President Musharraf As Pakistan's Gorbachev

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

November 5, 2007

Billed as Musharraf's second coup, the emergency decrees that the President-General issued this weekend have angered everyone both in- and outside of the country. The Pakistani Supreme Court has been sacked, and the army has taken greater control of the country as the government fights to hold the country together. This last appearance of desperation is worth noting, since the army is the only institution that is standing behind the President- for the moment. But Musharraf has proven himself unable to deliver as a leader, and the country is threatening to splinter apart into a number of hostile mini-Pakistans, all claiming support of the people. In the West, Mikhail Gorbachev was remembered for putting an end to the Cold War, but in Russia, he is demonized for allowing the Soviet Union to fall apart. The Soviet-Pakistani parallel is beginning to look all the more likely, since Musharraf's divisive effect on the country may result in a massive geopolitical disintegration of Pakistan.

Musharraf came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999 when he was head of the army, and for this reason he has been able to maintain power- although tenuously- for the past 8 years. The American War on Terror has been a watershed of sorts for the General- on the one side he has received billions in aid from a grateful United States that uses Pakistani territory as a launch pad against Afghan rebels, but it also earned him the wrath of his own people who oppose being joined at the hip to US foreign policy in South Asia. Embedded in his palace and suffering from siege mentality, Musharraf is rapidly losing support; he has been forced to remove the last pillar of constitutionality in Pakistan in order to hold on to his power, which was sending the Supreme Court judges home and replacing them with more cooperative bureaucrats.

So why the Supreme Court? Musharraf had himself reelected last month as President of Pakistan, but the legality of the move was being reviewed by the Supreme Court for its constitutionality. The decision was due to fall on November 15, and political speculation was betting on a big thumbs down for the General- who is, by law, not allowed to be head of the army and President at the same time. Most of the judges on the Pakistani court were already aligned against Musharraf, and it is assumed that the emergency measures were announced by the President last week because he was about to hear the bad news: the election was unconstitutional. Instead of letting himself be removed, he sacked the Supreme Court and has allowed the parliament to remain in power for another year, thus freezing his position as President of Pakistan through the support of the army.

For the time being. The only institution supporting Musharraf is the army, and rumors are circulating that the military is losing patience with the President. The generals of the country have become increasingly estranged from the presidential office, and it is a good bet that Musharraf may not be in power much longer. If there is some hesitation in the ranks of the generals, it is because Pakistan could literally fall apart into ungovernable regions that could give fundamentalists in the country a popularity boost in the face of political vacuum. The army naturally doesn't want to turn its guns on the people, which would lead, without much speculation, to a country-wide uprising that Pakistan hasn't known for decades. So for the moment the army is hesitating and calculating what it is going to do with its presidential albatross while not stirring up any unrest in the country.

It is interesting to note that the protesters on the streets of Karachi are not angry citizens but irate lawyers. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, they are challenging the obvious miscarriage of justice and abuse of power at the hands of Musharraf. The situation in Pakistan can only be mollified if Musharraf steps down, and this could be a bitter pill for the country to swallow. On the sidelines are the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, but they offer nothing more than a poor civilian alternative to Musharraf. The United States has distanced itself from Musharraf- some even say abandoned him- which is another knee-jerk foreign policy reaction coming from Washington that Americans should be wary of. Pakistan needs a round table discussion with all parties involved; otherwise, without consensus, the country is likely to become destabilized to a point where absolutist power is the only solution.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.