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And Musharraf -- the choice of 70 percent of Pakistanis as the root cause, according to a recent report -- is in no mood to budge.
The British newspaper "The Sunday Telegraph" quoted unnamed aides to Musharraf saying he would quit in a "matter of days and not months," and he would rather resign than wait to be impeached and forced out of office by the PPP and PML-N. But his spokesman Major Rashid Qureshi dismissed the report, saying the Feb. 18 general elections were not a referendum on the president.
True, but Musharraf gate-crashed through to the presidency last year by turning the judicial system on its head, planting his own judges, gagging the media and throwing dissenters into prison, all under emergency rule. All of this was to ensure a "free and fair election," which he had promised would be the "mother of all elections."
If this is how "democracy" had to come to this beleaguered nation -- including the way the United States impressed upon Nawaz Sharif and Zardari that they must work with the president since the United States would only deal with Musharraf -- then U.S. President George Bush needs to recalibrate democracy when dealing with dictators.
Pakistanis all over the world call Musharraf a dictator, but not the Bush administration. Not even John Kerry, former U.S. presidential candidate, or Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, both of whom came in as observers, uses that word. Despite opining that the election was a chance to reshape U.S. policy and an opportunity to move from a policy focused on a personality (Musharraf) to one based on an entire people (Pakistanis), they evaded questions about his removal.
Serious questions about what the United States means by democracy when obsessed with a dictator arise to torment us, since Pakistanis have rubbished most of the notions that gave legitimacy to Musharraf by their verdict.
The 30 percent of Pakistanis who braved it out on election day were mainly from the low income group with their backs to the wall. Inflation at a staggering 11 percent, a shortage of wheat, flour and electricity and never-ending queues for food grains have pushed their tolerance to the limit. The North West Frontier Province -- populated mostly by Pakhtuns and all but Talibanized despite Musharraf's attempts to quell militancy -- dispelled doubts that they were all fundamentalists by voting for the secular Awami National Party.
What did Musharraf do with the billions of U.S. dollars he received in aid to fight the war on terror?
Did he care to open up enough schools in rural Pakistan where two-thirds of the people stay and where education is restricted to madrassas only? And where Pakistani madrassas teach nothing more secular than religion?
It is true that Zardari and his late wife Benazir Bhutto did not see eye-to-eye with Sharif not too long ago. But they have shown exemplary solidarity after the elections and have accepted the nomination of PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim for the post of prime minister.
Sharif wants the judiciary re-instated and Musharraf impeached while Zardari wants a strong Parliament to make the former general obsolete, but they both agree to restoration of the 1973 Constitution where all power was vested in the prime minister. Zardari has his own reasons, including fear of past corruption charges being unearthed. Before being sacked by Musharraf, the chief justice had refused amnesty for Zardari.
The PPP and PML-N combined do not have the numbers to impeach Musharraf, but can cobble up a coalition with other parties -- even including disgruntled members of the Musharraf-backing PML-Q -- to reach the magical number.
Why does the United States not leave them and the Pakistani people who voted against Musharraf -- which implies against U.S. meddling too -- to let them thrash out if they want to work with the dictator or not?
And why persist with the earlier arrangement of Benazir and Musharraf when she is no more and the people have voted against Musharraf? What example will the United States set to Pakistanis by shielding a supposed ally, whose warts have been exposed by the Pakistani people in an election overseen by Western observers?
And why not keep pressure on the military instead, so that it does not overstep its charge in future?
If a report in the British "The Guardian" is true that Musharraf has "retreated to a mental bunker" and is not listening to anyone except a small circle after being drubbed, then Pakistan is in grave danger of being at the mercy of an incorrigible power hound boxed in.
Should the United States, already having put aside most of the lofty ideals of their founding fathers, now allow democracy to be hostage to dictatorship?
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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha.)
