Musharraf’s leash has finally been pulled
When the ex-dictator Pervez Musharraf returned to Pakistan as the caretaker government took charge, many speculated that it smacked of a deal and that all major players, political parties, the army and – most importantly – the aggrieved judiciary, were going to let him contest the elections. The man, who for nearly a decade wore the two crowns of president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff, could not claim that he had not been forewarned. The judiciary appeared to have extended his leash in the cat-and-mouse game being played on the labyrinth that the former general had constructed for himself. When Musharraf was granted protective bail in four of the cases against him in the Sindh High Court, a tactical move by his lawyers who knew the three other high courts were dead set against him, it appeared that his long announced return would at least allow him the dignity honour of contesting elections – and perhaps winning a seat to the National Assembly from the Chitral area.
But the ex-general’s luck was bound to run out. There were too many cases against him – and as he found out when his nomination papers were rejected in three of the four constituencies he planned to contest from – the judiciary was not willing to abide by whatever ‘deal’ had been struck in the holy lands to allow him to return. With a lot of hype spun on his expected return in Karachi, the city in which he allowed a free reign to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and his local bodies system had apparently delivered, there was barely a crowd worth speaking of for those who remember the martyred Benazir Bhutto’s return to the country in October 2007. Where there was hope when Benazir returned, there was indifference, and simmering anger on the return of Musharraf: a man threw a shoe at him after a hearing at the SHC and his supporters were beaten up by lawyers in Rawalpindi.
Finally, when his papers were rejected from all four constituencies on April 16 and his arrest was ordered by the Islamabad High Court in the judges detentions case on Thursday, did the general’s true colours showed. The ex-dictator who was famous for saying, “Mein kisi se nahi darta, mein commando hon” (“I do not fear anyone. I am a commando.”), fled from the court premises in disregard of due process and apparently took shelter in his farmhouse in suburban Islamabad. The questions over why he was not arrested there and then are also being asked, with some speculating that the security establishment would consider it too embarrassing for its former head – and usurper president – to be put behind bars. But it is also worth noting that the military has not intervened to prevent Musharraf’s political fall. The former general is trapped in labyrinths he constructed himself and he should have known better than to step in there himself.
