Students protesting against Mussarraf at the elite university, LUMS Lahore. Photo Courtesy Edge of Space/flickr.com

Getting what you want, Oscar Wilde said, can be as much a tragedy as not getting what you want. Pakistan’s Muslim League Party (MPL-N) leader Nawaz Sharif soon may come to appreciate this exotic Western wisdom. Anyone who imagined that President Pervez Musharraf’s departure would improve daily life in Pakistan would be a better candidate for psychiatric treatment than for political office. An Alice-in-Wonderland political scenario since February pitted two pudgy billionaires, Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari, whose fortunes were amassed by questionable means, against a career soldier who, whatever his glaring missteps, appears to have failed heinously to feather his own nest in the traditional local manner.

The Role of the Lawyers and the Judiciary

In March 2007, Musharaff notoriously demanded the resignation of the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The Justice refused. Clashes ignited in mid-May when henchmen from Musharraf’s ally MQM Party prevented the Justice from leaving Karachi airport to address a Bar Association meeting (Chaudhry spurned the government’s offer of a helicopter). Dozens of people were killed and hundreds were wounded in this event for which the MQM took full blame, although several political groups sport aggressive armed wings.

From the start of the celebrated Pakistan lawyers’ movement, the world press equated the prospective ejection of Musharraf with the ousting of a Ceausescu or an Idi Amin, Therefore, the major parties were hailed for opposing a former dictator because, so the irresistible story line goes, all dictators are alike in their vices and all democrats are alike in their virtue. Now that Musharraf has been disposed of, the squabbling parties face the distressing fact that the public now will have no one to blame for the escalating internal mess but themselves. Musharraf, a useful distraction, will be missed, especially by ferocious enemies.

Pakistan’s judiciary today is portrayed abroad as stalwart saviors of the nation, which makes anyone remotely familiar with how the courts operate rub their eyes. The Justices, if anything, stoked the very troubles they are acclaimed for solving. Last year, to avoid imposition of the lamentable November 3, 2007 “emergency” and the ensuing mayhem, the Justices simply needed to play along with the negotiated arrangement – a quick validation of Musharraf as President, then a general election. If ever there was a moment for a bit of prudent realism that was it. Furthermore, it is not as if judges, even at Supreme Court level, were renowned in Pakistan for personal probity and courageous devotion to the law. Even former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, whose abrupt dismissal in March 2007 initiated a crisis, clearly collected personal perks without much fuss. Pakistan’s judiciary hardly is seen as a reliable dispenser of justice. Most people who approach the courts have already memorized the price lists for a favorable decision.

Benazir Bhutto, Musharraf, and several small opposition parties negotiated a deal for transition to democracy with the United States acting as mediator. Musharraf needed assurance of his continued Presidency. Instead, the Court dangerously dithered, leaving Musharraf, who was looking for a safe exit, with the distinctly unpleasant prospect of being stripped bare before a legion of foes. The judges evidently calculated that even though they risked sabotaging the transition deal, they still would be applauded. This formula - general bad, lawyers good – was a truly rare moment in which lawyers find themselves in good odor. Such precious moments do not last.

The February 2008 Pakistan elections went well despite Benazir Bhutto’s shocking assassination and, after much low-key wrangling, governments were put in place in Islamabad and in the four provinces. Benazir, the democratic hero, it turns out, bequeathed the People’s Party (PPP) leadership to her husband “Mister ten percent” Asif Zardari - a nice connubial gesture - through a will she is rumored to have entrusted to a loyal maid in Dubai. There is nothing like an orderly succession.

The PPP fared even better in 2008 than in 1970 when it first broke into power under Benazir’s charismatic but extremely shady father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The PPP, for all its flaws, remains the only party with a substantial presence in all four provinces. In the North West (NW) Frontier, it formed a coalition government with the Awami National Party. In Sindh, the PPP, holding a tiny majority, took MQM on as a partner, a welcome stabilizing gesture. Baluchistan is led by PPP leader Nawab Aslam Raisani who gained agreement for talks with the insurgents. The trickiest coalition was that of the central government itself where the PPP’s Syed Yousof Raza Gillani fleetingly presided as Prime Minister over an apparatus populated with, as the price of his grudging support, several Sharif-picked ministers.

One of Sharif’s few accomplishments during his last inglorious stint as Prime Minister was to compile a case against Zardari and then jail him. Zardari, a political amateur, has since shown remarkable forbearance, but this volatile duo could never have hoped to cooperate, not even for the benefit of their closest cronies. Since democracy returned, food and energy prices have punished all but the superrich while Taliban-related activity crept up to the very edge of Islamabad and then lethally struck the Marriot in September. Western powers – with Musharraf gone – became justifiably nervous. The first item on this ‘mongoose-cobra coalition’ agenda was the inevitable split. The question is, what next?

A History of Mistrust

Upon rueful reflection, it may not always be good fortune to gain independence from a colonial power without going through all the highly instructive troubles of a long, wrenching, and full-scale freedom struggle, as happened in Pakistan. The Muslim League movement accordingly evolved as a movement against the Congress Party rather than an anti-colonial force. Their attempt to carve out a state for the Muslims resulted in a successful but unspeakably gory partition.

Judicial submissiveness to government has become the norm since the partition. Pakistan’s leaders ruled through the British Colonial Act (1935), nipped and tucked to suit their new needs. While India mastered the delicate dance of nonaligned politicking among watchful superpowers, Pakistan opted for military pacts with the United States, Britain, the monarchies of the Middle East, and, intermittently, China. The objective was to accommodate the interests of the major powers while profiting, whenever possible, from complicated interbloc rivalries for local purposes.