On November 4, 1996, Asif
Ali Zardari was a maligned and discredited man. He was
painted as a reincarnation of the erstwhile spoilt prince
by a press which was hostile to him and often sympathetic
to his wife. Publicly, he was perceived to be the biggest
in-house enemy of a government headed by Benazir Bhutto,
perhaps an even dangerous one, if, in the final analysis,
not as powerful as a long time Benazir lieutenant and
her handpicked president, Farooq Leghari.
Eight years in jail, which make up for
more than 16 per cent of his life, have done wonders to
Zardari's image. Today he is not known merely for his
association with the family of a shaheed or martyr. He
is regarded as a ghazi in his own right. The initial emphasis
is on what he has gone through, before the focus shifts
to what he will do from here. For now, the quiet advice
that warns against a shake-hand with the army is drowned
in the beat of bhangra and dhamal.
Both Zardari and the National Accountability
Bureau deny a deal before release. This may be true for
the past, but the likelihood of an effort towards a rapprochement
between Musharraf and Benazir cannot be dismissed.
Governments do not always
need to strike formal deals before they allow people their
freedom. Nonetheless, those who give the governments their
human face have to be sure in their belief that the liberated
are unable to pose a serious threat to their own interests.
This is what can be said with some degree of confidence
about Zardari's release. The rest is conjecture.The release,
and also the pre and post event statements from the official
side, are reflective of just how secure the government
feels right now. A few weeks ago Mushahid Hussain, general-secretary
of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, was heard favouring
not only the release of Zardari, but of all 'political'
prisoners. The list included Javed Hashmi of Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz, a party which has a more direct reason
to be aggrieved by General Musharraf's excesses against
democracy. When the statement was made, Musharraf was
faced with the threat of a mass protest by its one time
supporter, the Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal. Mushahid in essence
conveyed a sense of security rooted in the choices of
allies available to the regime. The PPP might not have
been among these potential allies, given the past where
the party seemed to be approaching a compromise with the
government, only to falter at the last moment. About which
a bit later.
Mushahid's wish half fulfilled,
it doesn't appear that Zardari is averse to paying back
his long-time hosts in jail, one way or the other, keeping
his options open. Just after his release he said he was
willing to act as a bridge between various opposition
groups and next he offered his services for linking the
government with a person he may have grown closer to in
all these eight years. Her name Benazir Bhutto.
These reconciliatory thoughts
are not new to Zardari. While he arrived in a Karachi
court to defend himself last year, Zardari told TNS he
was not against providing the army as an institution a
political role in the country.
This a possibility which
will please all those who have been desperately calling
for a PPP-Musharraf alliance in the name of liberalism
and anti-fundamentalism (who said Pakistan's fundamental
problem was military rule?). These liberals were extremely
disappointed as they helplessly watched Musharraf rely
when it mattered on the MMA in an effort to expand and
strengthen his rule. They had been saying
loud and clear that Zardari's release and creation of
a conducive environment for the return of Benazir Bhutto
was central to a much needed relationship between the
military and the PPP.
The case is based on the
simple premise that fundamentalism is the bane of the
Pakistani people at this point in history, and once fundamentalists
were effectively controlled, the task of steering Pakistan
forward on the path to development will become relatively
easier. It has not been viewed as a question whether today's
PPP can justifiably wear the liberal or progressive tag
or not or how odd it will be for the champions of democracy,
no matter whether they were liberals or not, to share
power with the autocrats in the army. It is an inescapable
choice, imposed on the reform-seekers on all sides by
a lack of any other feasible option. It is an untried
one as well. The PPP and the army as power sharers has
never been tried, and maybe this combination will succeed
where everything else all has failed. For we know this
is our last chance.
Somehow to these liberals
the arrangement guarantees elimination or at least an
earnest thrust towards elimination of fundamentalism.
To others, it may simply have been designed to be liberal
and democratic and yet be able to stay on the right side
of the army -- exactly what the PPP is being asked to
do.
This is not the first time
the hope of a Musharraf-PPP alliance has been raised.
The official gallery of the hopefuls and the willing includes
a fleeting image of General Musharraf posing with PPP's
formal head Amin Fahim just after the elections of 2002.
In fact, while theories based on General Musharraf's personal
friendship with certain
PPP stalwarts have lingered, Musharraf was able to cause
a post- election split in the PPP, which was the biggest
in recent history. This split was ascribed to an ostensible
divide whether it was in the country's, and the party's,
interest to support a serving general or not. There was
no shortage of people who described the formation of a
PPP forward bloc at the time as a prelude to a Musharraf-Benazir
partnership. This could not materialise, and the PPP leaders
could still occasionally clear their throats by shouting
pro-democracy slogans.
Practically, however, they
have done little of late which can be described as mildly
anti-military. Times have changed in the interim when
Mr Zardari was away. Now you don't have to give an oral
assurance that there will be no anti-government agitation.
It is strange, those who admit having signed a deal (the
MMA) can still be vociferous in their demands of the government,
while those who deny it, choose silence over politics.
It will be good to see Zardari on speaking terms with
the government, for the sake of nothing else but active
politics in the country.
