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NEIGHBOURS:
PAKISTAN
Civil
Line Blues
A surge
in resignations by civilian ministers, an emerging unity in political
opposition and a sinking economy put Musharraf on shaky ground
By
Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
At
the beginning no one was surprised by the handful of civilians who resigned
one after another from Pakistan's military Government. Now, more than
a year after General Pervez Musharraf seized power, the growing list of
top-level appointees who have quit is hard to ignore. Musharraf, always
the supremely confident military man, never looks perturbed by the problems
around him. But even the impeccably dressed general must now be wondering
where he went wrong and what happened to the bold agenda for reform unveiled
immediately after the coup in October 1999.
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| Unable
to deliver, Mushrraf finds himself staring at an abyssa |
Two more
senior officials resigned from the Government this past week. Law minister
Aziz Munshi stepped down, apparently to concentrate on his work as attorney-general,
and Syed Raziuddin Rizvi, a senior Shia leader, resigned as adviser to
Musharraf in protest against the poor police response to the murder of
a top Shia figure last month. That brings to 16 the number of senior civilian
appointees who have stepped down, among them ministers, provincial ministers
and provincial governors.
They also
include the outspoken corruption prosecutor, Farouk Adam Khan, who quit
in mid-November. Khan said he was leaving after the general running the
anti-corruption National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was replaced in a
reshuffle. "This has been a task of gigantic proportions," Khan
said. "I think we made our share of mistakes and when I approached
this job I think I was naive. We are talking about a culture of corruption
that is pervasive."
The flood
of resignations has raised questions about the freedom given to civilian
figures to operate under military rule. Retired and serving military figures
now hold many of the senior positions in the country. Others who have
left include information minister Javed Jabbar, who was asked to quit
by Musharraf himself after failing to project a sufficiently positive
image of the regime.
Typically
unruffled, the general insisted the resignations meant nothing. "Whosoever
will resign, I will accept it as nobody is indispensable," he said
after Jabbar left. "Selection is on merit and continuation is on
performance."
But there
is little doubt that Musharraf has alienated many of the country's senior
politicians who, for a year, secretly harboured hopes that they would
be brought into government to give a civilian look to the military rule.
And so last week, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), which was unceremoniously
forced out of office by the coup, has agreed to end its feuding with the
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and start working together to bring down
the military regime.
The unlikely
alliance represents the first major political challenge to the army rule
and brings together supporters of Nawaz Sharif, who is in jail serving
a life sentence for hijacking, and his life-long rival Benazir Bhutto,
who moved to London after being convicted of corruption last year. Ironically
the group is led by veteran kingmaker Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, a man
who has in the past led alliances against Bhutto with the support of Sharif
and then alliances against Sharif with Bhutto's backing.
Some in
the PML, including Ijaz-ul-Haq, son of General Zia-ul-Haq and a man tipped
as a potential prime minister, are aghast at the deal. Last month, party
members opposed to the alliance stormed into the PML's headquarters in
Islamabad, ripped down portraits of Sharif from the wall and burnt them
as hundreds of supporters cheered outside. Haq and other dissidents appear
to hold out the hope of an accommodation with the military regime. But
Musharraf appears unlikely to relinquish power to any politician for now.
Haq and
three others are now close to being expelled from the party, signalling
a deep rift in the traditionally pro-establishment PML. But the party
mainstream insists that now is the time to stand against the military.
"The politics of the country has taken a new turn and new rules of
the game have been made," said Sabir Shah, a senior pro-Sharif party
leader. Sharif's wife, Kulsoom, who has no official party post and rarely
spoke out when her husband was in power, is in favour of the alliance
and has most of the party on her side. "I will make it a national
movement so that the entire political fraternity joins hands against the
military rulers for the restoration of democracy," she said. However,
in Musharraf's favour there has still been little obvious public support
for the new alliance.
The political
fracas comes just a month before the nationwide local elections, the first
ballots since the coup. The new cross-party alliance said it opposes the
elections because it believes they are designed to weaken Pakistan's political
parties and will boycott them. Although the vote is supposed to be on
a non-party basis there is, however, little doubt that every major political
group will be using its influence to have its people elected.
"The
PML, much more than other parties, needed to show unity in its ranks to
pass the first practical test of political power since the military takeover
last year," The News daily said in an editorial. "With its top
leader rotting in jail and second-tier leadership broken in two, the Muslim
League is in a sorry state."
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