Despite the promise by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for elections in mid-February and reports that he will stand down as head of the army when he takes the oath for a fresh term as president, it is impossible to feel any optimism as to the country’s immediate future. Former Premier Nawaz Sharif is right in describing the present crisis as “unprecedented.” Not that his solution or Benazir Bhutto’s has any prospect of ending the basic woes facing the country.
The mid-February election promise is a straightforward attempt to head off Benazir Bhutto’s threat of mass demonstrations and bring her back on board as an ally. In that sense, she has scored a tactical victory even if for the moment she says it is not enough — but that is part of the bargaining process. Nonetheless, the idea that elections will bring peace is a delusion. The fate of the country’s democratic and legal institutions is no longer the prime issue. It is whether Pakistan can avoid descending into a mess.
If Musharraf is forced out in this power struggle and the army returns to the barracks, there will be a power vacuum — a vacuum that Al-Qaeda and its fellow militants will fill with suicide bombs and the blood of ordinary Pakistanis. That is what is at stake.
In any event, Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League are part of the problem not the answer. What did they achieve for the Pakistani people in their years in office? Their self-serving record when in office should be enough to condemn them although their supporters remain steadfastly blind to it.
There is not a shred of evidence they have changed their ways. They are still driven not by concern for the country’s well-being but by the prospect of renewed power and what they can get out of it.
Benazir’s willingness first to do a deal with Musharraf and then to call for mass demonstrations to pull him down, but leaving the door sufficiently open by giving him time for a response which he has now done, screams of self-interest.
Elections will not resolve the crisis. The issue now is whether law and order and the government’s writ can be re-established throughout all of Pakistan. In any event, whichever party wins the election the other will cry “foul”, with the threat of more violence and counterviolence to follow. That is what elections are likely to achieve in such a charged atmosphere.
The army is the only cohesive and effective force in a country so poorly served by its civilian politicians. If it turns on itself, replacing Musharraf with another general, it will become just another player in the political arena. If it is forced back into the barracks, Pakistan will be in a real chaotic situation. That is how serious the crisis is.
