Chakwal Diary: Save this democracy, even if it's neither fish nor fowl

What's a Kashmir formula? That while both sides to a dispute stick to their respective stands, they move on with life in other ways. This may also be called declaring victory and backing off---in the case of the Legal Framework Order (LFO) and General Pervez Musharraf's uniform, backing off from the brink.

On Kashmir we know we can't take it by force. And India won't give it to us on a platter. So we make the best of a bad situation and while quite resolutely sticking to our rhetorical guns, try to move ahead in other spheres. Metternich or Talleyrand would have called this realism.

On the question of Musharraf's uniform, the main sticking point between the government and the opposition, the opposition can shout all it wants but it can't strip the uniform from Musharraf's back. And Musharraf, as the scowl he has started wearing on his face all too clearly indicates, is in no hurry to take it off on his own.

When Musharraf says he won't be bullied or blackmailed on this issue, we better take him at his word. Pakistani generals in power are temperamentally incapable of submitting to political necessity, especially when that necessity is spelled out by politicians. Infra dig, beneath their dignity: that's what they consider this to be.

Thus the impasse. If there's no halfway house, no backing away from the brink, the goose of our present quasi-democracy, a democracy neither fish nor fowl, will be cooked.

So, as Lenin might have put it (he wrote a famous pamphlet with this title), What is to be done?

Well, if we want to save and preserve what crumbs of democracy we have, horses now running about wildly in the political arena will have to be bridled. Which is where the Kashmir formula comes in.

The opposition parties can keep protesting wherever they want to: in the National Assembly, the Senate, or the Punjab assembly. But they should do so with a clear sense of what they can get away with and what may goad Musharraf and his corps commanders into taking drastic action.

It's a mug's game to say that if Musharraf dissolves the assemblies, he'll be signing his own exit warrant. If everything else comes tumbling down at the same time, and we are back to a fresh bout of military rule, of what consolation to anyone will Musharraf's departure be? The last thing we need is a marriage of juvenile passions with shortsighted goals. Enough of experiments. A sorely-tried nation can't take any more.

This Kashmir solution won't be all roses for the General. After all, there will be no parliamentary endorsing of his LFO or of his presidency. But so be it. This is the price Musharraf will have to pay for wriggling out of this crisis---something created by his own political shortsightedness and the ineptitude of his political managers.

Remember, neither side is in a position to achieve its maximalist aims. Musharraf is in no position to make the opposition eat humble pie. Or expect them to jump to his commands. At the same time, the opposition parties while being capable enough of raising a rumpus in the assemblies can't dictate terms to the President.

Another thing: only a fool will count on any large-scale public protests should things go wrong. The people of Pakistan stopped protesting about such things a long time ago.

But while maximalism is not achievable, both sides have it in their power to bring down the walls of Jericho. There is already a whispering campaign on, pointing darkly to the inability of the politicians to do anything right. In drawing rooms and hujras across the country, the possibility of a re-invention of military rule is openly being discussed.

So the question is, is this system worth saving? Or will we be better off by beginning again at the beginning?

So many contradictions, flawed assumptions, conflicting desires. There's no doubt about it, Musharraf's political system is a disaster, bringing neither legitimization to his presidency nor stability to the country. Rather, to keep the pieces together Musharraf has been compelled to enter into a series of unholy compromises with the most unsavoury political elements on offer on the Pakistani scene: from the fair-weather toadies of the Q League to the runaway Patriots of the PPP. In Karachi this has meant dealing with the MQM which not long ago was on top of the army's hit-list of unwanted entities.

Yet despite these huge failings, there's been some good about the Musharraf order too. It would be churlish and unfair to deny this. The odd Rana Sanaullah incident apart, Musharraf has not been a repressive or tyrannical ruler. On the contrary, he's been remarkably tolerant of dissent. In fact the most frequent accusation leveled at him in this regard is not that he does not suffer criticism but that he pays no heed to it (which of course can be very frustrating for the critic).

Say what you will, the press has never been freer in Pakistan and even television, kept so long in a straitjacket, has begun to open up. Among other things this has meant the army losing, perhaps forever, its holy cow status. Once upon a time it was not the fashion to criticize the army or the ISI. Now no one thinks twice before doing so. What else is the definition of glasnost?

As for the political parties, Musharraf queered the pitch to keep them out of power. But their voices have not been muzzled. Open the papers and see what opposition leaders are saying all the time. We don't want to close the doors on this openness, do we?

Even the shoddy political system that we have, much as it is open to ridicule, is yet an improvement on unfettered military rule. Prime Minister Jamali may walk in President Musharraf's shadow and may call Musharraf his "boss", but the mere fact of having a prime minister, any sort of prime minister, is an improvement on one-man rule.

Which doesn't mean that the opposition parties should start eating crow by putting the seal of approval on Musharraf's constitutional shenanigans. No, they should stick to their stand but without bringing the system down because anything that rises on the ruins of this order will be infinitely worse than what was there before.

For all its faults this system points the way forward, which is what makes it worth saving. The Sharifs, Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari will have their chance. Nothing can stop that because Musharraf's rule far from erasing their standing has strengthened it, which is a measure of the confusion besetting the path of Pakistan's fourth military government.

But all these hopefuls in exile must bide their time in the realization that in the very continuation of quasi-democracy lies their best chance of staging the comebacks of which they dream. And to which perhaps they are entitled. Going back to the beginning is not the answer to their predicament. For then who knows who comes on the scene and what his agenda is. Better to stick with the devil you have than the one you don't know.

So the desperate need, if ever there was one, is to slow all the horses running amok in the arena. For starters, the ISI and its political wizards could do everyone a favour by putting a stop to their political games.

For his part, Gen Musharraf should stop pretending that he has all the answers. The opposition