritation with the independent press – sparked by officials who do not have the spine to tell him the truth about his failing policies and who seek to protect themselves from accusations of inept “media-management” – could unwittingly lead him into choppy waters, much as it did the prime minister he so wittingly ousted.