Has no place to run

All the neighbouring countries of India are passing through political crises. In the north it is Nepal, in the east Bangladesh and Myanmar and in the west, Pakistan.

Pakistan's political crisis is far bigger than the rest. Musharraf is at his manipulating best. He is fighting the opponents single handedly as he is left with only a few friends in the political arena. The entire political class is up in arms against him. He wants to contest the Presidential election scheduled for October 6, 2007 and still be the Chief of the Armed Forces.

Several petitions are pending in Pakistan's Supreme Court against the validity of his candidature for the post of President for which he has already field his nomination papers. He has told the court through the Attorney General that he will relinquish his Army chief's job if he is elected President by the present electoral college. A few days later, the Attorney General told Supreme Court that Musharraf will continue as Army chief if he is not elected President. He wanted to soften the Supreme Court. The earlier bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary was dismissed when it was perceived as unaccommodative to the President's wishes. The dismissed Chief Justice fought the battle against his dismissal. The lawyers community, came up against President Musharraf. Pakistan had never experienced such a massive protest. President Musharraf had to re-instate Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary.

Seeing the mood of the country's political elite and intelligentsia, Musharraf's approach to Supreme Court is different this time. With all other sections, his attitude is dictatorial. Recently, he has re-shuffled the top brass in the Armed Forces, humiliating many and dropping a few. He has packed the command with the loyalists. Hundreds of political opponents have been arrested. Police treated their protests with brute force.

Recently, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan from exile but he was instantly deported back from the airport. The cornered General Musharraf is showing his agility to fight out the situation he has been put into. This time political class and people in general are not buying any assurances given by Musharraf.

In the last years they have run out of patience and nobody now seems to listen to him. The elite was befooled for couple of years. In the background of the history of infamous Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, people kept buying Musharraf's assurances and believed in his ability to deliver. They have now seen his failures on all fronts.

If one goes through Pakistan's media, critics are now loud and bitter. Media is the only field where President Musharraf has not exercised too much restrain. The elite as well as general masses are amazed to see how President Musharraf sticks to the presidentship and to his so called "second skin", the military uniform.

The factors indirectly working against President Musharraf are many but foremost is the record rise in the prices, specially foodstuff inflation. The second biggest grouse against him is his Government's surrender of nation's sovereignty to the US administration. This factor is working at micro as well as macro levels in Waziristan and other parts of North West Frontier Province. Killings are common. The arrests of political leaders of opposition-parties seemingly have not been liked by US and it have expressed displeasure. This week, writing in the Dawn, Naeem-ul-Haque wrote about his failures: "We must start from Kargil misadventure planned by Musharraf when he was Army chief but not yet the President. This event led to the death of at least 600 Pakistani soldiers and international embarrassment and humiliation for Pakistan. This ill planned and ill-timed adventure was totally against the foreign policy objectives of the then Government of Nawaz Sharif and ended in a complete fiasco. Later as chief executive of the country, Musharraf made a mess of the tremendous goodwill available to him at Agra when his euphoria bravado during a live breakfast meeting with Indian editors resulted in the collapse of the summit. Years later, we are still struggling to find common ground with India in the midst of lackluster initiatives."

This is a sample of the tone and temper of the Pakistani media. One can imagine the level of frustration. However, going by the continued support of the US to President Musharraf, he is more likely to succeed in his endeavour, may be with the tacit support of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who is scheduled to return to Pakistan in the third week of October 2007. It seems the US has decided against putting all eggs in one basket. Now, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto may share power after General Election.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, September 30, 2007