| August 16, 2008 | Saturday | Sha'aban 13, 1429 |
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Politics as reality TV
BEING a Pakistani and therefore paranoid, I am convinced that our endless political convolutions are being secretly scripted by some media mogul.
This master manipulator is pulling the strings to increase TV ratings and advertising, while the cast of politicians and generals, and the supporting cast of lawyers and activists, go through the motions as the cameras roll, and the pundits keep us glued to our screens.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country acts as unimportant extras called upon to demonstrate, go to jail, and occasionally vote.
If we think of current Pakistani politics as reality TV, things make more sense. Would any neutral observer really believe that a nation of 165 million would deliberately chart such a suicidal course? For the last 18 months, we have been on a rollercoaster ride, unable to get off. As we flip through a series of hair-raising bends and dips, the only ones who seem to benefit from our discomfort are the multiplying TV channels whose anchors positively beam with glee, rubbing their hands at the prospect of yet another political drama.
The latest episode in our ongoing political saga is the impending impeachment of Pervez Musharraf. Why is this happening? Why has the president put himself and the rest of the country into this position? Does he not see this is one battle he cannot win, not that he has won any in the past?
Even if by some miracle, he does survive the legal and parliamentary struggle ahead, he will be so mortally wounded that he will be a spent force for the rest of his political life. So what’s the point of subjecting himself and the rest of us to this debilitating diversion?
If, as he keeps repeating endlessly, he has only the good of the country in mind, why does he not see that the biggest favour he could do for Pakistan is to quit, resign, go? Please, Mr President, what part of ‘go’ don’t you understand?
After he triggered a judicial and political crisis by his ham-handed handling of the chief justice in March last year, I asked an old friend who is a close advisor to Musharraf why he didn’t advise his boss to retire gracefully before he was kicked out. “Don’t you think I have?” was his reply. Over the course of the year, I repeated the question several times, and got basically the same reply.
A problem with dictators is that they surround themselves with sycophants who benefit greatly through their proximity to the supreme leader. As it is to their advantage to have the dictator continue in the office he has usurped, they shield him from the true picture, and keep reinforcing his delusions of being a saviour, and therefore indispensable.
As the years go by, and the chorus of praise from the inner circle becomes louder, the dictator convinces himself not only that he is doing a great job, but that the country would go to the dogs without him. And even when one person in the inner circle gives him sane advice, it is drowned out by the others in the group.
Understandably, when major foreign leaders begin singing the same song, it goes to the dictator’s head. To be fair to him, Musharraf would have had to be blessed with superhuman objectivity and strength of character not to have succumbed to this unending praise from his cheerleaders.
Since the elections, Musharraf’s presence has been a distraction from the main task of establishing a functioning government. A relic from the past, he sought to preside over a government composed of elements he has publicly and repeatedly badmouthed ever since he seized power nine years ago. To now pretend that he has become neutral after his supporters had been wiped out in the recent elections was a shabby fiction that fooled nobody.
After his grotesque re-election in the face of public opinion and parliamentary norms last year, he has pretended that he was the bulwark against the country’s enemies. Somehow, he convinced the Americans that the coalition was too unstable to combat the Taliban, and that he was still needed as an ally in the ‘war against terror’. But his secret (and only) hope was that the two major coalition partners would fall out over the issue of the restoration of the judiciary, and the PPP would have to enter into a coalition with the PML-Q.
In his daydreams, the re-entry of his band of faithful toadies into the corridors of power would ensure his continued residence at the presidency.
Dream on. Whatever their personal likes and dislikes, both Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif realise that if their coalition breaks up, the major winners would be the likes of the Chaudhries of Gujrat, Altaf Hussain of London, and Musharraf of Kargil. Thus, they have decided to test the uncharted waters of impeachment.
While the way forward seems clear, the master scriptwriter has some twists left for the endgame. For instance, while there are provisions regarding impeachment in the constitution, it is unclear what the precise mechanism is.
If formally impeached, does the president have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court? Will he be given a fair hearing in parliament? What are the rules of evidence? Can he be impeached on the grounds of economic mismanagement? But there are many people involved in the framing and implementation of economic policy. And so on.
If Musharraf does not, even now, take the graceful way out, he will open a Pandora’s Box. But perhaps this is his intention. By dragging out the whole process, he might bring the whole country to a grinding halt, not that it is leaping forward anyway. As judges are dragged out of their retirement to solemnly hold forth on TV, and anchors hand us their uninformed and second-hand opinions, we will sit slack-jawed before our screens as we get a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings.
But clearly, this is something that has to be done and put behind us. Exorcism often involves painful rituals, but the body becomes whole again when the evil spirit occupying it has departed.
irfanhusain@gmail.com
