Headache for Musharraf

Has the countdown begun for President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan? It is early days yet to be sure. Popular protests have taken place against him over the weekend, most visibly and dramatically in the support shown to the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. He set out for the 4-hour journey from Lahore to Islamabad and was stopped so many times by groups of people expressing support to him that he reached only 24 hours later. It will be recalled that Justice Chaudhry was sacked by General Musharraf on March 9 for an alleged abuse of office. No one was convinced. Most people saw his dismissal as a pre-emptive move in order to avoid the embarrassment of an adverse decision in a case that the judge was hearing. The plaint was that the General could not run for re-election. The government was taken completely by surprise when there was a sharp popular reaction. It has once again been surprised by the degree of support that the former chief justice has received. It responded a couple of days ago by holding out a veiled threat of imposing an internal emergency. To make matters worse for it, the Supreme Court has stopped the proceedings of a judicial panel that was looking into complaints against Mr Chaudhry.

All in all, things are not looking good for Pervez Musharraf. He can draw some comfort from the words of support coming from the US, which has put out a story that it is worried that the al-Quaeda might get access to nuclear weapons if he is pushed out. But even he must know that the US is a fair-weather friend. Sooner rather than later, if the protests gather momentum, it will realise that it will be counter-productive to go on supporting him. It has many of its past mistakes of this sort to choose from, not to mention India's in persisting with support for the King of Nepal even when it was clear that the people didn't want him any more. The key to the next developments lies in the amount of steam that the popular movement is able to gather. The events will unfold over the next year or so and it will be interesting to see how the main actors in the drama""America, Army, Awaam and Allah, as the Pakistanis say""play their roles. The Army is known to jettison liabilities without compunction, as is America. As for the allah factor, namely the fundamentalists, much will depend on what sort of deal they strike with the two main political parties: Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League and Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party. Both leaders are in exile at present and the General is trying to win over Ms Bhutto.

Meanwhile, regardless of how long the General, who seized power in a coup in October 1999, manages to stay on, two things should be clear to everyone. One, that except for the inept Yahya Khan, who was ousted in just two years, the other two military dictators have ruled for 11 years each. In that sense, this general still has some shelf-life left. Second, until the army is confined to barracks, any democratic outcome in Pakistan will remain an experiment only. India knows this as also the fact that it will take a generation for the Pakistani mindset to change.