Asia Times: The president, and Pakistan, are here to stay


	April 26, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

The president, and Pakistan, are here to stay
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - When President General Pervez Musharraf emerges with a mandate from a national referendum on Tuesday to rule for another five years, his victory might displease sections within Pakistan but it will help define the country's position on the world stage.

Despite intense opposition from mainstream religious and democratic parties, lawyers, students and trade unions, Musharraf is using every iota of his already extensive powers to ensure that the country's more than 71 million voters approve his staying in office.

By staging a referendum ahead of national elections due in October, Musharraf is pre-empting a requirement under the constitution that the president should be elected by a college consisting of the members of the national and the four provincial parliaments. By even Pakistani standards, some of the measures Musharraf has taken amount to pre-poll rigging, but Western observers (especially those from the United States) have politely turned a blind eye, given the key role that Musharraf continues to play in the global war on terror.

Legality apart - this is being challenged in the Pakistan Supreme Court - the manner in which Musharraf has conducted the referendum campaign over the past three weeks has been both bold and successful. He has been firm and clear in front of the media, and unequivocal in his vision for the country. The general has made it quite plain that even after receiving the nod for another five years, he has absolutely no intention of leaving the army. Similarly, he has strong views on how the power formula between the president, the elected parliament and the prime minister will work.

"Neither the parliament nor the elected prime minister will have unleashed powers, the president will always keep a check on them," says Musharraf. "And if the elected premier tries to challenge the authority of president, I will not hesitate to repeat October 12," Musharraf said in reference to the bloodless coup of 1999 that swept him into power.

Musharraf will keep a close eye on the workings of government through a supra-cabinet National Security Council, in which he, as president, will preside over meetings attended by the prime minister and four of his (the premier's) cabinet colleagues, plus the president's nominees. These nominees will include the four provincial governors, the chiefs of the air force and navy, the deputy chief of the army and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

Musharraf's brazen antics under the watchful but ineffective national and international media have included applying what can at best be called placing undue pressure on district administrations. These recently elected bodies - as a part of Musharraf's plan to introduce democracy at the grassroots - are now being coerced into help swing the vote Musharraf's way. Many of their 200,000 representatives, who won their seats with the help of established political parties opposed to the general, have had their arms twisted to facilitate a "smooth" vote.

The mayor of the Sukkur district is a case in point. Syed Nasir Hussain Shah won his position with the support of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto. According to sources, he was asked to arrange Musharraf's public meeting at Sukkur. Knowing that if he did so he would upset the PPP and jeopardize his political career, he refused. He was subsequently apprehended by military authorities and threatened with "dire consequences". He then lent his weight to a welcoming rally for Musharraf in Sukkur.

Multinational corporations, which in the past have never been involved in local politics, have been persuaded by the military establishment to support the referendum, with many taking out costly advertisements in the national press to champion the president's cause.

And while opposition parties, including the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif, have been barred from holding rallies or public meetings, Sindh-based ethnocentric parties such as the Muttehida Quami Movement (MQM) and the Jeay Sindh Qomi Mohaz are free to stage gatherings in Karachi and to conduct political activities. The leaders of the MQM, not surprisingly, support the referendum.

In an effort to ensure a high turnout, the government has established polling stations anywhere where more than 500 voters are expected. Movie theaters, schools, factories, and government and private offices have all been designated, with more than 100,000 booths likely to be open on the day. All leave has been canceled for government employees on April 30, and they will have to sign an attendance register to show that they have voted. Further, no voters' rolls will be used, thus all that voters will need is an identity card.

The opposition parties to date have failed to mobilize the masses, although some analysts say that action could be stepped up closer to the date to avoid early crackdowns and arrests. However, it appears more likely that the political parties are already resigned to the fact that Musharraf will win and are saving their energies for the post-referendum period leading up to the parliamentary polls in October.

"General Zia ul-Haq claimed that 97 percent of the votes were in his favor, perhaps Musharraf will settle for a claim of around 80 to 85 percent, but this referendum has no credibility. There are no voters' rolls or constituencies. An identity card is the sole criterion for casting a vote and a person could cast as many votes as he liked in a day," Mian Raza Rabbani, the central general secretary of the PPP and a former federal minister and a senator, told Asia Times Online.

Zia ul-Haq seized power in 1977 and in a 1984 referendum asked voters whether they supported Islam, and if they did, he should remain in power to defend the faith. Zia won his mandate. Musharraf's referendum will include a preamble to the question of whether or not voters want him to be president for five more years. This will include a list of his government's achievements, including his power devolution program and his tough anti-sectarian and anti-terrorist measures, for which there has been widespread popular support.

The PPP's Raza Rabbani believes that "whatever result comes after the referendum one thing is sure, Musharraf will come out bruised. Our target is the next elections and Ms Benazir Bhutto will return home [from exile in Dubai] to lead the campaign," he added. Rabbani claims that the West should understand that Musharraf is not the only person capable of lending Pakistan's support to the war on terrorism.

However, Musharraf has shown since taking power that he has rare gifts, and has managed to do what no other Pakistani leader has ever done - bring the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) into line and sideline the strong anti-West and hardline Islamist elements within the Pakistani army through a series of top-level reshuffles.

It was the ISI, it should be remembered, that helped create the Taliban, yet Musharraf was able to silence their support to allow the United States to use Pakistan as a front-line state in the war in Afghanistan. As important, Musharraf has been able to purge the ISI and the army of their decades-old ways in a matter of months, with nary a murmur of revolt.

Significantly, Pakistan's role in the international arena has not ended with the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Being the only Muslim country in the world with nuclear capabilities, Musharraf's firm hand on the rudder of domestic politics is of critical importance to the West. This at a time when countries such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia are mobilizing forces to support the Palestinians against Israel and calling for a worldwide boycott of US goods.

Among Muslim countries, Musharraf is the only leader to remain detached. He has openly stated that whatever goes on in Palestine is something that has nothing to do with Pakistan.

And at a time that Arab countries have termed suicide attackers martyrs, the State Bank of Pakistan has issued a circular on the instructions of the federal ministry of finance that the accounts of any known suicide groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade of Palestine, be frozen.

While such organizations are unlikely to have much money in Pakistani banks, the move clearly tells the Western and Arab worlds where Islamabad's sympathies lie in the new world order.

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