THE stuff of gossip and fevered speculation over the last one year is now official. Pakistan’s commando-president, afraid of nothing and no one, is not going to risk the uncertainty of putting his candidature before any future parliament or assemblies. Preferring the certain over the uncertain, he will get himself ‘elected’ — the outcome being a foregone conclusion — from the present parliament and four provincial assemblies.

The cabinet has been told this, the briefing on the subject given by the government’s in-house constitutional adviser, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, who has been advising and facilitating Pakistan’s military saviours for the past forty years if not more. The military-facilitation club, by now Pakistan’s premier institution, has a distinguished membership. The Gauhars may write the memoirs of military saviours, Mr Pirzada fixes the constitutional ropes for them.

The president will get himself ‘elected’ this autumn, in Sep/Oct, while general elections, reduced to a farce and a foregone win for the ruling party, will take place two/three months later. The people of Pakistan, all too familiar with such jokes, have been given this good news by the information minister, Muhammad Ali Durrani, who comes up with the most amazing things in the softest tones, always a smile playing on his lips even as his eyes remain unsmiling.

This is a cabinet of smooth performers. Durrani’s deputy, Tariq Azeem, has a sly sense of humour and doesn’t lose his cool. Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister, can say things with the utmost conviction without meaning anything. Sher Afgan Niazi is in a class by himself. So the list goes on. Indeed, this is more a vaudeville show than cabinet, no braver face ever put on the absence of real power.

The ultimate performer of course is Gen Musharraf himself although no one can accuse him of not having power. Able to hold forth endlessly, whatever the occasion, with the greatest of ease, he is never at a loss for words even if at times it is hard to figure out what exactly he is trying to say.

Take his position on Kashmir on which he has held forth, and at length, on numerous occasions. All that can be said with certainty is that the sting has been taken out of our stand on Kashmir, tellingly attested to by the fact that Indian officials dealing with such matters can’t seem to wipe the satisfaction from their faces. But what exactly his various proposals amount to, this is not always easy to understand.

In his book ‘In The Line of Fire’ — hugely acclaimed when it came out but now, alas, making its way to the sidewalks where second-hand books are sold, a boon for those who can’t afford the high price of new books in Pakistan — the president says he acquired his gift for public speaking when he was at the Command and Staff College, Quetta. The Staff College, I suppose, has something to answer for.

But returning to the presidential election, the future now stands revealed in all its glory. As probably their last act before expiring, the present assemblies will ‘elect’ the president for another five-year term who, for the higher defence of the Republic, will of course remain in uniform. No one suffers from any confusion on this score, least of all the president who knows where his true interests lie.

Commando-president-in-uniform (a mouthful this) will then preside over the general elections (of course free and fair). Foretold, predetermined and gift-wrapped: who says there is no stability in Pakistan? Other countries make a mess of their democracy — look at Bangladesh which, once a part of us, has taken to democracy for no fault of ours. We have turned tinpot dictatorship — tinpot essence being one of its few saving graces—-into a subtle thing.

Our destiny seems pretty obvious: Hosni Mobarakisation, on the lines of President Hosni Mobarak of Egypt who has been in power since 1981. Perhaps the most alarming feature of the Pakistani political scene is the commando-president’s robust health. Barring the unexpected, we can count ourselves lucky for having him around for many years to come.

But Mobarakisation in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world — for most Muslim countries, no doubt because of some genetic oddity in their history, are dedicated to some form or the other of this phenomenon — comes with belly-dancing and being able to walk along the Nile hand-in-hand with someone you happen to like (or someone available, both things not always the same): that is to say, without the moral strictures which crowd our social landscape.

The rigours of Soviet communism were made easier with vodka, the endless sands of Mobarakisation made easier with belly-dancing (this of course a metaphor for social freedom). Even in Burma (Myanmar) you can have fun (I understand, plenty of it). Successful dictatorships rest on a simple social contract: have fun, just don’t ask awkward questions. Iraq was a fun place under Saddam as long as the awkward was avoided.

In Pakistan we have developed a unique form of Mobarakisation, no cakes and ale except for the rich — Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi’s Lahore marathon being our idea of yearly fun — but earfuls of sermons and hypocrisy. Who are the standard-bearers of the existing order? Pervaiz Elahi, Shujat Hussain and the vaudeville cabaret masquerading as the federal cabinet. Give us a break. Who’s on the other side of the hill? Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Lord have mercy on us.

Anyway, the general-president (what other kind do we see in Pakistan?) has revealed his cards or, more accurately, thrown down the gauntlet. What are the opposition parties — principally Bhutto’s PPP and Sharif’s PML-N — likely to do? Pick it up or walk away?

Sofa Bolsheviks (like me) will hope for the best but, I suspect, will have to settle for the worst. There is no stomach for a fight among the opposition parties. They will hem and haw and issue tough statements — pastimes at which they are past masters — but when the time comes just settle for the path of least resistance. Struggle in any real sense of the word is no part of our collective inheritance. Coming to terms with authority has gone on for so long that it has become an ingrained habit.

Imran Khan sounds as if he is on the warpath. But his is a voice in the wilderness (although the cynically-inclined still find it hard to get over the fact that until the glorious referendum of 2002 in which angels voted, he likened Musharraf’s seizure of power to the second coming).

The PML-N would do everything it can to bring the present system down. But while it enjoys the luxury of fantasising, it can’t do much by itself.

The PPP holds the key to forming a united democratic front. If it is willing, other parties can come around. But there are straws in the wind to suggest that it is keen for some kind of accommodation with the regime. Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari have been out in the cold for too long. Given Pakistan’s less-than-revolutionary political milieu, it is probably natural for them to want to come in.

The maulanas, amongst the canniest operators on the political scene, are anyone’s guess. They blow the hottest of all when the mood seizes them but at every crucial turning they act in a very calculated manner. Under Musharraf’s quasi-dictatorship they have prospered like never before. They are not fools to risk all this by a leap into the unknown, Maulana Fazlur Rehman for one not the kind of person to make an issue of how the general-president gets himself ‘elected’.

There is plenty of dissatisfaction across the country with the present scheme of things but none of the bitter polarisation as existed between Bhutto and anti-Bhutto forces in 1977. After seven years and a virtual cult of verbosity, Musharraf inspires boredom (and plenty of it). He still does not inspire hatred — the visceral hatred which brings people to the streets and drives them to pull everything down. Apart from the army’s divisions, this may be his biggest strength.

Give him credit though for not opting for the surreptitious. A full ten months in advance he is letting the nation know what his plans are, which is tough on the political parties which will be in no position to say they had no time to devise a counter-strategy.