"I would only like to address a civilised parliament."-Musharraf

The testiness that General Musharraf displayed when asked whether, in view of the opposition's on-going protest, he would address parliament (as he is obliged to do under the Constitution) is perfectly understandable.

This is not how it was meant to be. Did Musharraf go to the trouble of rewriting the Constitution only to have a rebellious parliament on his hands? This was supposed to be a rubber-stamp parliament, the democratic icing on an autocratic cake. Look what we have instead: a raucous assembly shouting the ultimate heresy: "Go Musharraf go." There are limits to forbearance and if the general's slip is showing, it's easy to see why.

The bravos of the King's Party led by Gujrat's gift to Pakistan, Chaudhry Shujaat, are desperately trying to stymie the opposition protest. Eager to show that the trust put in him was not misplaced, Shujaat has been peddling one useless formula after another. But the opposition parties know his worth: that for all his grandstanding, he is essentially a messenger boy and that the key to decision-making lies in Army House. So while everyone likes him, no one is paying much attention to him.

Prime Minister Jamali, Musharraf's carefully-chosen Karzai, has invited the opposition parties for discussions on the Legal Framework Order (the document or rather pitchfork with which Musharraf and his constitutional wizards rewrote the Constitution). But Jamali for all his impressive rotundity is also a messenger boy. He even admits to this quite readily and on more than one occasion has described Musharraf as his "boss", a show of modesty both becoming and honest. So while it is safe to talk about his hospitality, the Baloch being a hospitable people, it is somewhat harder to figure out what exactly he is in a position to deliver.

To put things in perspective, Musharraf and his advisers, some of them princes of confusion, are least bothered about constitutional niceties. They haven't lost any sleep over the flak the LFO has attracted. Over the last three and a half years they have amply demonstrated that criticism thrown their way is water off a duck's back.

So what's making Musharraf hot under the collar now? The thought too painful even to contemplate that he'll be heckled when he comes to parliament. That's all. As long as he gets through that particular morning or afternoon he couldn't care less if the opposition spills its guts out for the rest of the year.The Pakistan army has a keen sense of honour. Defeat and surrender it has taken in its stride, without calling any of the principal culprits to account, but one of its chiefs being heckled by civilians and politicians is something it will never stand.

Which makes you wonder why Musharraf's constitutional wizards didn't do away with the article requiring the president to address the joint session of parliament? After all, they were making wholesale changes in the Constitution and getting Musharraf elected president through a referendum about which the less said the better. Another small amendment would have gone unnoticed. And their boss would have been spared the embarrassment he faces now.

Falling back on a hackneyed defence, the regime's assorted propagandists are saying that the opposition parties are endangering the system--the hint being that if the opposition is not mindful the whole system could be packed up. It's a funny line to take because after painting the PPP and the PML-N into a corner for the last three and a half years, Musharraf and his army of acolytes are crying foul now that for the first time the opposition parties have caught them where it hurts.

Who has more to lose if this shaking edifice--no kidding about its shaking--comes tumbling down? The MMA risks losing its government in the Frontier and its share of power in Balochistan. But if it settles for meagre terms with Musharraf it risks losing much more: its credibility and future. Will the Maulanas settle for small stakes or will they have their eyes on the future? This is the big question to be answered as this confrontation develops.

The PPP and the PML-N have little to lose, having become used to the wilderness. Those of their stalwarts who couldn't stand the wilderness, or had too much to fear from military-style accountability, switched sides long ago. N-Leaguers who couldn't stand the heat of opposition discovered merit overnight in the King's Party or Q League. Those ditching the PPP became Patriots (their official designation).

Prison hasn't broken Asif Zardari. If anything, it has turned him into a leader in his own right. Earlier, for all his bravado and often contrived machismo, he walked in his wife's shadow. Wait for him to step out of prison to see the court that he will hold.

Do the PML-N leaders sound like cowed men? Take the case of Rana Sanaullah, the PML-N leader in the Punjab assembly. Picked up in Faisalabad by plainclothesmen (whom he accuses of being ISI agents) he was thrashed and had his eyebrows and moustache shaven before being thrown by the wayside.

Obviously meant to chasten him, this treatment had just the opposite effect. Back in the Punjab assembly he said that those who had shaved off his moustache should have shaved off the moustache and beard of Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Arora (the Indian general who accepted Niazi's surrender in Dhaka in December 1971). When he said this, from the treasury benches a deafening silence.

The real losers will be Musharraf and his coterie. The credibility and effectiveness of a military figure who is making the transition to civilian rule rests heavily on the success of the political experiment he is trying to pull off. If that experiment fails, his political credit is eaten up and he becomes a liability. In that sense he rides a tiger's back and cannot afford to slip or falter.

Consider the referendum. It destroyed what remained of Musharraf's credibility in the eyes of his middle class supporters--the gullible mass looking upon him as a knight in shining armour. The effect of packing off the assemblies will be far more serious. Pushing the country once more up a blind alley with no exit point, it will turn Musharraf into a liability even in the eyes of his primary constituency.

This has happened before. Ayub Khan was a more towering figure in the military than Zia or Musharraf. But weakened by the '65 war and challenged by a popular agitation, generals, once blindly loyal to him, moved away, ultimately squeezing him out of power.

Zia sought to strengthen himself by dismissing Prime Minister Junejo and sacking the assemblies but only succeeded in undercutting his own position and looking like a stricken animal. So whatever the sense of impending doom official apologists may be trying to spread, dismissing the assemblies is not even an option at this juncture, unless Musharraf himself is bent on hara-kiri.

The issue is simple: does an individual have the right to make self-serving changes in the Constitution? And once made, do these changes stick without endorsement by a two-thirds vote in parliament? Musharraf doesn't want to go the parliamentary route fearing frustration and defeat. The opposition parties cannot afford to back down because they know this is the only leverage in their hands. If they give up on the LFO, Musharraf will forget they even exist.

This question is for the general to answer: does he want his half-baked experiment to succeed or does he want to consign it to the flames? For the experiment to live a little longer (no one having any illusions about its permanence), what he is being asked to do is take off his uniform. In return the MMA at least has signalled its willingness to help him get elected as constitutional president. This is a fair deal but Musharraf, no doubt outraged by the suggestion that he should enter into a deal with the very forces he has spent the last three years denouncing, is unwilling to get off his high horse. A pity because Pakistan desperately needs a fresh start. What's the big deal about a uniformed presidency, in any case? A president doesn't need a uniform to be president. He needs it only to protect his flanks from his colleagues. Which, come to think of it, is the greatest insult that can be proffered to the institution of the army.

Atarturk and de Gaulle did not need their uniforms to be successful leaders. What are we afraid of?

The real losers will be Musharraf and his coterie. The real loser will be Musharraf.