Those who thought that the anti-Musharraf electoral verdict followed by the Murree Declaration that commits his principal adversaries to a programme to de-fang him would have undermined the President's resolve to fight back may be sadly mistaken. After doling out advice to the newly elected leaders to shun "politicking," he has warned them against picking on him.
A political war between the presidency and the newly elected parliament would be catastrophic, he said in an interview with the Washington Times. He said he could not see the system he had put in place during the last eight years fail and the country return to political anarchy. But if and when conflict with the civilian set-up becomes inevitable he will not use his "constitutional powers" to dismiss the parliament.
Does it mean he would be resorting to something other than the powers available to him under Article 58(2)b of the Constitution in his fight with the new government? Possibly yes. Under the existing constitutional scheme of things the President's powers range between absolute discretion and binding consultations, with varying degree of empowerment to get his say imposed upon the government.
So even if when President Musharraf decides not to use his power under 58(2)b he may still be in a position to impede smooth working of the government by making controversial appointments and rejecting the prime minister's advice rendered to him under the constitutional procedure of consultation. A major area of conflicting interest may well be the appointments of governors and holders of other constitutional offices. With President Musharraf habitually disposed to keep his foot in the door to great annoyance of the government, a clash between the presidency and parliament would remain a real possibility all the time.
Certainly, however, the yawning gap besetting the positions respectively held by President Musharraf and the new leadership on the issue of reinstatement of deposed judges is going to be the very first major cause for the first battle between these two pillars of state. Here is a situation that Musharraf as Chief of Army Staff suspended the Constitution, sacked the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and won his controversial reelection as President.
Thereafter, Musharraf as COAS transferred the power to himself as the President, to lift the Emergency and withdraw the Provisional Constitution Order that he had promulgated as the COAS and restored the Constitution with a rider that this matter would not be re-opened. His acts since 3rd November were also validated by the Supreme Court that anointed under the emergency that he himself accepted was unconstitutional.
If these actions are indemnified/endorsed by parliament what would then stop the next army chief from repeating the same? This controversy over the President's action under the guise of Emergency rule can neither be wished away nor pushed under the carpet. It has to be settled either in the court of law or on the floor of the parliament in the larger interest of obtaining an ambience of a working democracy.
Before the ongoing conflicting positions on this issue come to a head precipitating the presidency-parliament war, a way out of this must be found. Surely someone who 'spent the past eight years trying to put democracy back on track' would take the initiative to give constitutional cover to this creature born of brazen use of power.
In this the President Musharraf's friends in Pakistan and abroad can definitely play their part by helping the embattled presidential camp comprehend the reality of the political situation. They also include the diplomats who of late have been shuttling between various power centres to smooth out hard edges in order to create what Henry Kissinger described as a "centrist coalition". But in doing this the rest of his remarks too need to be looked into.
Warning Washington against manipulating the political process in Pakistan he has urged upon the Bush administration to concede that "the internal structure of Pakistani politics is essentially out of the control of American political decision-making". According to him, as and when removal of President Musharraf becomes a major issue "it is his (Musharraf's) task as President - not ours - to manage the consequences of the February 18 elections.
Rightly then, the legal advisors of President Musharraf would be expected to promote the spirit of national reconciliation rather than to angrily tilt at the windmills. If the newspaper report that in their meeting on Monday, they told him that his November 3 action was fully protected by the Constitution and could not be reversed by a parliamentary resolution, is correct then one must say that we are going to undergo a long, hot summer of discontent, made all the more intolerable during the even longer spells of load shedding.