Talha Mujaddidi keeps us updated on the fast moving political turmoil in the world's new hotspot, Pakistan

Glossary of Terms and people mentioned (for the convenience of readers who are unfamiliar with the domestic affairs of Pakistan)

National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) is the brainchild of Condi Rice, Richard Boucher, and John Negroponte. The NRO brought the current Pakistan government under President Zardari into power. One of the key functions of the NRO was to "baptized" all the corrupt politicians of the past, erasing their crimes and misdeeds.
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is the ruling political party under President Zardari.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is the main anti-government party in Pakistan at the moment. Because the TTP bears the name "Taliban" the western media often confuses them with the Taliban in Afghanistan. This is a grave mistake. The Afghan Taliban rejects the TTP. The TTP is a group based on Takfiri ideology (a Muslim who believes that all other Muslims, even orthodox Muslims are not true Muslims. They view all others as collaborators with the West. All Muslim scholars are unanimous in declaring Takfiris ‘heretics of Islam’.
Sufi Mohammad has moved into Swat with 9000 followers. He is the original leader of the Swat Islamic Courts Movement and the current leader of the Movement to Implement Islamic Laws in Swat under the name, Tehrik-e-Nizam e Shariat e Mustafa (TNSM). Sufi Mohammad had virtual control over Swat during the 90’s but now no military power on ground.
Benazir Bhutto 12th and 18th Prime Minister of Pakistan and the only woman ever to serve as Prime Minister. She was the eldest child of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007.
Pervez Musharraf is former dictator-turned- president of Pakistan. He was forced out of office due to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and his loss of support by his former sponsor, the U.S. government.
Asif Ali Zardari is the current president of Pakistan. He is the former husband of Benazir Bhutto and came into power on her coat tails after she was assassinated. He is also the son of veteran politician Mr. Hakim Ali Zardari. Mr. Zardari is commonly known in Pakistan as "Mr. Ten Percent" due to his well-known cuts on various government deals.
Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani is the current Prime Minister of Pakistan with Zardari as president. Both are members of the ruling political party, the PPP. He was elected as Prime Minister, unopposed.
Nawaz Sharif is two time former Prime Minister of Pakistan and equally as corrupt as Zardari.
Shahbaz Sharif is the brother of Nawaz, former Chief Minister of Punjab Province, and was CM still when he was removed under Governor rule in the province by Zardari and Supreme Court ruling.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudary, was the CJ of Supreme Court of Pakistan, he was appointed by Musharraf, he stop vital corrupt privatization deals, and recovered more than seventy missing person who were in CIA/Pakistani intelligence prisons in Pakistan. Choudary was removed from office by Musharraf in March 2007.
ISI- Inter Services Intelligence is Pakistan’s top spy agency. Very close ally of CIA. Also knows some intimate secrets of Afghan Jihad against Soviet, which was partnered by CIA and Regan administration. Recently ISI has been told not to interfere in domestic politics by Gen. Kayani.
Salman Taseer, playboy former corrupt business tycoon, owner of different companies and a fake degree from a U.K college in Accounting. One of his wives is an Indian National, of Sikh origin and she writes in Indian Express Newspaper. Taseer is seen as a sellout to India by the public.
PML (N) is the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz group, currently PML is split into three groups. The three groups can come together soon. PML (Q) was also called King’s Party’ since it was formed by President Musharraf, now with Musharraf out of the scene Q and N are likely to join hands again.

Recently in Pakistan, terrorism from TTP and other associated groups has died down for a while, but rest assured it can return as there has been at least one breach of peace agreement in Swat. This happened when TTP fired upon security forces killing two of them. But for the moment peace accord in Swat is still intact. As I had mentioned in my last article, Achieving Peace Inside Pakistan Against All Odds - that if the peace deal breaks, Sufi Mohammad will walk away from the agreement or might pick a side and get involved in the conflict. Two days ago he said that his followers will share no responsibility if the peace accord fails.

Now let’s get down to the current political mess in Pakistan. As was expected, the handpicked Supreme Court Judges of President Zardari ordered former Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif (biggest opposition leader) and his brother Shahbaz Sharif (who was chief Minister of Punjab Province) unfit to run for public office; in other words the Supreme Court disqualified both brothers. This predictable predicament happened on Feb 26th. Just afterwards,
"Governor Rule" was imposed for two months by President Zardari.

The Governor ruling Punjab province is much dreaded and disliked Salman Taseer. Since then political confrontation has started between ruling PPP of Zardari and PML (N) of Nawaz Sharif. PPP and PML have ruled Pakistan between 1988-1999. Their disastrous rule full of massive corruption, mismanagement, and failing economic indicators was ended on Oct 12th 1999 when Gen. Musharraf couped into power and sent Nawaz to jail. PPP and PML (both N and Q) are bitter rivals. They were only united against Musharraf (only PPP and PMLn was united against Musharraf, PMLq was Musharraf’s supporter until he resigned); now with Musharraf gone, they are back at each other’s throat.

But public opinion at the moment is totally against President Zardari and is with Nawaz. Nawaz supports the view of bulk of Pakistani public - that Iftikhar Choudary the ousted Chief Justice should be restored along with four other judges. We can recall that President Musharraf kicked out Choudary in March 2007. Now all opposition parties and lawyers movement are getting together to start a long march from different cities of Pakistan culminating in Islamabad on March 16th. This will be the biggest protest rally in Pakistan since at least a decade.

Punjab is the most populated province in Pakistan. If the government loses political ground in Punjab, it will be difficult to keep the government going for long. The biggest domestic issue right now is the removal of this government followed by the restoration of Choudary. Zardari ordered the setup of ‘Mobile courts’, as they are called. The purpose is to round up and detain political workers of opposition parties. The Prime Minister Yousuf Gillani, asked Zardari to remove the ordinance and it was removed. Zardari has been negotiating with Nawaz through his political allies. I don’t think another conciliatory agreement between Zardari and Nawaz is going to happen.

It’s a power game at the end of the day and Nawaz will stop at nothing short of the removal of this government. Much chaos is in store as we move closer to March 16th. The opposition parties, lawyers, and other groups involved in the long march to Islamabad have said that they will sit-in in front of Supreme Court and not move unless Chief Justice is restored. Zardari will try to remove the miscreants and send them to prison. If the situation gets out of control at this point, will the Army come on the streets to restore calm and order? I don’t think so; the Pakistan Army will not do anything against public opinion. In other words, the government does not have the support of the army.

What Now?

The biggest question in everyone’s mind is what is going to happen now in Pakistanis' tumultuous politics. Clearly Zardari and Nawaz will not back down from their power politics. Nawaz is no doubt as corrupt as Zardari, but at the moment his stance against Zardari is backed by public opinion. Although Nawaz, when he was PM of Pakistan in 1997, allowed an attack on the Supreme Court of Pakistan in order to remove a Chief Justice who was going to pass a judgment against him. The public at the moment has forgotten that and they are focused on removal of this government.

The PPP (ruling government political party) is in a fix and so is PM Gillani. Zardari will be going out of office eventually, will Gillani go with him or will he split the PPP and form a new coalition with opposition parties? Shahbaz has asked Gillani to leave Zardari and join the public in the long march. This I am sure is something that Gillani can’t do. He is just not up for the challenge. This might very well be PPP’s last government. Zardari, has sidelined almost all the confidants of slain Benazir from the crux of PPP decision making. This is not ironic; it is what Benazir did when she became PM in 1988 - she shoved aside close aides of her father Bhutto and even kicked out her brother Murtaza Bhutto from the party.

While Zardari, Gillani and rest of the Pakistani politicians were busy going at each other’s throat. Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Kayani spent one week in D.C and elsewhere in U.S meeting top CIA, Pentagon, U.S Military officials and Congressmen. Gen. Kayani is the most influential person at the moment in Pakistan. On Dec 20th 2008, Newsweek mentioned Kayani as the 20th most powerful man in the world.Kayani is not like Musharraf in any way at all at least not until now. Kayani comes from Gujar Khan clan of Punjabi people. For the last one thousand years the most favorite profession of this clan has been military.

Even before the Mughal’s ruled India, Gujars were part of any army that ruled India. Kayani is a deep thinker; he is a very professional soldier, he is media-shy, doesn’t talk much and his 650,000 troops think very highly of him. He is constantly in touch with his troops, often on a daily basis, and he’s constantly in touch with lower level officers and officers on different parts of Pakistani borders. Before being appointed as the Army Chief he was head of the most powerful intelligence agency of Pakistan, the ISI. Kayani has earned high respect of the U.S military commanders not by being complacent in front of them but by showing deep commitment to Pakistani national interests.

Kayani has also been politically correct as far as the Pakistani public is concerned. Kayani was ISI Chief when Musharraf was about to oust Choudary, Kayani politely told his Chief (Musharraf was army chief at that time) that he does not think it is a wise idea, and he will remain neutral in this matter. Kayani had sensed that Musharraf’s decision will result in mass upheaval and eventual downfall of Musharraf. That is precisely what happened. Kayani closed the political wing of the ISI and took ISI out of domestic politics and 2008 elections. So far Army has remained out of Pakistani politics under his rule. There is a lot more that Gen. Kayani has done right since he has been in charge of Pakistani Army but the time for litmus test is going to come soon.

U.S will not support a fast failing and unpopular government. This lesson U.S has learned the hard way in Iran after the revolution there in 1979. U.S will let the Zardari government fall if it does so under the weight of its own incompetence. Plus the fact that the Democrats are now in power in D.C and are not much interested in NRO deal that was brokered between President Musharraf and Benazir under the eyes of Condi Rice, and associates. They would like to deal with a new setup if possible.

The Pakistan Army will not come to support PPP government if it cries for help. This is basically because the public opinion is against this government. Also, neither, the Pakistan Army nor U.S like Nawaz. U.S doesn’t like Nawaz for his close links with Saudis. But Clinton and his wife, madam Secretary, may still have a soft corner for Nawaz since he agreed to Bill Clinton’s July 4th 1999 demand to remove Pakistani troops from Kargil region where Indian and Pakistan were involved in a mini-conflict (the details mentioned in Clinton’s book ‘my life’). Nawaz is not liked by Pakistan Army for his removal of Gen. Karamat who was Army Chief in 1998, Nawaz’s weak stance on Kargil issue, and Nawaz’s attempt to remove Gen. Musharraf from office on Oct 12th 1999. Surprisingly, Shahbaz the younger of the two brothers is still liked by the Pakistani public and even might be acceptable to Pakistan Army. Then General Musharraf mentions in his book that he liked Shahbaz (the reason being that Shahbaz was against Nawaz removing Musharraf and was not on board the decision to remove Musharraf in Oct 1999) and had offered Shahbaz to become PM after his coup. But Shahbaz did not want to betray his brother.

This political tug of war will result in a complete stalemate. The public is fast growing sick of this U.S imposed sham democracy and will demand removal of the government. At that time Gen. Kayani can ask President Zardari and PM Gillani to resign and go home. This has happened before in 1993, when Gen. Kakkar (Army Chief at that time), asked President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and PM Nawaz to resign and they had no choice but to oblige.

This all may sound too un-democratic to Western readers but when you have such corrupt and pathetic sham-democratic, puppet governments like we have had in Pakistan, then you welcome Army take over and martial laws. I still remember Oct 12th 1999 clearly, when Gen. Musharraf took over, people distributed sweets in all cities of Pakistan. Sadly the happiness was short lived, and Musharraf collapsed under U.S post 9/11 demands. If Zardari does not resign from office, the Army will have no other option but to carry out a coup and the Pakistani army needs just twenty minutes to complete a coup. All coups in Pakistan have been bloodless coups. The army can then setup an interim government and go back to barracks; the interim government can set a date for new elections. A new plan is also being discussed by influential quarters (retired Generals, bureaucrats, think tank experts, etc) in Islamabad, and that is called ‘Bangladesh Model’. This involves setting up a technocrat based government for at least two years if not more, and banning all political activity until certain political reforms are completed.

The last card left in Zardari’s hand is the removal of Gen. Kayani. This will surely spell disaster if he does so and even if Gen. Kayani accepts his removal after few months, Zardari will try to oust another Army Chief, and there eventually will be a coup.

In Washington D.C I am sure that Kayani and U.S authorities must have agreed to one of the options discussed. But the question is what does the U.S want to achieve in Pakistan in future? There are two ideologies still working in the U.S. Both are mothered by foreign mothers, impregnated by the father of U.S. imperialism. One is the hard-line ideology that Pakistan will become a failed state and will result in breakup of Pakistan, and terrorism will take over Pakistani nuclear weapons. The other mindset is that of gradual "neutralizing" of Pakistan for an imperialist agenda. Pakistan should remain intact but gradually the entire region Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India will be contained, neutralized and pacified if Father Washington has his way. At the moment U.S is giving mixed signals and it’s not clear what exactly will the U.S do with regards to Pakistan’s internal politics? But in April it will be clear when U.S announces its new ‘AfPak’ (Afghanistan and Pakistan) policy.

Two things are clear from all this. Firstly, Pakistan’s domestic politics is about to get messier and bloodier. Secondly, the U.S agenda for Pakistan may be acceptable to the Pakistani ruling elite and to a lessor extent the Pakistani Army, but the 180 million people of Pakistan are just not going to accept it.

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*Talha Mujaddidi is a writer/analyst, living in Pakistan and a columnist for Axis of Logic. He received his training as an electrical engineer in the United States. He was named "Who's Who" in American Colleges and Universities 2004. Talha has worked in inter-faith dialogue group at Michigan Technological University (MTU) and is former Chairman of the IEEE at MTU. He has also worked in the automobile and telecommunications industries in the U.S. and in Pakistan. He was part of the Boston-based non-profit Association for Development of Pakistan (ADP) which gathers funds for sustainable small development projects in rural areas of Pakistan. Talha likes to follow current affairs, politics of Middle East and South Asia. Talha is currently working on different small projects that range from spreading public opinion against disastrous effects of globalization, trying to motivate Pakistani people to rise up against corrupt Pakistani politicians, managing his own blog, and doing research for his book which that will come out in future. Talha can be contacted at: talhamujaddidi@gmail.com

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