Musharraf alienates even the middle class | Kamlendra Kanwar

Published on 13-11-2007 In World

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Musharraf alienates even the middle class

Pakistan President Musharraf is clutching on to whatever he can get hold of to save himself from sinking into oblivion. Predictably, so long as he remains at the helm his country's plunge into chaos can also hardly be halted.

His latest declaration that he will hold elections before January 9 next and doff his uniform so soon after he shocked his nation by letting loose ruthless repression, though welcome in itself, reflects his confused mindset. Having bartered away his freedom of action to the Americans he is now fighting his last-ditch battle for survival.

Musharraf's problem is a drastic narrowing of his support base both within the country and externally. After he took on the Mullahs by storming the Lal Masjid in July and alienated the Talibanese and local warlords in the troubled North West Frontier Province while fighting a proxy war for the Americans, he had the middle class to bank upon until a few months ago.

By taking on the militants holed up in Lal Masjid whose sermons used to spew venom on his links with the Americans, he had also sought to remind the doubting Bush administration that he was still their best bulwark against Muslim radicalism.

But his respite proved to be short-lived. His sacking of Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudhary a few months ago was a monumental blunder in so far as it set him on a collision course with the judiciary. The media which was savouring the unusual freedom he had given to it in recent years sprung to the judiciary's aid and that annoyed him further. The reinstatement of the chief justice by a court order was a huge snub to him that convinced the people that he was not infallible. The battle lines became sharper and sharper.

Now, with the judiciary under siege after declaration of emergency and the media gagged and chained, he has few takers even in the middle class. The alienation seems total and irreversible.

Until a year ago, he was being credited with having turned the economy around. The `Dawn' newspaper acknowledged sometime ago that in the period since he grabbed power in 1999 till his troubles began earlier this year, the size of the economy increased by almost 50 per cent and that of income per head of the population by nearly 25 per cent. Construction projects were booming and huge amount of money was pouring in from Dubai. There was general well being.

All that has changed in recent months. The economy is on a downslide, the stock markets are nervous and foreign investors are shying away. The morale of the people is at its lowest ebb and there is a general lack of confidence in the long-term health of the Pakistan economy.

In terms of the security outlook, Pakistan has almost 100,000 troops in the Waziristan region, battling the Taliban, besides the continuing heavy deployment on the borders with India.

Internally, the country is being hit by almost daily suicide bombings (since July, more than 800 people have been killed by terrorists). Islamist militants recently ambushed and held 250 solders hostage, and another 48 soldiers were paraded as a trophy by a Taliban commander.
The 500,000-strong army has been demoralized not only by a series of attacks on security forces and abductions by militants, but also by bearing the brunt of popular dissatisfaction with the Musharraf regime.

The Americans are playing a cat and mouse game, threatening him with dire consequences if he does not revoke the emergency and order elections and at the same time lauding his help in the post 9/11 war on terror. But the fact is that Pakistan under a weakened Musharraf is sitting on dynamite.

Not only is there a real possibility of the skirmishes on the Afghan border escalating, but there is another lurking danger which both the US and India can ill afford to ignore.

Had Pakistan not been a nuclear-armed state, India could have taken the disturbed conditions in Pakistan in her stride, but the possibility of nuclear launch codes falling into wrong hands in the event of a violent overthrow of the Musharraf regime by hardliners can hardly be ruled out. When this was talked about in the past, it seemed only a remote possibility but in the current scenario, any security policy that does not factor this in would be grossly deficient.

The relative ease with which radical elements in Pakistan were able to breach the huge security provided to Benazir Bhutto and engineer a deadly blast during her journey home in Karachi despite the claimed presence of 20,000 security men is a reminder that the monster of terrorism that President Musharraf bred, nurtured and then tried to shoo off when it turned against him, is tending to go out of control with generous help from the Talibanese and the NWFP rebels.

It was not for nothing that US President George W. Bush recently characterized the NWFP as "wilder than the Wild West."

Recently, the New York Times reported that NWFP was being used even as a training camp for al Qaeda elements, showing either the helplessness of the Pakistan army or its complicity. The Pakistan government's reluctance to take on the Taliban and the al Qaeda with no holds barred stems from Musharraf's fear that every military offensive against them will lead immediately to attacks on him or on Pakistan's military facilities.

All this points to an alarming scenario. It is well nigh impossible under such circumstance for Musharraf to regain his credibility. Salvation for Pakistan will lie in a new beginning with a new leader who enjoys trust within and is capable of rebuilding the credibility of the nation abroad.

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