Musharraf’s Arrest: No Meddling From Pakistan’s Military, For Now

By Riazat Butt

A week is a long time in politics, but it's a lifetime in Pakistan.

If the threadbare homecoming and non-existent rallies were not enough to persuade Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf that his sun had set, then his failure to register as a candidate for next month's elections should have left no room for doubt. But he could not have predicted the triple whammy of a courtroom dash, house arrest and criminal charges that would follow, ending both the week and his career.

Pakistan has changed since Musharraf left, in ways he thought he could use to his advantage. The security situation has deteriorated. There were 652 bombings in 2012 alone. Schoolgirls, singers and politicians are assassination targets. Attacks on minorities continue to rise and US drone activity is terrorising Waziristan, to say nothing of the escalating violence in cities and the brutal repression of insurgents.

Economic growth is sluggish. The number of people living below the poverty line has risen to 40 per cent and the public debt has tripled - to Rs 15 trillion - since 2007. Unemployment and inflation have increased. One analyst says the situation has never been as dire in the country's history as it has been in the last five years. The energy crisis, though it blights industry and everyday life, has become such a Pakistani mainstay that people plan their days around the rolling, scheduled blackouts.

Musharraf assumed his run at public office would nudge the electorate into believing things were never so desperate under his administration. On landing at Karachi airport he spoke of saving Pakistan and that his heart cried when he saw the state of the nation. But his 2007 actions left a more enduring impression than any protestation of fealty. He made more enemies than friends and chose flight over fight, hardly the sign of someone devoted to the greater good. Leaving aside the wisdom of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudry using the law to exact personal revenge, it is a sign of Musharraf's unpopularity that Pakistanis would rather be led by men whose reputations are barely better than his.

Indeed the country's politicians have been unruffled by his return and have made only cursory remarks about his recent troubles, an understandable reaction given he lacks the infrastructure and necessary popular support to pose anything like a credible threat to next month's elections or anything else. Furthermore, the military has not exactly rushed to his defence. That Musharraf's opponents should pay scant attention to his plight is one thing, but it is quite another that his former brothers-in-arms are keeping their distance for the time being. There is talk of peaceful rallies to raise awareness of his case but pro-Musharraf events have not gone according to plan. This has led one commentator to remark that Musharraf had ruled on the strength of his uniform, but that uniform had now gone.

It is too soon to say whether reaction to Musharraf's arrest is a shift in attitude towards the military, one of Pakistan's most powerful institutions, however novel it is to see one of its former leaders treated like a criminal (albeit one who is languishing in a well-heeled farmhouse). It is true that Yahya Khan, a senior army commander and the third president of Pakistan, was placed under informal house arrest. His crime was to lose the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war and with it more than 140,000 sq m of territory and millions of lives in 13 days. The charge sheet against Musharraf looks flimsy by comparison.

Khan and Musharraf have been just two of the four generals to have presided over Pakistan since its inception 66 years ago. Martial law has experienced varying degrees of success but it has always exerted a significant level of influence, despite the army failing to win a single war since independence and failing to protect Pakistanis from domestic security threats.

While a few generals have criticised last week's 'judicial activism' the military is otherwise preoccupied. A civilian government has completed a full five-year term for the first time in the country's history, a milestone that has been attributed to a judiciary and media that will not tolerate any direct military intervention regardless of how corrupt and feckless that civilian government might be. There also appears to be a different mindset among the top brass, which is attempting to redefine and rebalance civil-military relations. Army chief Ashfaq Kayani has spoken of striving to normalise relations with India and doing to confront internal instability. The first goal is more straightforward than the second, which demands a greater degree of consensus and co-operation from politicians and the public. The military's experiments with governance have not provided a legitimate, popular alternative to civilian rule and Musharraf's demise has shown that medals and uniform are no substitute for food, housing jobs or security.

The military, which for so long saw itself as the solution to Pakistan's ills, may finally be realising it is part of the problem.

Riazat Butt is a journalist and currently undertaking a Masters programme in War Studies at King's College London. She was previously a correspondent for The Guardian.