The Ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Pakistan, Ali Awadh Asseri, was taken aback by the curtailed guest list at his country's national day on September 11, celebrated with the usual glitter in Islamabad. Not a single Opposition leader, not even from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), attended the function, Pakistan newspaper Dawn reported.
An intrepid reporter of the newspaper made an attempt so bold as to ask the host about his views on the manner in which former Prime Minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif was spirited away to Saudi Arabia when he returned to Pakistan from exile.
"Today is our national day and I don't want to discuss politics," replied the Ambassador. "No politics," he repeated when asked if he was aware that the people of Pakistan were angry and openly criticising the role played by Saudi Arabia in the whole episode.
The outraged reactions to events in Pakistan indicate how deeply President Pervez Musharraf miscalculated the fallout of his actions.
A potted political history of Nawaz Sharif's regime does not suggest great political sagacity or integrity. Although a wealthy industrialist, Nawaz Sharif's two previous tenures as Prime Minister saw little economic reform, cronyism of a high order and charges of corruption.
Moreover, as Nawaz Sharif became Chief Minister of Punjab (1985) mentored by Gen Zia ul Haq, his shrinking violet act on the issue of a military dictatorship, does seem a little hard for the people of Pakistan to swallow.
The issue here, however, is not Nawaz Sharif's popularity, but Musharraf's lack of it. Eight years ago, when Musharraf overthrew Nawaz Sharif in a coup, the odium attached to Pakistan's retreat over the Kargil war (and the humiliating Blair House Agreement between Nawaz Sharif and president Bill Clinton) was thrown out by Musharraf along with Nawaz Sharif's regime.
Musharraf began with a clean slate, accompanied by Shaukat Aziz who left his cushy Citibank job to slog it out in the prime minister's house in Islamabad (and a very pleasant place it is too, to slog it out).
Many of Musharraf's policies found admirers in Pakistan "" his pledge to control Islamic fundamentalism, for instance.
It is hard to figure out when the slide began, and when exactly the people of Pakistan began to yearn for freedom. It might have been when Musharraf got the military to conduct a referendum where he arranged to get 98 per cent of the vote, confirming him as Chief of Army Staff as well as President of Pakistan.
Things came to a head when he sacked the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Iftakhar Muhammad Choudhary in March this year, causing uncontrollable tumult in Pakistan's towns. The countryside, already battling pressures on the agrarian economy because of lack of water and unremunerative agricultural prices, responded with fervor.
Nawaz Sharif saw his opportunity and struck. Even though he was in talks with Benazir Bhutto, his principal rival, her stock in Pakistan dipped while his soared "" because she was perceived to be ready to do a deal with Musharraf, while Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan ready to be put behind bars.
As the General has himself promised, elections will be held between September 15 and October 15. What role there will be for Nawaz Sharif remains to be seen.
For now, for the first time in the history of Pakistan, opposition leaders openly criticised Saudi Arabia at a meeting last week for supporting "a military dictator".
A leader sought a kidnapping case against Saudi prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz and Saad Hariri of Lebanon who urged Nawaz Sharif not to return to Pakistan. "We don't require your oil," said one in anger.
