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| Long march to political chaos | | |
Pakistan is once more at the brink of collapse and the Military is once more close to taking the center stage –that is perhaps destiny of this failed State in our immediate neighbourhood which has its impacts in India and moreso on Jammu and Kashmir, directly or indirectly. The lawyers’ long march, currently underway in Karachi, may prove to be the shortest route yet taken by Pakistan to political chaos. Left to itself, it is unlikely that the march would have turned out to be anything more than a mundane affair involving the men in black and white. It is President Asif Ali Zardari’s miscalculation that has given the march its political colour and its dangerous abilities. For one, Zardari was horribly wrong to assume that the denial of political legitimacy to his opponents, the Sharif brothers, through a supreme court verdict, and the usurpation of their political power in Punjab, would be enough to defang them. Zardari’s refusal to reinstate the former chief justice of the supreme court (despite relenting on the reappointment of 57 former judges) and his obvious pursuit of the Sharifs have not only enlarged the halo of martyrdom around Nawaz Sharif but have also enabled Sharif to hijack the lawyers’ planned march to realize his own objective of snatching power from Zardari. It was only after his disqualification and the fall of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) government did Sharif, hedging till then on his support for the long march, decide to throw in his weight behind the lawyers. The other, more obvious, count on which Zardari has erred is in imposing the draconian clampdown on the march by placing the top leaders under house arrest and outlawing all assembly in Punjab and Sindh. The spiralling effect of these measures may go beyond all calculations and bring down the Pakistan People’s Party government in much the same way as the marches of the late Seventies had ended in unseating Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Apart from gifting Sharif the political handle, Zardari’s impetuosity has granted another chance to the Pakistan army to reclaim its proprietory hold on the Pakistan polity. Its warning to Zardari and the veiled threats of intervention are designed to convey to the people the idea that a mature leadership is keeping an eye over a haggling, inept civilian leadership. The alternative, it is implied, is always close at hand. For now, however, the army may not be interested in taking direct control, given the attention it has to pay to the battlefronts in the west and northwest. It could either cut Zardari down to size or get him out of the way in order to have a more malleable Yousaf Raza Gilani in control. The messages, to that end, have already been sent and Gilani, now in open revolt against Zardari with his demand for the withdrawal of governor’s rule in Punjab, is believed to have joyously greeted them. The other option for the army is to follow the Bangladesh model and oversee the return of a democratically-elected, but pliant, prime minister. Sharif, if he promises to behave this time, could well fit the bill.
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