Emergency: From Behind the Sandbags

In this uncertain political situation, emergency can but be a rumor—unless dictated otherwise by national interest. The state is demoralized; its institutions are crumbling. The Pak Army is hiding behind sandbags in state of fear. Many military officers now prefer to pay ten rupees at toll plazas then display stickers on windscreens saying ‘men at their best: Pak Army’.

Obviously, it is better to pay ten rupees than pay with your life. The military is under clear orders to keep low profile and not wear uniform outside cantonment. As a result, if not anything else, Pakistan has at least earned a new recognition in the world: a country where the Army fears its own people. In a situation such as this, it is hard to declare emergency and then to sustain it.

Musharraf met Benazir Bhutto. For two long days, an endless tale of denials followed: denials that ever such meeting took place; denials that there are problems between General Musharraf and the till now ruling PML-Q; denials that Musharraf is in a look out for new allies. Secret maneuverings has been one favorite method with the ruling elites in Pakistan. They make arrangements over and above the public sentiments and desires.

Not that the Musharraf-Bhutto negotiations are anything new. They have met before to discuss the issues vital for survival of both. In the beginning, however, Musharraf accused Ms Bhutto of all wrongdoings. She was corrupt; her husband was a bad influence. She was also the one who did not negotiate well and bought electricity at high rates from the IPPs. This criticism continued for years and then gradually subsided. Then Zardari was released. Then the cases against Ms Bhutto were not pursued. And then finally, signals were given how the seventeenth constitutional amendment could be reversed to allow Ms Bhutto a third entry in Pakistan as a Prime Minister.

No one really knows what conspired between Musharraf and Bhutto in their recent meeting. But this new move of spreading rumours about declaration of emergency is significant at this time. Musharraf had always wanted a secret adjustment with Benazir. He does not want to be seen preferring PPP over PML-Q at this time, and consequently, tried not to let the negotiations go public. He was conscious of this to the extent that he kept the meeting a secret from the main leadership of the PML-Q. However, now that the game with Benazir is open, alternate plans are required.

The support of the PPP is needed only in the long run and at a later stage. As the vote for the next term of the President is to come from the present assemblies, a conflict with PML-Q is not something that General Musharraf can afford right now. The timing of the meeting, thus, is proving to be a fatal blow and is creating fissures in the ruling PML-Q.

These fissures, which appeared distinctly as an aftermath of this meeting in the ruling PML-Q, are in an urgent need to be filled. The growing discontent among the members of PML-Q, which foresaw its irrelevance in the new system, is to be brought down. It is a cause of concern since even Musharraf’s loyalists seem to be looking outwards to make them more relevant to the emerging power configuration.

Everyone has been concerned. Zia-ul-Haq’s son, for example, has made a statement that the ‘time now has come for us to rethink our role in the war on terror’ and that ‘we should see how far we can continue implementing US agenda.’ Earlier, he had also distanced himself from the whole Red Mosque episode, claiming that things were not in his control and that his family cried like all Pakistanis when people died in the mosque.

Another high rank member of PML-Q did not stir for years. He had no opinions to make. But as the elections are drawing near, he has started making significant statements. Mushahid Hussein says now in carefully worded sentences that it is time for Musharraf to put off his uniform, something he could not dare say three months ago. The third loyalist, Durani, has another style of distancing himself from all the wrong that happened in the past few years. Cleverly, he says that the advice for the imposition of emergency came from the same quarters, which had earlier asked Musharraf to sack the Chief Justice.

We know now that the elements that Durani is referring to are not alien at all. It is Chaudhri Shujaat and his cronies who advised Musharraf to take the final step. Shujaat is in the most difficult situation of them all, and consequently, his advice was to go all out and declare ‘partial’ emergency, a constitutional clause that better be left to him to define.

Indeed, Musharraf is smarter than Shujaat thought he was, with his instinct for survival no less sharp than Shujaat’s own. Emergency at this time serves Chaudhri Shujaat more than it serves Musharraf, who wants to play this final card not so early. For Shujaat it may be a final round but it is not so for Musharraf, who is in for a long haul. A proclamation of emergency, then, is a possibility only in future. For now, it is just a threat to get a better deal with Benazir.

By acting against Chaudri Shujaat’s advice, Musharraf has not only saved himself from accepting his complete failure to govern with the usual means, as a proclamation of emergency suggests by definition, but also saved the military from further overstretching. The rumor of imminent emergency, furthermore, has played in Musharraf’s hands and is geared to dispel the impression that an agreement has been reached, or is in the process of being reached, between him and the PPP. He has, thus, conveniently re-throws himself back in the arms of the PML-Q—at least for the time being.