For anyone marinated in the history of Pakistan
yesterday’s decision by the military to impose a
state of emergency comes as no surprise. Martial
law in this country has become an antibiotic: in
order to obtain the same results one has to keep
doubling the doses. This was a coup within a coup.
General Pervez Musharraf ruled the country with a
civilian façade, but his power base was limited
to the army. And it was the army Chief of Staff
who declared the emergency, suspended the 1973
constitution, took all non-government TV channels
off the air, jammed the mobile phone networks,
surrounded the Supreme Court with paramilitary
units, dismissed the Chief Justice, arrested the
president of the bar association and inaugurated
yet another shabby period in the country’s
history.
Why? They feared that a Supreme Court judgment
due next week might make it impossible for
Musharraf to contest the elections. The decision
to suspend the constitution was taken a few weeks
ago. According to good sources, contrary to what
her official spokesman has been saying ("she was
shocked"), Benazir Bhutto was informed and chose
to leave the country before it happened. (Whether
her “dramatic return” was also pre-arranged
remains to be seen.) Intoxicated by the incense
of power, she might now discover that it remains
as elusive as ever. If she ultimately supports
the latest turn it will be an act of political
suicide. If she decides to dump the general (she
accused him last night of breaking his promises),
she will be betraying the confidence of the US
state department, which pushed her this way.
The two institutions targeted by the emergency
are the judiciary and the broadcasters, many of
whose correspondents supply information that
politicians never give. Geo TV continued to air
outside the country. Hamid Mir, one of its
sharpest journalists, said yesterday he believed
the US embassy had green-lighted the coup because
they regarded the Chief Justice as a nuisance and
“a Taliban sympathiser”.
The regime has been confronted with a severe
crisis of legitimacy that came to a head earlier
this year when Musharraf’s decision to suspend
the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry,
provoked a six-month long mass movement that
forced a government retreat. Some of Chaudhry’s
judgments had challenged the government on key
issues such as “disappeared prisoners”,
harassment of women and rushed privatisations. It
was feared that he might declare a uniformed
president illegal.
The struggle to demand a separation of powers
between the state and the judiciary, which has
always been weak, was of critical importance.
Pakistan’s judges have usually been acquiescent.
Those who resisted military leaders were soon
bullied out of it, so the decision of this chief
justice to fight back was surprising, but
extremely important and won him enormous respect.
Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a
country of generals, corrupt politicians and
bearded lunatics. The struggle to reinstate the
Chief Justice presented a different snapshot of
the country.
The Supreme Court’s declaration that the new
dispensation was “illegal and unconstitutional”
was heroic, and, by contrast, the hurriedly sworn
in new Chief Justice will be seen for what he is:
a stooge of the men in uniform. If the
constitution remains suspended for more than
three months then Musharraf may be pushed aside
by the army and a new strongman installed. Or it
could be that the aim was limited to cleansing
the Supreme Court and controlling the media. In
which case a rigged January election becomes a
certainty.
Whatever the case, Pakistan’s long journey to the end of the night continues.