Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said that the alliance by General Musharraf with the religious parties known as the MMA has exposed Musharraf's hidden agenda.
In a statement she said that throughout his unelected rule, Musharraf demonstrated hostility towards the democratic forces and sympathy for the religious parties.
Benazir said that this was because the interests of Musharraf and the religious parties coincided with each other.
"MMA wanted political advantages through the alliance and Musharraf wanted to build up MMA to frighten world opinion," quoting her a PPP press release said here on Wednesday.
The former Prime Minister said that Musharraf was uninterested in a meaningful dialogue with the opposition ARD parties because it undercut his blackmailing of domestic and international public opinion.
The exiled PPP leader said that both the MMA and Musharraf had united to prevent the safe return of the exiled ARD leaders for mutual benefit. "The MMA got a political vacuum it could exploit and Musharraf got the MMA as the bearded alternative to his Khaki rule".
The former Prime Minister said that Musharraf wanted to tell the world that Pakistan's nuclear program was safe in the hands of the military and therefore the military dictatorship under some façade be supported.
By promoting the MMA, Musharraf's message was that if he went Pakistan's nuclear assets could fall into the hands of the religious parties that openly supported Osma Bin Laden.
Benazir Bhutto said that on its face it was a powerful argument but it was also a total fraud. She said that the October 2002 elections were rigged to prevent the ARD parties from forming the government.
Yet the ARD parties succeeded in getting the numbers to form the governments in Sindh and the centre. The assembly sessions were arbitrarily postponed to prevent the ARD from forming those governments, she said.
She said that Musharraf had allowed MMA to form two governments in the areas bordering Afghanistan but had stopped the ARD from forming two governments. Musharraf released all the MMA and MQM leadership, including convicts, exiles and absconders, making them ministers and parliamentarians but refused to free the ARD leaders or allow the return of their exiles.
She said that while the MMA leaders were allowed full freedom to operate in Pakistan, National Accountability Bureau was used to keep PPP leaders pre occupied with extraneous issues. This was to create a political vacuum to benefit the MMA.
It may be noted that the MMA is popularly known as the Mullah Military Alliance. Since 1977 when Musharraf's military predecessor Zia took over there has been a close relationship between the military and the religious parties. Musharraf, despite claiming to be a moderate, has kept this alliance.
Benazir Bhutto claimed that Musharraf bent over backwards to please the MMA by making key constitutional concessions to them, like introducing a constitutional bill, taking off his uniform and sacking the judges he had kept on in addition to giving them two governments, release of their convicts etc.
She deplored the fact that although PPP was the majority party, the secret agencies were tasked to break its majority while sparing the MMA. This showed that the MMA was the favoured party of Musharraf although ostensibly he claimed to have the same views as the ARD parties.
Benazir Bhutto said that for one year ARD Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim despite enjoying the second largest number of votes was not made the Leader of Opposition.
Musharraf did not want an ARD government, or an ARD Opposition leader, or a constitutional understanding with the ARD because in fact he was opposed to the ARD agenda of a moderate state despite public statements to the contrary, she said.
Mohtarma said that the end result of Musharraf's anti ARD and pro MMA policy was that the Taleban had regrouped and were making themselves felt in Afghanistan, the MMA had for the first time won enough seats under Musharraf with his blessing to form two governments.
At the same time, under him, the teachings of Quaid e Awam Zulfikar Ali Bhutto were banned and the teachings of the controversial scholar Maulana Maudoodi were to become part of the curriculum in the Frontier schools.
Mohtarma said that Mrs. Gandhi initially clandestinely supported the Sikh leader Binderwale and later paid with her life. Musharraf was also supporting the MMA for short-term myopic views, which was bound to backlash on him.
Comments
Comments are closed.