ISLAMABAD, 7 January 2005 — President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to go back on a pledge to give up the post of army chief has incensed opponents in Pakistan, but they remain too divided to mount a strong campaign against him, analysts say.
Musharraf, who had promised to quit the army by the end of last year, has exploited this division between liberal opponents and hard-line Islamists, recognizing that while they share opposition to his rule, they seem able to agree on little else. Both groups plan protest campaigns in coming weeks, but have been unable to agree a common front and so pose little immediate threat to the general who took power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, analysts say.
Farhatullah Babar, spokesman for the Pakistan Peoples Party of opposition-leader-in-exile Benazir Bhutto, said he saw little chance of a joint campaign by liberals like the PPP and the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Islamic alliance. At the weekend, the Islamists unveiled a plan of action that includes a campaign against Musharraf’s moves to relax hard-line Islamic laws. However, the PPP and other liberal opponents of Musharraf also oppose punishments such as flogging and stoning for breaches of Islamic law, making a united front impossible. “These are not our issues. We asked them to keep to a one-point agenda — his uniform,” Babar said. The PPP also wants the Islamists to disown the constitutional amendment they agreed with Musharraf in late 2003 that gave him sweeping powers to dismiss Parliament and the government in return for his pledge to give up his army post. “This is the root cause of the problem, but they are not willing to do so,” Babar said.
Khalid Rehman of the private Islamabad-based Institute of Policy Studies, said Musharraf had shrewdly exploited opposition divisions by offering concessions to the liberals. In November, Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was released on bail after spending eight years in jail on charges ranging from murder to corruption. Last week, the government issued Zardari a passport to allow a reunion with Bhutto for the first time in five years and made a similar gesture to a nephew of Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister in exile. Analysts said that while the opposition might not be overly optimistic about reconciliation with Musharraf, such moves had muted their criticisms of him in recent weeks. In addition, both liberals and Islamists remained wary of outright confrontation, fearing that if pushed too far, Musharraf might use his powers to dissolve Parliament. For the Islamists, this would mean losing control of the assembly in North West Frontier Province and shared control in neighboring Balochistan won in elections in 2002. “They don’t want to upset the apple cart,” said political analyst Shafqat Mehmood. “They are sitting comfortably in the assemblies and do not want to lose their seats.”
The Islamists called nationwide rallies in December against Musharraf, but these failed to attract a mass following, indicting only limited popular opposition to his dual role. Financial markets appear confident in Musharraf’s ability to maintain political control and continue economic reforms — the Karachi Stock Exchange ended 2004 at fresh life high after he announced his intention to keep his army post.
“The market is now discounting any protest calls by the opposition parties — investors take them as routine things,” said Sajid Bhanji of Karachi’s Arif Habib Securities. “The real catalyst at this point is the continuation of policies on a long-term basis.”
Musharraf has largely escaped Western criticism of his decision to stay on as army chief, thanks to his status as a key ally in the US-led war on terror. The United States voiced no objections and a US official explained that while Washington wanted to see greater democracy, it did not want to undermine Musharraf’s role in the war on terror. However, some foreign media, notably The Washington Post and The Economist, have criticized this stance and warned of the long-term consequences of continued curbs on democracy. “The devil-you-know argument is fine as far as it goes,” The Economist said in an editorial. “Its defect is the one that applies to all dictatorships: A policy built on one man is a policy built on sand.”
