Musharraf to rattle sabre, but won’t return

General (r) Pervez Musharraf was fastidious to keep things in order, but disillusioned about his political role. He yearned to combine all the factions of Muslim League and become some sort of patron-in-chief. Almost all the members of his kitchen cabinet advised him to forget about that.
A former aide of the general recalls some of those moments. He now keeps a low profile, but is perturbed as Musharraf has announced to return before the next general elections and lead his All Pakistan Muslim League (APML).
He believes that leading a political party would take Musharraf to disarray. He remembers how the political ambitions of the former president had taken a reckless twist by the mid of 2000s. “I stand by my previous advices to the general against taking over a political party. We kept him doing so, but now he is at his own,” the former aide says.
Contrary to his inflexible posture Musharraf was more comfortable to strike a deal with PML-Nawaz than the Pakistan People’s Party. He envisioned that by uniting the ranks of Q, N and other Leagues he would secure his own future.
The general primarily relied on his person friend Brig Niaz to deal with Sharif. Here he made the same mistake what he did while dealing with the PPP. He imagined a PML-N without Nawaz Sharif.
“At one stage he believed that things could be worked out with Shahbaz Sharif. But Tariq Aziz put his weight against this and argued that cooperation with the PML-N was not possible without the consent of Nawaz Sharif,” the close associate of ex-president says.
It probably happened when the secretary of the National Security Council, Tariq Aziz, was working to make possible a rapprochement between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. A regular visitor of his office was the then British High Commissioner, Sir Mark Lyall Grant.
That was the same time when relations between Tariq Aziz and Chaudhrys of Gujrat were deteriorating. The Chaudhrys had frustrated a move to replace Prime Minister Jamali with Humayun Akhter.
The former aide recalls the first meeting between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, held in January 2007. A couple of days after the meeting the general summoned around 10 senior political allies and briefed them about the meeting. Some of them had opposed her demand of lifting ban on becoming the prime minister for third time. They, however, did not feel threatened if the cases against her were withdrawn.
According to the aide, that meeting was the watershed in defining Musharraf’s future strategy with the People’s Party. The end result was the promulgation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance.
Spokespersons of the APML were not available for comment. A former political advisor of the general, who left the APML last year, observes that Musharraf had led himself to total isolation. “At this moment no one wants to align with General Musharraf. Launching a political party was a wrong decision. It was an example of short sightedness,” the former advisor says.
While idea of his own political party was cropping up to him, the well-wishers tried to hold Musharraf back mentioning multiple challenges or hurdles he might have to face.
The well-wishers warned him of army, media, al Qaeda, Taliban, clergy, Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Chaudhrys and other opponents. He was asked to first overcome those challenges and clear the criminal cases against him before evening thinking of jumping into the fray.