Pakistan is today in a tailspin. Extremists and terrorists have captured significant portions of the country's western border areas. Political brinkmanship is pushing the rest of the country into turmoil. Streets of Punjab are witnessing the return of unrest and violence. Pakistan is seething, simmering and slowly disintegrating from its edges. A reluctant and bruised Army is waiting at the doorsteps. There are strong apprehensions of a coup, barely a year after the last military regime exited.
With events overtaking hopes with such a dizzying speed, predicting the immediate future of Pakistan will be like writing on sand. Few assumptions can, however, be made, both for the short and long term, without being swept away by the turbulent events which are likely to intensify in the days ahead.
One thing is sure: President Asif Ali Zardari's days are numbered. An outsider in Pakistan's politics, the February 2008 elections offered him the unique chance of turning the country's face towards a democratic future after nine years of military rule. He blew it within six months of his election. As President he chose confrontation over reconciliation with his political opponents. Though there are attempts to persuade Zardari to compromise with his political opponents, the Sharif brothers, and some kind of rapprochement might be brokered, it will be of the most temporary kind. Both the opponents have gone too far down the road to turn the clock back to March 2008 when they decided to jettison their traditional rivalries and form a coalition in Islamabad.
Zardari, by his sheer dumb-ass attitude, has created enemies within his own party. The most vocal has been the man he picked up from obscurity to be the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani. An anti-Zardari feeling within the party had been gathering storm ever since the President brusquely sidelined all the Benazir Bhutto loyalists, relying more on his friends and associates to run the party and the government. With Zardari committing hara-kiri, the anti-Zardari group has rallied behind Gillani, giving this political lightweight enough scope to speak out against the President in public.
If events turn out in favour of Gillani against Zardari, it would be the second blow for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the only political party in Pakistan with support bases across all provinces which has stood up, despite its feudal hierarchy and functioning, against the complete military takeover of the country's political process. The first was the brutal assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the mantle of leadership falling in the laps of Zardari, a corrupt manipulator whose survival instincts have so far been a shade better than a cockroach.
PPP has far remained a vanguard of democracy in Pakistan. Zardari has rendered the party its fatal wound and irrespective of events, the party would witness a break-up in the months ahead. It is today rudderless; Gillani is not a charismatic leader and most important he is not a Bhutto. Zardari, a victim of his own cunning, has shown no commitment or ability to keep his party united and strong. There are other leaders in the party, some with the capability, and character, to lead the party but most of them are provincial leaders and do not have the charisma of a Benazir to gather the demoralised flock to present a unified front against the party opponents, and the Army.
Another certainty is the street power of the middle-class in Pakistan. This is a new phenomenon and is likely to gather momentum as the country struggles with its past follies. In 2007, when lawyers and others came out on the streets after President Pervez Musharraf sacked the Supreme Court Chief Justice, many thought it to be a short-lived phenomenon. When the street protests brought down the once-powerful Musharraf to his knees within months, it was quite clear that people had won over the military. The present round of street protests has naturally raised the spectre of a repeat of 2007, which is not exactly against Zardari alone but, must remember, is built on the demand for the restoration of the judiciary. This has far too deeper ramifications than merely political.
For one, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary was sacked in March 2007 because he was trying to put the Army on the defensive about several people, many of them strong opponents of Musharraf and his policies, who were made to disappear in the guise of War on Terror. Chaudhary was browbeaten and sacked in the presence of the present Army Chief, General Ashfaq Kayani. The street protests that ran like wild fire ended in the resignation of Musharraf. It was one of the most serious blows to the supremacy of the Army in Pakistan's history. Kayani is well aware that street protests this time around would only make the Army's position more unstable in a country where at least some sections of the people are showing signs of `military fatigue`. This does not augur well for the Army which has ruled the country on and off during the past six decades.
Therefore, it has made the Army's proclivity to remove civilian leaders and take over the reigns quite a difficult task under the present circumstances. Kayani knows that a coup at this time would invite a massive public wrath, and this time not only would the lawyers be out on the streets but others too. So a coup in the immediate future is not in sight.
What is therefore likely to happen in Pakistan is to somehow keep the present civilian government in place with or without Zardari (he has already been given a deadline to clean up the act or get out), to restore Punjab to the Sharif brothers or at least to their party and return to the western frontier where the Taliban and its allies have been knocking at the gates for the last two years. Gillani has cleverly positioned himself to take over from Zardari and the Army sees no threat from Gillani as the head of the State. The Sharif brothers too have declared that they would support Gillani. There are, however, several `buts and ifs` to such a proposition. An anonymous bullet, for instance, can unsettle this equation.
What should be more worrying to India is that peace and stability in Pakistan can never be taken for granted. There are too many negatives at work in the country. Ironically, the street protests, which many consider a sign of the unravelling of Pakistan, indicate a glimmer of possibility of people's voice finally getting heard. This is bad for the Army, but good for the country. It is too early to be optimistic. There are too many vested interests within and outside the country which, unlike India, would rather see Pakistan in turmoil.
Awatansh Tripathi
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