“CAESAR,” wrote Will Cupy, an American historian-author of the thirties and forties of the last century, “was in Alexandria, from mid September to June, settling affairs of the state. It was a boy and they called him Caesarian. Cleopatra could now regard herself as practically engaged. But there was one snag,” added Cupy. “Caesar already had a wife in Rome.”
General Pervaiz Musharraf can feel satisfied with the April 30 referendum in which, according to official sources, he scored overwhelmingly. There however is one problem. His election to the highest office in the country would require the approval of representative houses, to be revived under a verdict of the Supreme Court of Pakistan through elections in October this year. No story, it seems, is ever completed in actual life as planned on the strategy board.
Cupy wrote only two books and I had occasion to read one of them. Titled Rise and Fall of Practically Everybody comprising irreverently penned sketches of famous historical personalities. His facts were accurate to the last detail. It was the kind of absorbing writing one can recall decades after reading it. Had he been alive, he may have selected some contemporary personalities as topics.
Those who accuse Pakistan of being inconsistent, should stand corrected after the referendum. Almost two decades from a similar exercise under Zia ul Haq, the country’s rulers from the army have gone through another search for legitimacy, fig leaf of authentic constitutional status and a comparable version of support from the masses. Have ends fallen in line?
Results of the referendum would be interpreted by all by their sights but more importantly, by people by the sights they came across on the day of the referendum. The view would differ from where one stood but those on objective ground, regardless of personal association, should have no difficulty realizing that the outcome of the event was futility. Every answer provided by results culminated in question mark.
The more General Musharraf tries to distance himself from his uniformed predecessors, Field Marshal Ayub Khan and General Zia ul Haq, the closer the identification people find between the three. In any case, with the crown princes of the two former uniformed masters of Pakistan and its destiny flanking the latest soldier on the political block, linking Ayub, Zia and Musharraf, becomes inevitable. Besides the quest for legitimacy and legality, another characteristic places them in the same bracket. A common denominator between them has been pursuit of longevity, of course for laudable aims, most certainly not for personal power. Each of the first two completed a decade in office. They had no intention of vacating the stage at any stage. Will the third also look for a prescription for immortality in office?
He has left nothing to anyone’s imagination that he devoutly wishes a prolonged consummation with authority for the good of the country and because of commitment to safeguarding national interests. He could in fact be looking farther than Pakistan’s other trail-blazers for military rule.
Both Ayub and Zia condemned politicians for creating a mess. Ayub had less than a decade to target politicians as he officially took over the reins of the country’s administration in the eleventh year after independence. Unofficially, he had arrived to connive earlier. His task was complicated because he had set out to malign a set of people whose record was clean and who had participated in the struggle for freedom under Quaid-e-Azam.
At the time of ousting ZAB in July 77, Zia had a period of three decades available to him for castigating politicians and putting them in the dock. The era of Field Marshal and about three years, ending in a traumatic event, under another general, were conveniently ignored. He looked at politicians from a generic view.
Confronted by a decent and above board non-entity of a nominated prime minister, he lost no time getting rid of him, proving that army leadership looks for pliable politicians who accept the status of soundless second fiddle for paltry patronage. Many leading politicians are from feudal background. Raised on a diet of subservience; they have in fact inherited attitude of submission to authority for personal gains and are tuned to serving masters. Enlisting their support is hence quite simple.
Zia was set for ruling Pakistan till eternity. One does not know of his plans for a second or a third term but had he lived, he may have gone for referendums or politicians may have been reduced to smithereens and forced to accept anything by the quality of deception he could bring in to play to stay in power. The only point to have been proved over the years is that military rulers are never in a hurry to bow out. Yahya Khan wanted to continue as President despite the dismemberment of the country under his command.
In this background, a recent statement of General Musharraf should set people thinking- with a shudder down the spine. His view of mismanagement, corruption, nepotism and other such ailments covers almost the entire history of Pakistan. The country had been misgoverned for fifty years, he said. The pessimists could interpret it as a plan for holding a series of referendums in the country. Optimists would dismiss apprehensions and point out that they had heard such declarations before and that, like every military regime of the past, this one would also start looking towards politicians when the going turns troublesome.
Statistics of votes cast and results of the referendum are of no consequence. Members of the present regime wanted something for the record and they got it in the familiar style of rulers in uniform. Why they had to stretch themselves to such great lengths as go stumping around the country or launch an extravagant publicity blitz is incomprehensible. Perhaps that has been done to set personal doubts at rest. Whatever the motive, the referendum has been an unprecedented exercise in self-deception. The dust it has raised is not to settle easily or quickly.
It is however possible that the government did not realize the velocity with which the manoeuvre could boomerang or how far its supporters would go to prove their loyalty and worth. The authorities could always dismiss reports of rigging and unreliable vote casting as concocted and the work of opposition leadership but visuals don’t lie. World media has dismissed the government’s claims and statistics and within the country, newspapers have published tell tale pictures.
Reports of people casting more than one vote have been circulating all over and published by the Press. Pakistan’s former ambassador to Malaysia, Tajjamul Hussain was in Karachi during the Zia referendum. (So was I and I can tell, something that every one already knows, that votes cast had nothing to do with the results officially announced). He recalls that the editor of South, a magazine published by BCCI Foundation with Tajjamul’s elder brother, the late Altaf Gauhar as Chief Editor, made a stop over in Karachi on the referendum day while on his way to Tokyo for some assignment.
The editor, a South African journalist wanted to visit polling stations. Tajjamul asked his son to take him around. He came back highly excited as he had ‘cast vote five times’. According to reports appearing in newspapers, this record was shattered at many places on April 30. No one accuses the government of rigging but it is generally believed that some local bodies luminaries and others who have expertise for serving changing masters were carried by enthusiasm to show results. Some people may have hopped from one polling station to another just for the heck of it. Such incidents, facts or fabrications, don’t really matter.
The impact of referendum on the credibility, generally of the regime and specifically of Gen Musharraf does. They had little to show on this count prior to April 30; whatever they possessed, was lost on that day.
“CAESAR,” wrote Will Cupy, an American historian-author of the thirties and forties of the last century, “was in Alexandria, from mid September to June, settling affairs of the state. It was a boy and they called him Caesarian. Cleopatra could now regard herself as practically engaged. But there was one snag,” added Cupy. “Caesar already had a wife in Rome.”
