The military has no place in government

More than a month after parliamentary elections, Pakistan is still without a stable elected government and without a final date for convening of parliament.

Apologists for the military's intervention in politics are already arguing that Pakistan's politicians are once again failing the nation. But the fact is that the current stalemate is the result of machinations by General Pervez Musharraf and his political engineers.

Political stability has eluded Pakistan because of repeated attempts at political engineering. It is unlikely that the result will be any different this time around.

The delay in convening parliament originally scheduled for November 1 is clearly intended to buy time for cobbling together a pro-military coalition, one that General Musharraf can easily work with.

General Musharraf wants a deal with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) but not with its leader, Benazir Bhutto. He wants the Islamic alliance, MMA, as part of a future government but does not want a cleric to be prime minister.

In short, he wants the country's politicians to fall in like a parade responds to the command of a sergeant. Pakistan's generals have controled politics for four decades with terrible consequences.

Lessons ignored

But no lessons appear to have been learnt. Instead of trying to force his own choice on a reluctant parliament, Musharraf could withdraw his plans to institutionalise the military's role in governing Pakistan, which are at the heart of his constitutional package. Once the politicians are free to work out things among themselves, Pakistani politics would be able to acquire the normalcy it does not seem to have at present.

The manner in which military officers are reportedly meeting politicians, leading to speculation about their involvement in political deal-making, is certainly not the "clean and healthy politics" General Musharraf promised when he took power three years ago.

If newspaper reports are to be believed, the Pakistani establishment is trying to wheel and deal in an unscrupulous manner making the generals look far worse than the politicians they say they want to control.

Pakistan's military has opted for horse-trading and legal manipulation before to maintain its ascendancy in the country's politics. After the 1970 elections, too, Pakistan's then military ruler, General Yahya Khan, delayed convening of parliament and used force to suppress the supporters of the majority party, the Awami League.

The military's PR machine blamed the crisis on the politicians' inability to compromise though in fact it was the establishment that was preventing compromise. This political engineering led to civil war and the creation of Bangladesh a year later.

Democratic rule

Instead of pursuing the dangerous course of denying or manipulating the people's will, General Musharraf must accept the results of his flawed election. And the international community must pressure him to restore constitutional democratic rule instead of trying to maintain his own power by changing the rules even after the votes have been cast.

The manner in which ordinances have been issued virtually every day since polling on October 10 shows that General Musharraf is unwilling even to submit himself to the laws he has previously made. Whimsical law making through decrees is hardly the way to lay the foundations of a new political order.

General Musharraf would do well also to compromise with exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is the second-largest group in parliament.

The PPP has long been considered an adversary by the military, which executed Bhutto's father Zulfikar, after toppling his elected government in 1977. Bhutto and her husband have faced charges of corruption for the last six years after her government was dismissed on the basis of these allegations. Prosecution in the corruption cases has been painfully slow and so far there have been no final convictions.

Bhutto was convicted under a decree issued by General Musharraf for failing to appear in a special court, which is not the same as being convicted for graft or bribery. Election results show that the allegations have not been sufficient to discredit Benazir Bhutto and her party in the eyes of Pakistani voters.

Instead of persisting with the folly of trying to exclude the Bhutto family or PPP from politics through judicial and manipulative means - something that has been tried for 25 years, without success - it may be prudent to finally recognise that politicians can only be truly defeated through political competition.

General Musharraf's attempts to eliminate corruption through special courts and military-backed prosecutions are seen by Pakistani politicians as politically motivated persecution and have hardly been effective.

NAB's claims about recovering vast sums of money from defaulting and delinquent politicians notwithstanding, corruption remains as much a reality in Pakistan today as it did before.

The only thing that has changed is that the intelligence-military complex does not leak details of the rulers' corruption to the media as it did over the last decade because the intelligence-military complex is now ruling the country. Pakistan needs to deal with the problem of political corruption but the military's desire to act, as the country's anti-corruption authority is obviously not working.

Instead of insisting on that role, General Musharraf should leave the issue of corruption to the regular courts and the court of public opinion as is the practice in all democracies. And the game of using corruption as a stick with which to beat the political class, thereby paving the way for military government, must also come to an end.

Once the constitutional package and the military-inspired corruption prosecutions are withdrawn, the conservatives currently considered Mush-arraf's political pawns would be free to negotiate a coalition arrangement with the opposition parties.

Secular coalition

A coalition between secular parties of the centre-right and the centre-left would then become possible, denying the Islamists influence disproportionate to their electoral strength. If, however, the MMA can still strike a deal with the mainstream parties after compromising on core issues, they should not be denied the fruit of flexibility.

The MMA gained a significant number of seats in parliament with only 11 per cent of the popular vote, and it will certainly form the government in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan.

Islamist opposition to the presence of U.S. forces conducting the war against Al Qaida could complicate Pakistan's role as an indispensable U.S. ally in the region. But Pakistani political parties, including the Islamists, are willing to maintain the alliance with the U.S. if Washington supports normal democratic politics instead of putting all its weight behind General Musharraf.

From Washington's point of view, this may not be a bad deal though the Bush administration is unlikely to lean in that direction. A democratic regime, however flawed, is more likely to provide long-term stability to Pakistan.

U.S. support for military rulers in the past has contributed to anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Military rulers, including General Musharraf, have used Islamic extremism as a strategic tool in pursuing Pakistan's traditional rivalry with India.

With 29 per cent of the national budget allocated for defence and additional clout through state enterprises run by the military, the generals inhibit Pakistan's