Benazir Bhutto: Third Time Lucky?

Persistence in her claim to lead Pakistan has been Benazir Bhutto’s strongest suit for years. This trait of hers was the primary catalyst of her meteoric rise to political office in the 80s, in the first place, after Pakistan had suffered the indignity of Ziaul Haq’s tortuously long military rule.

Tea leaves readers and crystal ball gazing political pundits believe that BB’s persistence to seek yet another crack at office may be about to pay off. This time around, however, she will not be succeeding a military strongman but rather confined to share power with him.

On his part, Pakistan’s current Bonaparte, General Musharraf, too has also been persistent, up to this point, in keeping the country’s two mainstream political leaders, Benazir and Nawaz, in wilderness.

Musharraf’s antipathy and aversion to Nawaz could be justified , if any justification is demanded, in reference to the general’s psyche. Nawaz, after all, tried to harm him very seriously, according to the official and popular version of the macabre drama of October 12 that propelled the general to political power in Pakistan. It could well have a ring of familiarity with the general’s mentor George W. Bush’s vendetta against Saddam Hussain who, according to ‘Dubya’, tried to kill ‘his dad.’ Psychological reflexes and reactions, no doubt, have been a potent and powerful catalyst of major political decisions, many of which changed world history.

But there was no such casus belli for the general, vis-à-vis Benazir. The two of them didn’t have that spectre of confrontation that spawned instant hostility between Musharraf and Nawaz. In fact, if the general had judiciously followed the age-old maxim, the-enemy-of-my-enemy-being-my-friend, then he should have had no compunction in courting Benazir—as much a victim of Nawaz’s ire as Musharraf's.

However, the general’s handling of Benazir was strangely unconventional, if not illogical. He refused to give any quarter to her, while letting Nawaz fly out of his coop to plush exile in Saudi Arabia. If Nawaz was guilty as charged, why allow him to escape the reach of Pakistani justice?

Understandably, the amnesty to Nawaz wasn’t entirely a sovereign decision of Musharraf; he was forced to bite that bullet. At that juncture when he was saddled with the tough question of Nawaz’s future, Musharraf was an international pariah. He had, virtually, no friends in the outside world. Punishing Nawaz would have only compounded the general’s ‘image’ problem and made him more of an outcast in the comity of nations. The Saudis, revered by Musharraf’s predecessor, Zia, came to his rescue and threw him a lifeline. He tugged on to it like any drowning man would.

9/11 changed the general’s fortunes and put an end to his pariah status. But much as he may be courted by world leaders in the changed perspective spawned by the cataclysm of 9/11, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he is still not his own master. There is pressure on him to come to terms with at least one of the mainstream political parties and leaders, and he is no more able to deflect today’s pressure just as he was powerless to disregard the Saudi clout 4 years ago.

To the political pundits adept at putting two and two together it isn’t difficult to infer what transpired between Musharraf and his American ‘mentors’ during his recent visit to New York, ostensibly in UN connection.

The Americans didn’t put much pressure on him on the issue of his military uniform. It doesn’t, really, bother them much whether Musharraf is in ‘uniform’ or out of it. He has a role to perform, a task to achieve, as far as they are concerned and they couldn’t care less whether he does it in a general’s garb or in mufti—as long as he continues to deliver as per specifications and doesn’t falter.

But Washington has had rumblings, for sometime, that Musharraf’s hand was being constricted and hampered by the ‘Islamist’ forces inside Pakistan. The finger has long been pointed at the fundamentalist political parties ruling the roost in the NWFP and Baluchistan, both vital for successfully waging Bush’s war on terrorism at their borders.

Musharraf has himself to blame for the present political culture straining to take root in the two provinces bordering on Afghanistan. His congenital antipathy to Nawaz and Benazir blinded him to the political void which was inevitable to materialize if both PML and PPP were kept out in wilderness. If the ‘maulvis’ of MMA hadn’t capitalized on the opportunity presented to them, literally on a platter, they would have been naïve in the extremes. However, their ascent to power has been a thorn in the side of Washington. That thorn is causing all the more unease and strain in the Bush administration, now that it find itself stranded in a blind alley on both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Washington’s ‘advice’ to Musharraf couldn’t be other than a categorical ‘demand’ to get rid of the fundamentalists who are hampering a free run against the trouble- makers and ‘terrorists’ in the sensitive border areas. Those calling the shots on the policy front of the Bush administration think that spanners in Musharraf’s wheels are being thrown by obscurantist politicians ruling the roost in the two provinces. Hence they will have to go, warts and all.

The devil in the details of what was hatched between Musharraf and his American ‘friends’ was given out by none other than Washington’s point- man on Pakistan, Richard Armitage. In a TV interview, within days of Musharraf’s departure from U.S. shores, Armitage spoke of impending elections in Pakistan in 2005. There couldn’t be a more explicit and unveiled reference to what kind of tangible political changes in Pakistan’s current political scenario are being desired by Washington.

Benazir Bhutto would be the principal, accidental, beneficiary of the new order most likely to be hammered out by Musharraf, on Washington’s command.

Benazir’s PPP has survived all attempts by Musharraf to splinter it, notwithstanding a handful of turncoats adorning the three cabinets that have been allowed to function under Musharraf’s firm stamp. This is quite unlike the truncation and virtual atomization of Nawaz’s PML, which is now largely subsumed under the establishment-baptized QML.

Another big sticking point ruling out any accommodation between Nawaz and Musharraf is the ‘Chaudhry’ factor currently holding sway in Islamabad. The two Chaudhris from Gujrat, Shujaat and Pervaiz Elahi, have Musharraf’s ear and enjoy his trust like no other politicians. Their animus to Nawaz is well known; they have wormed their way into the core of the military establishment to make sure that no quarter is given to the Sharif Brothers. So are their ambitions uncannily unbridled. Shujaat may have played out his innings but Pervaiz Elahi has been nurturing his own hope of becoming PM one blessed day. They are the greatest obstacle to any political rehabilitation of Nawaz or his brother, Shehbaz, under the current dispensation.

Benazir suffers from no such handicap. Her leadership of PPP is still unchallenged. Had this not been the case, Musharraf and his coterie of advisers were all set to splinter her party right down the middle; Makhdoom Amin Fahim would have become PM long before any other expendables used by Musharraf. Indeed Benazir’s ‘charisma’ has a lot to do with her unassailed stature as the leader of her party. No less important is the unstinted loyalty of her party stalwarts and ordinary cadres to her.

Of course Washington’s role in all this back-room drama readily to unroll in Pakistan is an open secret to the Pakistan watchers.

Washington may have agreed not to raise a ruckus over Musharraf’s infatuation with his ‘uniform.’ ‘You want to keep it, keep it but pay the price’, may go the argument of the power barons in Washington. The price is a definitive end to Musharraf’s on-again, off-again flirtation and backdoor dealings with the MMA, and the induction of a mainstream party like PPP on to the center stage.

The price Musharraf is being asked to pay may be the minimal in Washington’s eyes, given his utter lack of trust in the political order he has single handedly carved out in Pakistan. What is it if not his diffidence that despite having stacked the deck robustly in his own favour he still doesn’t seem confident it wouldn’t outsmart him? More than anything else, his fetish with his uniform is a loud vote of distrust in the loyalty of the army he professes to command without a challenge. The Americans seem poised to test him on his professed claim of presiding over a ‘democracy’ in Pakistan. So let this democracy play out to its full potential.

Benazir has, no doubt, lobbied hard in Washington to win a nod for her ‘third coming’ in Pakistan’s arcane and deeply tangled political culture. The Bush administration kept her at arm’s length since 9/11 but she soldiered on for her ‘cause’ and seems now to have convinced the powers-that-be that her credentials on secularism and anti-terrorism are as sound as Musharraf’s.

How would a Musharraf-Benazir ‘co-habitation’, if not exactly co-existence, play out in the arena of Pakistan’s politics is anybody’s guess. Both are strong willed and less inclined to seek independent counsel. But given the crass political reality of today’s Pakistan they will have little choice but bear each other.

In his latest book, The Idea of Pakistan, Stephen Cohen, a contemporary authority on Pakistan, especially its army, expressed his belief that Musharraf has ‘rented out’ Pakistan to the highest bidder. That being the case, Musharraf and Benazir would be playing to the tune of one and the same piper. Hence the room for either to outmanoeuvre the other would be daunting and discouraging. That could be a blessing in real terms for the longevity of Musharraf’s ‘controlled’ democracy.