Pakistan can do better

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has just been through the most dangerous weeks of his stint in office.

In a country where democracy feels as flimsy as a wooden shack, he dissolved the government in Punjab, Pakistan's dominant state, and called out the police to stop the country's lawyers and leading opposition party from holding a 'long march' to demand the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Then, he defused the situation by allowing Chaudhry's return to office and giving in to other demands that he had repeatedly rejected. Zardari allowed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to contest elections and hold public office.

The crux of the issue dates back to when Zardari pledged to reinstate Chaudhry within 30 days of taking office, but reneged on the promise, apparently fearing the chief justice might examine a deal that he and his wife, assassinated politician Benazir Bhutto, struck with Pervez Musharraf to grant the couple immunity from prosecution over alleged corruption cases.

A man who is better known for having a special talent for manoeuvring himself out of the tight spots he gets himself into, is likely to blame others for putting him in a spot.

That is why rumours of fury have spread lately stating that Zardari is angry with his close aides who have pushed him to a political dead end.

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, his advisers Maulana Fazal Ur Rahman and Rahman Malek repeatedly assured him that Sharif could not attract the masses and the government should not show any flexibility on the issue of restoration of the deposed Supreme Court judges.

Moreover, Taseer informed Zardari that the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam was ready to form a coalition government with the Pakistan Peoples Party in Punjab.

This advice made Zardari refuse, at the beginning of the dilemma, to listen to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, petitioned by Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani, and some foreign dignitaries, who suggested resolving the crisis by reinstating deposed judges through an executive order.

Gilani himself became angry with Zardari as the government could have completely taken the breeze out of the lawyers' sails by pushing the Supreme Court to decide in favour of Sharif rather than against them; such an act might well have made Chaudhry's restoration seem unnecessary.

But Zardari seems to prefer either guile or trials of strength. The army proved itself again as the biggest winner in its country's crises, knowing that General Kiyani played a key role in convincing Zardari to reinstate Chaudhry.

Yet, the army, which had been firmly in control of Pakistan's destinies for decades, still wishes to remain in the background. It has been tarnished by eight years of deception under Musharraf.

Obviously, Pakistan established itself as a national-security state with ideologies to be dictated from the top down. No democratic government in the history of the country has been replaced by an orderly transition through a regularly scheduled election.

The only functioning body seems to be the military establishment and some key-role political players with self-centred motives.

Pakistan has barely avoided bankruptcy, the tribal areas remain a vast Taliban sanctuary, the province of Balochistan is racked by a separatist rebellion, and US Predator drone attacks along the Afghan borders have driven the Taliban deeper into the country.

The collapse of the nuclear state is definitely not an option for leaders in Washington who can no longer trust the Pakistani military after accusing it of having ties with militant networks.

The only cure to the various diseases standing as barricades to a stable well-rooted democratic institutional state seems to be an influence-free regime.

And this can only be reached by approaching the chief obstacle to such a state which triggered this whole turmoil.

Rauf Baker is a Dubai-based journalist who specialises in Eastern European Affairs.