The Emperor May Have No Clothes, But He’s Got Balls

Published November 27, 2007

By Alex Pinto

Right now, the Muslim state of Pakistan is not a democracy. Effective November 3rd of this year, President Pervez Musharraf’s decree of Emergency Rule blacked out nearly all media, placed the President in complete control of the military, and allowed the government to arrest thousands of opposition protesters as they rally against both the emergency rule and the biased selection of supreme court justices by Musharraf. Musharraf continues to insist that personal, power-related motives are not involved in his decision to decree emergency rule, saying that the measures are necessary to resolve the internal strife in Pakistan.

He has shown little evidence through his actions to support that claim. On the contrary, it appears that his reasons are quite based on his desire to continue his presidency: Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, one of the major opposition leaders, has been held on house arrest off and on for the past week for “her own safety” from suicide bombers; Musharraf has removed supreme court judges who were likely to invalidate his presidency; and he has been using his power as head of the military as a form of blackmail for the support of the supreme court and other countries, saying he will “take off the uniform” — if his presidency is secured.

Both British and U.S. governments have been watching closely, due the Pakistani government’s past involvemement in controlling Taliban forces, particularly in the notorious Pakistani border with Afghanistan. During the eight years of his rule, Musharraf has taken a hard line against the Taliban — partly, no doubt, as a method getting in the good books of London and Washington. His bombing of the Red Square mosque in Islamabad this summer ignited violence across the country, but broke up a Taliban-related group.

By suspending democracy, however, Musharraf has put himself on a knife’s edge: As much as they want Musharraf to continue holding an office to allow his vendetta against the Taliban to continue, British and American leaders cannot condone such totalitarian actions. The question is, how reliable is Musharraf anyway? In Washington his fight against the Taliban has been seen as admirable at points, but can he really do what other leaders cannot?

Instead of immediately setting a timetable for elections (now slated for this January) he carried on for weeks, eliciting the threats from the Commonwealth, a board of former British colonies that meets in London, from which Pakistan has been suspended in the past, following Musharraf’s original coup in 1999.

The fact that he waited for threats does not speak well of his intentions-it simply seems he wanted to carry on with hoarding power as long as possible. Is that really whom we want in charge of this country crucial to fighting terrorism? (Most recently Pakistan was again suspended from the Commonwealth, as Musharraf did not meet the Thursday, November 23rd deadline for ending emergency rule. Exclusion from the group, however embarrassing, causes little detriment from an economics and trading standpoint.)

As of now his opponents are separate. The lawyers who are protesting his supreme court shenanigans (removing justices he doesn’t think will help him) and the supporters of Bhutto who are protesting emergency rule ought to join forces-to date, they have remained two distinct groups. In the coming week there will be a new factor in the equation: the return of Nawaz Sharif, a leader of another political party who was ousted by Musharraf in the 1999 coup. He plans to return from exile in similiar fashion to Bhutto.

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