Most people believe that some sort of a “deal” is inevitable between Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf. Both sides have admitted that they are in “contact” with each other. Newspapers have reported “secret” meetings between their emissaries. At home, Sheikh Rashid, the bete noire of every PPP regime, is betting that Ms Bhutto will sail smoothly from the “quarter finals to the semi-finals and finals”. Abroad, Newsweek magazine says “Bhutto and Musharraf make the perfect match”. Alarmed, the secretary general of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-F), Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, has pronounced that under Islam only a male can be prime minister or president of Pakistan (this is the same JUI which allied with the Bhutto regime in 1993-1996 when its head, Maulana Fazal ur Rehman, was appointed chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the National Assembly and given trunk loads of greenbacks to gallivant the globe in the cause of Kashmir)!
Meanwhile, Ms Bhutto and Mr Musharraf continue to spar in public. He says she can never be prime minister again and that she will be arrested if she returns to Pakistan and tried for corruption. She says he cannot be both army chief and president and that she will definitely return to lead her party to victory in the next polls. To cut her down to size, the government is cajoling members of her party, old and new, to switch loyalties and join the PMLQ. To hold her own, she is flirting with the PMLN and MMA, and remains the pivotal force in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) which has threatened to protest and boycott the polls if they are not free and fair.
The government has now floated a new balloon. Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the PMLQ president, has argued that if the regional security situation deteriorates in the run up to the general elections, the government would consider extending the life of the present assemblies by a year or so, which means it might postpone the elections. Mr Babar Ghauri, an MQM federal minister who pretends to be close to the presidency, agrees that this is a good idea. On the heels of these two “expert” opinions, as if to provide grist to the mills, President Musharraf has chosen to make the rather ominous statement that the security of the entire region, including Pakistan, would be greatly destabilized in the event of an American attack on Iran.
However, lest the ARD be unduly alarmed into precipitating a joint anti-Musharraf strategy at this point, the evergreen federal information minister, Mr Mohammad Ali Durrani, has assured everyone that there is no question of the polls being postponed. But we must take Mr Durrani’s glib utterances with a fistful of salt. We recall how, a couple of months ago, he was the first to reveal that the cabinet had concluded that President Musharraf would get re-elected as president from the current assemblies. When there was a backlash from the opposition, he was swift to clarify that the cabinet had merely deliberated on the matter and not concluded anything at all. Later, the same refrain (“the present assemblies were legally entitled to re-elect Presdient Musharraf”) was echoed by Chaudhry Shujaat, and the matter was finally laid to rest last week when President Musharraf admitted that he intended to get re-elected in the current dispensation. Therefore, on the basis of past balloons, it is more than likely that the government has drawn up Plan C (postpone the elections) in the event that Plan A or Plan B are unfeasible.
Plan A is to cobble a strong ruling alliance with everyone except the PPP, PMLN and MMA and try to sweep the elections with a two thirds majority. The heads of the ISI, MI, IB and Rangers have all been parceled responsibility for ensuring “positive results”. But if this seems problematic and is not failsafe, then Plan B may be risked. This entails a “deal” with Ms Bhutto according to the rules of the game set by President Musharraf. Hence “negotiations” with the PPP are to continue until such time that such a deal is not necessary, or is clinched on the government’s terms (power sharing in Sindh and Islamabad with President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Governor Ishrat ul Abad in their respective chairs). Plan C will come into operation in the event that the “agencies” and the PMLQ jointly fail to deliver on both counts and more time is needed to manipulate the main players.
The main players on the other side are not Qazi Hussian Ahmad and Nawaz Sharif but Ms Bhutto and Maulana Fazal. These two have everything to gain from an accommodation with President Musharraf. Ms Bhutto stands to come in from the cold if she plays her cards right and Maulana Fazal fears banishment to the wilderness if he plays his hand wrong. That is why she is not letting the ARD get ahead of the PPP and that is why he is not letting the MMA get ahead of the JUI.
Will she, won’t he? Faites vos jeux , ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!