IT may have been possible to attach slightly more credibility to the so-called charter of democracy signed in London last week by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had the two of them attempted a degree of criticism.

Even a token acknowledgment of their own imperfections could have been construed as a potentially healthy development: it would have hinted at the possibility of a hitherto unknown willingness among Pakistani political leaders to analyse the past with a modicum of objectivity. That, in turn, would have opened up the prospect of lessons being learned from past mistakes.

One possible consequence of such a tendency could be that the nation would no longer be called upon to revisit time and again the same old follies while also having to put up with new indignities. But, then, it would take an incredibly short memory to expect that sort of relief from the likes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Neither of them has exactly bloomed in exile (unless a reduction in the uncovered area of the latter’s pate could be interpreted as a blossoming of sorts), nor have they turned a new leaf.

This is not to say that the charter of democracy consists of nothing but gibberish: it makes some reasonably valid points and contains a few worthwhile proposals. But are they worth the paper they are written on? Our experience of the signatories militates against jumping to any such conclusion. Even in the unlikely event of demonstrably free and fair elections being organised next year, Pakistan would have precious little to gain from participation by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

This is not to suggest that they should not be allowed to participate, let alone that the present hybrid dispensation constitutes a superior alternative. It’s just that grandstanding by that duo — why, they even exchanged pens after signing the charter, in a futile attempt to imbue the moment with greater significance than it deserves — seems particularly grotesque in view of their appalling record in power. A spot of self-flagellation would have been more opportune than the habitual bluster and bravado — including plans for a coordinated arrival back home in time for the elections.

Pakistan can do without further meaningless drama. We’ve been there before: Benazir’s return from exile seemed considerably more meaningful back in 1986. An extraordinary and unpredictable set of circumstances catapulted her into power two years later. That’s when the disappointments began. She and Nawaz Sharif are not way off the mark in suggesting that the army’s refusal to butt out of politics was a leading cause of instability in the years after 1988. But that’s a poor excuse for strikingly poor governance and rampant corruption.

Of course, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are by no means the only political players afraid of gazing into a mirror. The phobia is widespread, and General Pervez Musharraf is no less prone to it than anyone else. For instance, when he decried the charter last week as an attempt by the exiled leaders to hoodwink people into thinking that they are working for democracy, he appears to have been unaware that his own unkept vows about introducing truly representative rule place him in exactly the same category. And if the PPP and PML(N) leaders are trying just to save their own future and re-enter the corridors of power, how exactly does that distinguish them from Musharraf, apart from the fact that he is already in power and clinging on to it for dear life?

Reports suggest Pakistan has lately been under increasing pressure from the US and Britain to ensure that next year’s electoral exercise is a clean affair. In truth, superficial cleanliness would probably suffice for them to endorse the result. Despite the occasional semi-indication to the contrary, Washington is keen on President Musharraf remaining in charge in Islamabad, although for the sake of appearances it would prefer him to be armed with a less dubious popular mandate.

Would the US prefer Pakistan’s president to remove his military uniform and slip into something more comfortable? Perhaps, but — there’s always a but — not at the expense of losing control of the army.

That’s something of a no-brainer, though. As President Musharraf knows only too well, the power he has today derives more or less exclusively from his leadership of the army. A couple of years ago he went back on a promise to relinquish his military post, not because he had an epiphany, but because the pledge had been made in bad faith, as an expedient way out of a minor political crisis.

Apparently his present take on the issue is that although he cannot constitutionally remain in uniform beyond 2007, he would rather defer a decision on the matter until next year. This procrastination is evidently combined with a determination to secure election as president for another term before the present assemblies are dissolved.

Responding to the consternation among certain political parties over this matter, the general was quoted as saying last week: People debating the issue of the president’s election are unaware of the Constitution. That may be so, but it’s kind of difficult to keep up when every military regime that comes along feels free to tinker at leisure with that document. The last time I looked — which was admittedly a long time ago, in a volume edited, if I’m not mistaken, by the present attorney-general of Pakistan — it was unconstitutional for the army chief of staff to usurp political power, and there was certainly no clause permitting that post to be combined with the presidency.

Interestingly, the aforementioned charter of democracy talks about rolling back only President Musharraf’s amendments by going back to the Constitution as it stood in 1999, rather than in 1973 or 1977.

Back in 1999, there were sighs of relief in quite a few quarters when Pervez Musharraf succeeded in outmanoeuvring Nawaz Sharif from the highly unusual vantage point of an airliner cockpit. However, some of us who harboured no illusions whatsoever about the dire and debilitating nature of the Nawaz Sharif administration nonetheless looked upon the coup as a calamity. Pakistan’s pitiful democracy at that point certainly would have benefited from some sort of rejuvenation, but experience shows us that there is invariably an inherent mutual incompatibility between military rule and democratic salvation. More often than not, a malfunctioning democracy is preferable to dictatorship.

What we have right now is a weird amalgam of the two. It may not be the worst of all possible worlds, but it cannot credibly be posited as a long-term solution to the nation’s mounting problems. Even the hybrid order’s claim to be a guarantor of stability does not stand up to the most perfunctory scrutiny. We have, of course, heard that one before: in offering his nation’s services as a reliable client state to the US, General Ziaul Haq described Pakistan as “an island of stability” in a region beset with turmoil.

It wasn’t then and it isn’t now, in large part as a consequence of its open-ended role in the Afghan jihad. It’s also worth noting that stability isn’t necessarily a virtue: there are circumstances in which it can serve as a barrier to progress. But there is nothing particularly creative or productive about the destabilising factors of today, which range from the warfare in Waziristan and sporadic clashes in Balochistan to terrorism in Karachi-not to mention the uncertainties surrounding a parliamentary facade that requires a khaki glue to keep it from crumbling.

Can the creeping malaise — which involves a host of other contributory factors, including the spread of Islamist fantasies and a profoundly people-unfriendly penchant for privatisation — be arrested by the reinstitution of a less fraudulent form of democracy? Not necessarily. But then, no other solution springs readily to mind.

What President Musharraf has going for him, both domestically and on the international front, is the apparent absence of acceptable alternatives — a shortcoming that Bhutto and Sharif have unsuccessfully sought to address with their charter of democracy. A remarkable degree of gullibility is required for anyone to imagine that either of them has anything meaningful to offer as a potential prime minister. But if the choice is between one of them and the Chaudhrys of Gujrat .... well, that’s not much of a choice, is it?

Perhaps Pakistan’s profoundest tragedy in the post-Zia period has been that no political forces have entered the mainstream on which popular hopes for a brighter future could be pinned. President Musharraf’s rule, in a sense, is the price we have paid for this shortcoming. Of late the president has been exhorting legislators of the ruling Muslim League — a party with which he ostensibly has no formal ties — to concentrate on development projects in their constituencies in the run-up to next year’s elections. The Americans have a name for this sort of behaviour: they call it pork-barrelling.

The general is cognisant, this would suggest, of the seven-year itch — the popular mood for change that may yet drift towards the anyone-but-Musharraf domain. He has no intention of pandering to it, though, and one fears that if voters cannot be persuaded to re-endorse the ruling party, other means may be used to produce (here comes another Zia-ism) “positive results”.

For the time being, Pakistan’s best bet may lie in the realm of superstition: the 11 year itch whereby no dispensation has survived for more than a decade plus one year. That was the duration of the Ayub and Zia regimes, as well as the nation’s initial pseudo-parliamentary phase and the post-Zia semi-civilian interregnum. The problem with that scenario, apart from four more years of fickle politics and trickle-down economics, is the absence of any assurance that Musharraf’s mantle won’t be inherited by another general with a bonapartist affliction.

E-mail: mahirali1@gmail.com