THE January issue of The Herald carried two important interviews, one with Benazir Bhutto, and the other with retired General Hameed Gul, ex-head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and now a hard-line proponent for jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Although Ms Bhutto has been somewhat disingenuous about allegations against her and her husband, the incarcerated Asif Zardari, she makes some very valid observations about the relations between the army and intelligence agencies on the one hand, and an elected prime minister and civil society on the other. Basically, the ex-PM is of the view that given the incessant attempts by various spy outfits to destabilize elected governments, it is not possible for politicians in office to function effectively. To support her contention, she has given numerous examples of the Byzantine intrigues she endured before she was removed on two occasions.

We remember all too well the infamous "Operation Midnight Jackal" in which intelligence operatives were videotaped trying to bribe members of the National Assembly to vote against their leader in a no-confidence vote. This is only one of many instances of interference by intelligence agencies in domestic politics. According to Benazir Bhutto, there are now as many as seven agencies playing politics "down to the tehsil level".

Perhaps the most blatant bid to thwart the popular will was the hijacking of the 1990 election: General Aslam Beg, then Chief of Army Staff, has publicly admitted to receiving 140 million rupees from the (understandably) defunct Mehran Bank to distribute among anti-Bhutto politicians. To date, the general has not rendered a full accounting of this sum, at least not publicly. General Asad Durrani, then head of the ISI, has submitted a list of Muslim League luminaries who were recipients of this largesse. None of these defenders of democracy has denied getting this cash. Durrani is currently our ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Benazir Bhutto had earlier appointed him to represent Pakistan in Germany.

Another ex-director-general of the ISI has also been interviewed in the January issue of The Herald, and his views are chilling in their implications for the future of democracy in Pakistan. When asked: "...Does the will of the people, as reflected by the results of an electoral exercise, not give an indication of the nation's vision?", Gul replied: "It does not, Because if the politicians want to change the agenda, why do they not tell the truth in their election campaigns?" The inference here is that the nation's security agenda is immutable, and only the military is capable of determining it. In no functioning democracy are politicians required to spell out precisely what steps they will take to ensure national security during their tenure.

When asked about the 1988 elections in which Gul cobbled together the IJI, an anti-PPP alliance, and whether those elections had been rigged, the ex-head of the ISI responded: "The elections were not rigged. Only conditions were created that were favourable to certain results. One must not be puritanical about this...." And when asked if these activities were undertaken by agencies acting on their own, he categorically replied: "It is not the intelligence agencies. They are not maverick bodies. They are very much part of the inner thinking of the defence establishment".

More recently, Javed Hashmi, appointed acting head of the Muslim League by Nawaz Sharif, has complained that the ISI has been trying to break up his party. This would not take very much as the League is largely composed of opportunists who have come together for their own interests when they catch a whiff of power. But it is significant that parties like the Muslim League and the MQM, both of which have enjoyed the blessings and largesse of the defence establishment in the past, should now squeal about the activities of government agencies.

There is a real contradiction here, and one that will have to be resolved if this country is to move forward and develop lasting political institutions. On the one hand, we have a defence establishment that has set its own security agenda and is answerable to nobody; and on the other, we have the compulsions of elected politicians who have to balance security considerations with development needs, and who are accountable to parliament and the people. Whenever an elected leader shows any inclination of lowering tensions in the region, the military perceives this as a threat and launches a campaign of disinformation and destabilization. And yet the sober truth is that without normalizing ties with India, distancing ourselves from the Taliban and reducing our defence budget, there will be no fresh investments and no meaningful economic development.

So where do we go from here? At most a year from now, the country will begin gearing up for national and provincial elections if the Supreme Court's decision is to be implemented. Once more, the two main contestants will be the PPP and the PML. The latter, however, will be severely handicapped by its popular leader's exile which is widely seen as an act of cowardice. There is thus a real possibility of the PPP returning to power, even if the agencies cobble together another coalition against it. The fundamentalist parties will probably not fare any better than they have in past elections. How will the defence establishment deal with Benazir Bhutto's return to power?

The fact is that as far as the military is concerned, she has three major drawbacks: she is a woman, a Sindhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's daughter. The latter sin in unforgivable as he is the scapegoat for the army's defeat and humiliation at Indian hands in 1971. Even Asif Zardari's free and easy ways with the exchequer would have been acceptable to the establishment had his spouse not been a Bhutto.

So, although the army high command realizes it has to organize a return to democracy, it feels obliged to fine-tune the result to ensure that a weak government and a pliable prime minister are voted into power. This has been the elusive Holy Grail for GHQ, and one that is simply not achievable because no matter how biddable the prime minister is initially, his own political compulsions drive him (or her) to distance himself from GHQ's agenda. In Nawaz Sharif's case, of course, hubris and a 'heavy mandate' expedited his fall from grace.

Given the divergence between the army's perception of security needs and the national demand for social and economic development, we have reached an impasse. We can only move forward if the defence establishment is willing to subordinate its agenda to the popular will.