Our real masters - in General Headquarters, where else - have achieved the impossible yet again. By giving the political cast thrown up by the largely (but not wholly) prefabricated elections a long enough rope to hang itself, they have managed to turn the whole quest for democracy and for a prime minister into a long-drawn out farce.

It was a gripping drama to begin with and tended to confirm the view long held by specialists of the Pakistani scene that Pakistan is destined to live in interesting times. But as it stretched out, now throwing up one possibility and now another, the suspense and excitement began to drag.

Who can watch the same mug shots every day? A never-ending rerun of the same charismatic faces: Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Ghafoor Haideri, Jamali, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Qasuri, and our old faithful from Chakwal, General Abdul Majid Malik, not letting go of Ch. Shujaat's coattails and trying desperately to get his face into every conceivable picture frame.

Day in and day out, how many hairy faces can any nation stand, even a nation down on its luck? We'll surely see the return of 'real' democracy in the end - the golden bird General Musharraf promised when he turfed out Nawaz Sharif three years ago and declared that his aim was to save the nation. (Yet again, as sceptics were inclined to point out as they recalled the words and actions of previous military dictators). But we'll be left with a bad case of nerves and will need some powerful tonic to restore us to health.

An excess of hair, this and not the search for a dummy prime minister acceptable to GHQ has been the number one national problem this past one month.

Pakistan has lived through hard times before. But to come to this, to come to a point where turncoatism should once again be seen as the highest form of patriotism. We have been here before but we should have learned something from the fate of previous king's parties. What is the true nature of the Q League? In what circumstances was it born? Who are its godfathers? Everyone knows the answers to these questions.

And to come to a point where the leading grandmaster of the Masonic lodge that is Pakistani politics should be someone like Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. This is downright embarrassing. Not modest about other things, he is at least modest about this for even he looks uncomfortable with the mantle he is wearing.

General Musharraf and his colleagues can congratulate themselves for bludgeoning - yes, that's the word - Pakistani politics to perhaps its lowest point ever. The graduation clause was supposed to give us a National Assembly of intellectuals, something on the lines of the Academie Francaise. What we have got instead is this first-rate collection of clowns, all being suckered this way and that by the long poker faces scanning the political landscape through the rifle-slits of the military establishment.

If ever an argument could be advanced for rolling back the frontiers of literacy, it is this. Pakistan's predicament, in whatever terms it is defined, lies at the door of its educated classes, not its illiterate masses. Now the wonder of graduate politics has come knocking at the gates of parliament. God help us.

Not to be left behind, our American friends are also keen to get a piece of the action. US-AID, freshly arrived in the country after an absence of many years, is thinking of holding workshops for the newly-elected legislators in order to teach them the basics of parliamentary work. Midwifed by the military and put through finishing school by US-AID: this will take the cake and will just be what our great houses of parliament richly deserve.

We get it wrong and are fooled when we fail to grasp the essentials of any situation. Why did General Musharraf hold the October elections? Not, as pointed out by columnist Abbas Athar of the Nawai Waqt, in order to exchange the security of Army House in Rawalpindi for the paper glory of the president's mansion in Islamabad. So up what tree have the Mullas of the MMA been barking? Do any of them really think General Musharraf would oblige them by taking off his uniform and becoming another Rafiq Tarar?

We know how much civilian presidents are worth in Pakistan. Or, for that matter, prime ministers. In the planning of Islamabad why wasn't space set aside for an exclusive graveyard for civilian presidents and prime ministers? It is something Islamabad has always needed.

Not that we haven't progressed over the years. When the half-paralysed Governor General Ghulam Muhammad was being deposed from power in 1955, his successor, Iskander Mirza, gave him a parting kick, a real and not a metaphorical one. When the wheel came full circle and it was Mirza's turn to be deposed from power in 1958, General Azam, one of the generals sent by General Ayub (the commander-in-chief) to make Mirza sign on the dotted line, got enraged by something Mirza said and in his fury kicked him. We have the word of a senior editor, Mr Zuberi of the Business Recorder, for these two incidents.

Compared to Bhutto's fate those kicks were benign. Since then we have become more civilized about these things. When the Reverend Rafiq Tarar had to be shown his way home, General Musharraf saw him off to his car and as he was getting in bade him goodbye with a smart military salute, an historic moment captured for posterity by the sharp cameras of Pakistan Television.

So what is all the agitation about on the national theatrical scene? Why all the busy editorials? 'Real' democracy is being ushered in and we will have a prime minister soon, someone whose idea of charisma squares with that of GHQ. But as the very term 'real' democracy signifies, this will happen very much on military terms with the politicians eventually settling for what they can get. This is not 1971 and Islamabad certainly isn't Dhaka. No fears on that score.

The word is out that for the sake of a deal with the MMA the idea of a National Security Council is being sacrificed. Some concession. General Zia used the notion of such a council as a bargaining chip in 1985. Giving up his NSC made no difference to his rule or to his grip on power. Giving up the NSC, if indeed this is true, will not weaken Musharraf's grip on power. His strength derives from his uniform and his continued residence in Army House. Once these remain other things become inconsequential.

Consider also the quality of the dramatis personae. Too much hair and too much grandstanding. Consider the quality of the script. Any talk of principles in all these dress rehearsals? You must be kidding. Everyone has been trying to set everyone else up.

The Q League began on a high, even bombastic, note as it claimed to have wrapped up the numbers. But soon its leaders looked deflated as it became clear that without the help of the MMA or the PPP it would be unable to form a government.

Meanwhile, the PPP was busy in setting up the MMA as it tried to stitch up a deal with the military government. The government set up the PPP by informing the Mullas of its negotiations with it. Accusing the PPP of two-timing, the MMA re-entered into talks with the Q League. Trying to beat others to a draw, every party has been making a spectacle of itself. The PPP is now complaining that a conspiracy is afoot to steal some of its members. Only the generals seem to be laughing.

The last three years are not being rolled back. We are a far cry from that. They are being extended into the future. Democracy on the army's terms: this is what we are getting. Add the adjective 'real' and it only helps to make matters clearer by giving democracy a more sinister spin.

The French model? This is more like the Indonesian model where the military dominated the national scene for more than thirty years and ultimately came close to wrecking it.