As we race to April 30, R-Day, the writing on the wall is becoming clearer. All pollsters say a majority of those polled are in favour of General Pervez Musharraf. Whether or not the polls were conducted to fairly represent the respective weights of the urban and rural areas of the country in a scientific manner is not known. Nor can anyone be sure that those who are said to be in favour of General Musharraf will all come out and vote for him. But other signs also point in his direction.
The crowds at his rallies are significant even if they are relatively insipid. That these have all been pulled out by the nazims (mayors) with financial and organizational assistance from the public sector, however distasteful and illegal this practice, is proof that the same tactics will bear fruit on R-Day. This also confirms the strategy of General Tanvir Naqvi to use the local government system as the bedrock of the new political system in the offing. Indeed, where pundits have been scanning the horizon for the Pakistan Muslim League (QA) as the King’s Party in-waiting, the real King’s Party has been quietly spreading its tentacles on the ground. After the referendum, many of the same nazims, flushed with success, could be tempted to become the torchbearers of the new provincial and national assemblies, there to form the backbone of General Musharraf’s very own parliamentary group.
Meanwhile, the dilemma of the wretched political parties is getting worse. When the local non-party elections were announced last year, the parties grappled with the idea of participating in them indirectly or altogether boycotting them, succumbing in the end to the ground reality which showed many party activists itching to bolt in the event of a boycott by their leadership. That same ground reality has now swelled manifold, compelling the parties to threaten action against party nazims who want to participate in the welcoming queues for General Musharraf even as they wink the green light to dissenters under the “law of necessity”. What remains to be seen is whether those party-political nazims of the PPP, PML(N), JI, JUI et al who are tripping over themselves to spread the red carpet for General Musharraf these days will remain true to form (and pull out the voters) on R-Day or loyally switch to the fold of their parties and leave the general high and dry.
But General Musharraf isn’t only relying on the nazims to pull him through. He is hoping that the facility with which voters will be allowed to vote – as many times and wherever they want – should add to the numbers game. All other things being equal, too, one should expect certain groups in society to be more disposed to voting in his favour than others – women, non-Muslims, government employees, expatriate Pakistanis, technocrats, students, etc. Women are more likely to vote for rather than against him because they rightly perceive him as having promised more to them (especially public representation) than any Pakistani political leader in history. Non-Muslims, too, fall in the same category – his promise of a “moderate and modern Pakistan” based on the abolition of the separate electorate system and a stern attitude towards the extremist Islamic parties has gone down well with them. Government employees, especially those from the armed forces (serving and retired), expatriate Pakistanis, middle-class urban students and technocrats are also likely to favour General Musharraf because these groups have historically preferred the illusion of stability over the din of democracy, and political accountability (a la NAB viz. corruption) over popular representation (a la elections and parliaments).
The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy or the All Parties Conference or what-you-will has promised a show of strength in a couple of days to try and resist this Musherrific tide. But if the past is any guide, and the crowds threaten to overwhelm the good impressions left by General Musharraf’s Lahore rally, we should not expect the ever-loyal Punjab governor to sit idle and twiddle his thumbs. Thus the second best thing to a grand rally could be a failed grand rally with a spot of violence thrown in for good measure. Even so, that is hardly likely to dampen the spirits of pro-government nazims or their ubiquitous and powerful minders.
If the referendum a thing of the past already, despite the constitutional petitions in the Supreme Court (SC) against it, we must take stock of what lies ahead. For one, we will have a truckload of constitutional amendments and new decrees to ensure that the Musherrific system works. But this is going to be a very tall order — a critical contradiction runs right through the proposed order of things. General Musharraf intends to have a “unity of command” – a solid and valid military concept but totally alien, indeed hostile, to the concept of pluralist or consensual democracy. Furthermore, he wants the selected prime minister to be the fount of this unified command system even as he insists that he personally, as president with veto powers, intends to oversee the elected prime minister and the elected cabinet via a majority of the unelected members of the National Security Council chaired by him.
Sit back, ladies and gentlemen, and enjoy the ride all over again. That is, unless the SC has other ideas.