As Pakistan’s democracy meanders forward on an irreversible democratic path, it has achieved a first in Pakistan’s history. On March 31, Pakistan took the unprecedented step of initiating accountability of a former military ruler former president General Pervez Musharraf. And in a reflection of Pakistan’s maturing political culture, this accountability is not the anarchical lynching ‘Arab Spring’ mode of accountability. Instead Pakistan has opted for the Constitutional mode.

This process however is a turbulent one. Musharraf’s arrival has added additional tensions to a Pakistan in the throes of terrorism, growing sectarianism, a sagging economy, an alienated and militant Baloch population. The dominant political narrative in a democratically alert Pakistan has sought his accountability. The courts were obliged to begin his trial in the several cases against him including the Sardar Akbar Bugti murder, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination case and the Lal Masjid case, Nawaz Sharif government’s political compulsion trumped its pragmatic thinking and it filed treason charges against Musharraf in Court. Now the Pakistan army has begun to seek an exit route for its former commander.

Another complicating factor in the Musharraf case is the fact that while unmistakably having violated Article 6 of the Constitution the former general was no Zia-ul Haq, the general whose policies weakened the state and promoted sectarian, ethnic and ideological hatred within Pakistan. Increasingly the Musharraf debate has crossed the constitutional parameters with questions being raised about the government’s more accommodating approach in dealing with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) than with the former military commander. The government seems to have opted for selective justice by — at least for the present — not seeking to try, as constitutionally required, Musharraf’s aides and also overlooking his ‘original sin’ of the October 1999 martial law.

The army’s reservation regarding the Musharraf trial has had a bearing on how its former commander has been treated. So while we saw that unlike previous rulers Musharraf was charge-sheeted under Article 6, appeared before a court for treason charges and kept under house-arrest, he was treated with kid gloves. While political leaders with lesser crimes were put in jails and treated as criminals, the GHQ eventually appropriated the former military commander and until recently kept him under its protection in the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology.

Meanwhile the ruling party’s leadership has been split between pragmatists and political activists, first over the Musharraf trial and now over allowing him to travel abroad. Pragmatists led by the prime minister’s brother, the Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar supported by the Interior Minister Chaudary Nisar have questioned the wisdom of getting entangled in the former military ruler’s trial. Political activist leaders including the Railway Minister and the Defence Minister, tortured during the Musharraf era see the trial as a legal and democratic imperative to deter future military adventurers.

Difficult choice

On Musharraf’s request to visit his aging mother, the rejection has been couched in gentle rejections. The defence minister has offered to fly in the former general’s mother to Pakistan in an air ambulance. The split between the pragmatists and the political activists within the PML-N has been there from the beginning of the Musharraf case. Obviously reflecting the government’s decision the Information Minister Parvez Rashid had said in my programme that if we have to chose between stopping a dog stealing the milk or preventing our child from drowning, what would we chose? He had been asked about the government’s response to the lawyers’ petition filed in the Supreme Court that the government be asked to file treason charges against the former military ruler under Article 6. The minister was clear that we would “politely” state our priorities to the Supreme Court i.e. to not get entangled with the treason case.

But the government sought to get entangled. It was a politically difficult choice for the government to not try the former military ruler after he had arrived in Pakistan. And just before the elections Nawaz Sharif had conveyed to Musharraf through a common friend, a UAE businessman, that after his arrival in Pakistan, his trial would be unavoidable, even inevitable. Musharraf took no one’s advice, not even of the then army chief general Parvez Kayani but landed in Pakistan to launch his political career and to face the court.

While his political career appears to be at a dead end, his trial underway, all attention it focused on his exit. The only exit route now available to Musharraf is now the legal route. The government, not keen to take the risk of Musharraf departing on a one-way ticket and being blamed for that by the public and the courts, has refused him permission to travel abroad.

By contrast the Special Court was sympathetic to the former general. After Musharraf’s made his March 31 court appearance, the court charged him under article 6, he denied the charges in writing and then proceeded to make a speech in court in his own defence, the court’s order has set the stage for Musharraf’s departure from Pakistan. Like the Sindh Court’s earlier observation this Court too ruled that removing Musharraf from the ECL was only the government’s prerogative. In fact implicit in its order was its advice to the government it must sympathetically review Musharraf’s application for removal from the ECL. The court, the order stated that since Musharraf appeared in court the court does not need to arrest him, and while he should appear in court during subsequent hearings, the court would treat his plea for exemption from appearance sympathetically.

With his application for travel filed by his legal team, including Pakistan’s top Constitutional lawyer Sharifuddin Peerzada who has often pleaded for Pakistan’s military rulers, Musharraf is likely to get relief to travel abroad. The court can invoke precedents of granting permission to travel abroad to an accused under article 6. Former ambassador Hussain Haqqani provides a recent precedent.

For now the out-of-court political verdict and beyond the polls democratic verdict, on the man who violated article 6 of Pakistan’s Constitution is that of a loser. For Musharraf’s person the key question is if he leaves will it be on a one-way ticket or will he return to face the Court, to plead what he believes is his case.

Nasim Zehra is a writer on security issues.