General Pervez Musharraf constantly exhorts everyone to project Pakistan as a “progressive, open-minded state” that practices “moderation, tolerance and enlightenment”. Last week he reiterated that “religious fanatics won’t be allowed to rule the country”. Said he: “This was the vision of the Quaid i Azam and we will continue to transform this vision into reality.”
Alas. The reality doesn’t gibe with his vision.
There have been at least three attempts by religious fanatics to knock off General Musharraf. The intelligence agencies know that the would-be assassins are members of, or have strong links to, well known militant religious organisations based in Pakistan. Yet the leaders of these groups are free to roam about and make virulent speeches against General Musharraf’s “enlightened” policies. What’s stopping him from shutting them up? Is there some perceived military-institutional or personal-political interest at stake that General Musharraf is protecting, even at risk to his own life?
The evidence suggests that the historical Military-Mullah Alliance (MMA) is alive and kicking. It was actively nurtured in the 1980s by General Zia ul Haq to flog the establishment’s regional ambitions in Afghanistan. But this was at the expense of the Pakistan Peoples Party and civil society at home. In the 1990s, the MMA’s regional ambitions were focused on jihad in Indian-held Kashmir. Thus the Bhutto government was dismissed at its behest in 1990 for being “soft’ on India and the Nawaz government met the same fate in 1999 for objecting to Kargil. Since then, the MMA has been flushed out in the open: both Bhutto and Sharif have been banished, their parties cut to size and the Muttahida Majlis i Amal (MMA) not simply enabled to form governments in two provinces but also to preach and practice its version of “fundamentalist Islam”. In the latest deal, the MMA’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman has been chosen by General Musharraf to be the “loyal” leader of the opposition, prompting the good maulana to claim at a rally in Karachi that “the MMA is the alternative government-in-waiting”.
The government has broken every rule in the book to foist the Maulana as Speaker of the National Assembly. But the Rules of Business in the NA say that ” Leader of the Opposition means a member who in the opinion of the Speaker is for the time being leader of the majority of the members in the opposition”. Thus the Maulana’s claim of 68 votes currently should have been matched against 79 by the PPP-PMLN’s Amin Fahim. Instead, the Speaker accounted for Maulana Rehman’s 87 votes 14 months ago during the election of the prime minister and not the PPP’s largest tally of 81 at the time of oath taking. Why this hanky-panky?
The answer is that the Military-Mullah Alliance in 2002 had to be micromanaged into becoming the Musharraf-Maulana Alliance in 2004 to ensure one key objective by each player: General Musharraf needed the support of the MMA for the 17th amendment and Maulana Fazlur Rehman wanted to become leader of the “alternative government in waiting”. That deal has now come to fruition by hook and by crook.
But the underlying tension between General Musharraf’s “vision and reality” — his abhorrence of the fundamentalism of the mullahs and fanatics versus his personal-political need to make alliances with them – is bound to become acute over time. Just as the jihadis who are part of the MMA are out to get General Musharraf, the MMA continues to attack him relentlessly. “The terrorists are not in Wana”, thundered Maulana Fazlur Rehman after being informed of General Musharraf’s decision to make him ‘prime minister in waiting’, “the terrorists and murderers are in Musharraf’s cabinet, government and Governor’s House”. How can the contradictions in the emerging scenario be ignored? Maulana Fazlur Rehman is now obliged to sit in the supra-cabinet National Security Council to which he is vociferously opposed, and pay obeisance to General Musharraf whose uniform he seeks to dismantle in order to weaken his grip over the military.
In short, the religious parties are all for the institutional Military-Mullah Alliance but against the person of General Musharraf while General Musharraf is personally against the mullahs and all for the Musharraf-Maulana Alliance! That is why General Musharraf rails against religious extremists while making alliances with them and that is why the mullahs rail against General Musharraf and seek fresh alliances with the military at the same time.
This “balancing act” is fated to fail for two fundamental reasons. One, the current domestic and international environment requires a stable political alliance in Pakistan between the moderate military establishment and the moderate mainstream parties rather than a continuation of the Military-Mullah Alliance which has outlived its historical utility. Two, the Musharraf-Maulana Alliance’s short-term utility is going to be constantly eroded from within by the longer-term institutional compulsions of both partners. When the rift occurs, General Musharraf will have two options. He could swallow his pride and go with the institutional tide for mainstream pluralism and democracy. Or he could opt for the one-party, one-leader, one-state solution by sidelining parliament, provinces and all opposition political parties. The latter would be far removed from the vision of the Quaid that he so fervently espouses.