The commando speak

Pervez Musharraf is in the news again but, first, the story. While in school, Pervez got lower grades than his studious brother, Javed. Their mother judged that Pervez would do well in the army. Javed would eventually enter the CSS. Once commissioned, Pervez was selected for the commando battalion. Like in his college days, he earned the reputation of a ‘man of action’ in the Pakistan Military Academy as well.

Decades later, Gen Musharraf recounted in his autobiography that while serving as a young officer, he had proceeded on an unauthorised leave to meet his girlfriend in Karachi. He was to be dismissed from the army but was saved by a sympathetic superior. If we owe it to Begum Musharraf Sr to have influenced her son to join the army in the first place, the sympathetic commander who saved him from being kicked out of the army, unknowingly created Pakistan’s fourth military ruler.

We now face a situation where the former army chief, former president and the only ‘CEO’ of Pakistan boasts on the small screen that another sympathetic commander, Raheel Sharif, bailed him out to leave Pakistan. He has also repeatedly claimed that the army stood behind him in his travails with the civilian government and the judiciary. He seems oblivious to the consequences of his shooting off the hip, once again.

We do not know Musharraf’s fate. But the army high command, the civilian rulers and the judiciary are quite content in their hearts that Musharraf has slipped away. They didn’t want him here in the first place. At this point, Musharraf talks about leading a reborn MQM but he must know that it is easier said than done unless like Altaf Hussain, he can run the party from abroad. Unlike Asif Zardari, Musharraf’s return to the homeland may automatically trigger administrative and judicial action against him.

While the executive, the military and the judiciary are all better off with Musharraf out of the country, some TV networks find in him an endless source of good ratings. They provide him opportunities to boast that he has the right answers to this nation’s problems of underdevelopment. Enough is obviously not enough for Musharraf or his promoters.

Only if Gen Musharraf could lead a happy retired life. There is little to be proud of his politics even though he was granted a mandate for three years to fix things. By the end of that period, Musharraf was just another military ruler desperate to extend his stay in power with the help of a B team of politicians.

Yet, Musharraf wants to contest general elections to regain power. This is where he fares no better than Air Marshal Asghar Khan. In order to succeed in a parliamentary system, he must be sponsored by one of the major parties. He is an admirer of the French system of a directly elected president who enjoys far greater power than the prime minister.

Whatever Musharraf might think about his capacity to be a Pakistani De Gaulle, his popularity does not transcend the electronic media including social media networks. By now, he should understand the formula for success in constituency based polls. The same parties always pull the popular vote. The only dent in their hold has been made by Imran’s PTI, after years in the school of hard knocks.

It is no mean achievement that the PTI is able to maintain its support in the urban areas of Punjab in the face of a pervasive system of patronage that decides fortunes in national elections. Imran has, however, been unsuccessful in working out chemistry of the rural electorate. No wonder he looks for ways of undercutting the two major parties, not realising that in politics of the masses, it is the rapport with the people rather than the professed sincerity of purpose that swings the balance.

Very few in Pakistan talk about Musharraf’s contribution in rolling back the jihadi mindset in the army nurtured by Zia and sustained by others like Gul and Aziz. His vigorous action against the jihadis led to two attacks on him where he had narrow escapes. This might have diluted his zeal to go after the militants. Benazir exploited this factor in her message to Washington by accusing Musharraf of playing both sides and telling them that if she came to power, her government would go after the militants single-mindedly. This manoeuvre influenced the US sufficiently to broker the deal with Musharraf, paving the way for her return to Pakistan in October 2007.

Redirecting the army to its true professional ways proved to be a long-term effort that was continued by Kayani and then by Raheel. An equally arduous task is that of ‘depoliticising’ the army which has progressed in the last nine years. Credit also goes to the two major parties for not provoking the army and thus avoiding any accidents despite a tenuous civil-military equation. Musharraf probably does not realise that with the latest transition in the army’s high command, adventurism may have become a thing of the past in Rawalpindi. Deference to the civilian authority was never as strong as it is today because of a firm belief of the new army leadership to avoid meddling in politics.

With this background, Musharraf’s latest outburst is a futile attempt to involve the ex army chief in an unwarranted controversy. We know that the commando talks a lot but can he sometimes pause to listen as well?

Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com