The reformers who walked into the political arena three years ago, vowing to turn the country's fortunes around, can plume themselves on some notable successes. Politicizing their own institution, the military, they are well on their way to depoliticizing the country. The current election campaign makes this amply clear. A damp squib so far, it has yet to set fire to anything.
I speak from the frontline. Not that there is no enthusiasm on the part of the contesting candidates. They are pitching in whatever they can. And let me remind armchair revolutionaries that electioneering is pretty tough business which, to make a success of, requires vigour, energy and cash in equal measure. It is just that the terms of this election have been so restricted that it is more BD election (the local elections under Ayub Khan) than anything else.
No national-level leaders tramp across the country, the politics of exile having taken care of this. The Sharifs sit in Jeddah, anxiously scanning the national horizon from afar. Ms Bhutto mulls over her misfortunes in Dubai. Their lieutenants at home lack the fire of leadership. So the only fires being lit remain confined to press statements. In the field local issues predominate. And apart from party ticket, which still retains its importance, what counts is the standing and worth of the individual candidate.
The reform managers of the government can congratulate themselves on the downgrading of politics and its substitution by parochial issues. Presidential supremacy has already been ensured by constitutional slaughter. The two leaders who could have spoiled the government's calculations are far from the scene of action. The electoral arena thus lies stripped of serious issues.
No one is campaigning against the Musharraf government; the two major parties concentrating on the task of winning the maximum number of seats. They seem in no mood, or indeed in no position, to rile the army's feathers. The Q League is working to the government's advantage because the harsh criticism that its leadership is inviting would have been directed in other circumstances at the military government and its lack-lustre performance.
The government thus has little to worry about. All it has to ensure is smooth polling on election day, free from the shenanigans which turned the April referendum into a farce and a comic hit with the people. The government can afford a limp turnout. What it cannot afford is the perception of a rigged election. That would be good for the opposition parties. They'll have something to talk about. It'll be disastrous for the government. Apart from anything else, it will invite comparisons with the state elections in Indian-held Kashmir.
But if the perception of fairness be the aim, something will have to be done about the district nazimeen who are making a nuisance of themselves by their partisan behaviour. With the purse strings of district funds in their hands, they are in a position to lend powerful support to their favourite candidates. The Election Commission's hollow warnings have had not the slightest effect on them. To this extent this has been a free election, with the nazimeen free to indulge in what interference they choose.
In any event, the real power over the nazimeen is not the Election Commission but the provincial governors. By not curbing the nazimeen the governors are complicit in their behaviour. Nor should this appear odd. The governors form the vanguard of General Musharraf's election team and they want the pro-government candidates (Q Leaguers take heart) to win.
The military hierarchy, however, (and let this be noted) is keeping itself clean. Unlike the nazim elections last year and the referendum earlier this year, the corps commanders or the ISI are not directly meddling in this election campaign. For this they deserve the nation's thanks.
Pre-poll rigging is another thing. We have seen a fair amount of this, the government queering the pitch for its own team. About macro-management from afar I cannot say, obviously not being in the know. But of micro-interference of the referendum kind there are few signs - the ISI, the real Election Commission of Pakistan, keeping its whistles and guns clean. The blatant interference on offer comes from the governors and their nazim stooges. May the governors have sleepless nights and may their dreams not come true.
But to turn to other issues: what gives any election a keen edge is not the language of manifestoes - who reads them, in any case - but the question of power. An election is about power, its retention or capture, or it is about nothing. But where the question of power is already decided, zest disappears from the exercise. If a football match is not about winning or losing, what is it then about?
Some such conundrum lies hidden in this election. General Musharraf has been Caesar for the last three years. He is to be all-powerful president for the next five. The people of Pakistan have had no choice in the matter. They have simply been told what is in their best interests. These have been defined as "five more years for Musharraf" although Musharraf, the eternal optimist, says he needs not five years but seven to fix the country. When the question of power thus lies settled, what remains for this election to decide?
The country's permanent finance minister is the IMF. Its commander-in-chief for the next five or seven or, God willing, ten years will be Musharraf. So the fools taking part in this election, what are they running for? No one has tried to answer this question.
Did the 1962 National Assembly elected under Field Marshal Ayub Khan achieve anything? Did the 1965 assembly under the same cover achieve anything? Did the political experiment hatched under the tutelage of General Ziaul Haq give the country anything apart from more unrest and turbulence? What good will the present experiment achieve? Unless there is a national meeting of minds, unless the military understands the basic truth that politics is best left to the workings of democracy, Pakistan will know neither stability nor internal peace. And its dreams of economic progress will remain unfulfilled.
Large sections of the population tolerated, if not welcomed the military intervention of October '99, thinking that it would be just that, a short-lived intervention. If even General Musharraf's most ardent fans had any inkling that the coup they were welcoming would turn into a long drawn-out affair, they would have withheld their clapping. What if this affair turns into a nightmare? From where will the Pakistani nation then begin?
This has been our tragedy, one step forward, several back. Always back to the beginning, always returning to first principles, perpetually searching for the Holy Grail of stability. Most pilgrimages come to an end, at journey's end lying the oasis of fulfilment. Not so in our case. Our journey is all beginning and no end - the curse of Sisyphus with a twist added to it.
Is this what a nation of 140 million souls deserves, a nation not without talent or resources? Must it always remain a testing lab for different kinds of political experiments? I am sure that the majority of corps commanders know little of the Government of India Act 1935. That gave more political liberty to a conquered people than the present dispensation gives to a free people.
The British did not impose partition on India. They discussed partition and other options with the representatives of the Indian people - Congress, Muslim League and other parties. The independence of India and the birth of Pakistan were the outcome of a consensus between the British and the major Indian actors. It was not something decreed by a conference of corps commanders.
Let us not forget another thing. British colonialism was based on institutions, and strong institutions at that, and the rule of law. It was not the ad hoc mess we have made of our polity.We have to break out into the future. Only there lies our salvation. Instead, we remain trapped in shibboleths. The greatest creator of shibboleths is the national security state and the myths its weaves to ensure its supremacy. Nothing in the present election provides even a glimmer of hope that these shibboleths are about to be tested, let alone broken.