Haunted by the corridors of power
Secure sometimes within the confines of London, sometimes of Dubai, the ex-president has started venting totally unsolicited views, opinions and advice on diverse matters. But though these frivolous outpourings may have limited immediate impact on national politics, they do shed some light on Musharraf the man.
Despite his narrow escape from the long arm of the law in Pakistan on possibly dubious health grounds, he still thirsts for state power even if it means jumping on the much tainted bandwagon of the MQM. Indeed, after the 1999 coup there were allegations from some quarters that the overthrow had been preplanned and that the skyjacking just provided a cunning excuse. This might only be hearsay, but his apparently unsatiated yearning for the corridors of power is still pretty obvious. His assertion that he stands not for the MQM, but for the Mohajir community, only tends to reinforce both his essential ethnic bias as well as his still smouldering hunger for power.
So in his wisdom, Musharraf, far from heaving a sigh of relief at avoiding the unwelcome appearances in the Supreme Court, still harbours a fond longing for the MQM and Pakistani politics. He even has visions of uniting all political forces and creating a third power to counter balance the evil compact between the hated PML-N and PPP. Fantastical, strange, inexplicable but true.
But Musharraf did not completely flounder on the cliffs of reality. Perhaps this was due to his military training and mindset. In the same breath he casually opined that his second coming would mature only when the treason and other cases pending against him were concluded, of course with an honourable acquittal. A pretty long shot, that, going by the long-drawn, sometimes lifelong, process of the Pakistan criminal justice system. And he further decried that the present political leadership was proving a big hurdle as it was prolonging these cases by influencing the judiciary. Finally, the ex-army boss could not resist the temptation of more meddling by raising the issue of General Raheel Shareef’s timely retirement yet again.