Legitimizing a Farce

For people who are saying that these elections are a “landmark in Pakistan’s history”, let me remind them that they are repeating in different words what Musharraf had been saying all along in his "dictatorship as the best defense of democracy" rhetoric, that followed last year’s declaration of emergency. In other words, those who are celebrating these elections and their results are trying to justify all the undemocratic maneuvering by the military and its dictator (Musharraf) that described the immediate context of these elections (part of which was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto) and thereby absolving the dictator of all wrong doing by saying it was “worth it” for democracy. Both these "winners", the PML-N and the PPP will fit into the ‘hierarchy of power’ prescribed for politicians by their superiors (the commanders of the Pakistan Army in our case), and if they try moving out of line they will be brought straight back in or sent home packing. Was it not the same "democratic-alliance" before the elections that vowed to boycott these elections, given their dictatorial context and then did a total turnaround to get power, rushing to outdo each other in legitimizing the same structure that is anti-democracy to the core?

To take part in the elections was to legitimize what led up to the elections and that was maneuvering by the military in order to salvage itself and its reputation from a total rebellion by the people to oust the occupiers. To take part in them was to legitimize Musharraf‘s rhetoric about his three stages of getting to “democracy through dictatorial control” where the Army remains firmly in charge. Elections have not brought democracy to this country and will not unless a charismatic leader of the caliber of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, people who in the absence of viable institutions are institutions by themselves, emerges who can move the masses against military domination in political affairs. The Pakistan Army has certainly not disappeared from the power equation, it is still in command, and total command, and will be regardless of the elections, which are merely a way to mask their rule. Such “masking” occurs ever so often when America wants to cut off Pakistan, needs it for some ulterior motive and wants to rescue those (the Pakistan Army) that have been serving it from being rejected violently by the local population through a revolutionary war. No issue facing Pakistan is greater in urgency than the domination of its dominant institution, the Pakistan Army by the American elite and the resulting forced atrophy of the rest of its social institutions including the political and the economic.

By punishing civilian “democratic” governments, the US elite achieve a two prong objective:

i) Discredit civilians and democracy in the eyes of the Pakistani public
ii) Prevent the alienation of the Pakistan Army from America, making it go against the civilian government and then supporting such dictatorship wholeheartedly by economic injections for short term relief- the famously and often tried "stop gap" formula, with its reputation with the people enhanced due to such manipulation of constructed failure of the civilian governments.

The final results of the current elections in Pakistan reveals Army over lordship (checks and balances according to US defined parameters) presiding over a victory to the opposition, when the Army rule legitimacy is at the lowest level that it can possibly get before a civil war breaks out. How do you manipulate this situation to turn it into a win-win for the Pakistan Army: We don’t have to go too far back in history to see how it occurs. Every so many years when the Americans want to salvage the Army (for their own purpose) and cut off Pakistan (for their own purpose) they encourage a so-called circumscribed "democracy". Now when the opposition forms a government, the belt will be tightened around Pakistan’s neck by the Americans, the situation will get worse, setting the scenario for another military takeover where the previously (hated by people) military now appears all the more attractive. The Army will be salvaged for another almost a decade before this mantra is tried again.

However it is getting more and more tenuous for the Americans to try this formula in Pakistan with every successive Martial Law as they have done in the past because:

i) Every martial law produced unintended consequences, this run produced the lawyer’s movement, which has become a thorn in the side of the establishment (military/feudal/political nexus)
ii) The subordinates of the Western elite at the top of the Pakistan Army, due to the geographic distance from their real command (in Washington) feel after a while that they presides over the nation quite independently and develops false notions of “sovereignty”.

For these reasons, the Americans might soon break from the past and try their hand at breaking Pakistan with actual occupation of certain parts because dealing with their proxy occupation force (the Pakistan Army) gets tenuous with every Martial Law. In the meantime let the fools celebrate their victory even as General Kiyani looks towards the near future with hopes of salvaging through such celebration what would have turned out eventually, were the people’s sentiments not manipulated through the political establishment, to be the end of Pakistan’s occupation by the Pakistan Army (by a seemingly civil war). Finally, this vote was not so much an endorsement of the PPP or the PML-N as it was a rejection of military rule.

Muhammed Asadi (www.asadi.org) can be reached at masadi @aol.com.