Familiar Tale Of President Pm Rift

Ayaz Amir (Pakistan Diary

9 January 2009

Junejo is a metaphor for prime ministers perceived to be pliant but who turn out differently. Selected not for competence but docility--walking two steps behind their master and being their master‘s voice --but driven by circumstances, or some hitherto undetected trait of character, to violate the script written for them so that, to universal amazement, they begin to stand up for themselves.

 Yusuf Raza Gillani was chosen Prime Minister because, arguably, he was prime showpiece material, sufficiently obedient and docile to dance to any tune composed for him. Initially he was true to expectations, chief executive in name only, batting scarcely an eyelid when Asif Ali Zardari, first from behind the scenes and later as President, took all the decisions. The husk was Gillani, the core Zardari.

But Zardari perhaps overreached himself or he did not know where to draw the line. He behaved too much like a king-emperor without the experience, the background or the mental capacity for this role. When he took on too much on himself his inadequacy began to show. And people began to talk, first in murmurs, then more loudly. For the emperor in all his majesty was well and truly without his clothes.

Somewhere in this twilight zone betwixt darkness and light, Gillani began to show a streak of independence that perhaps even his closest friends would not have suspected him of possessing. To the annoyance of the Presidency, a sentiment now resembling something close to rage, Gillani began to assert himself, getting rid of his principal secretary, Siraj Shamsuddin, someone considered close to Zardari, and making some other key appointments reportedly without clearance from the Presidency. Islamabad began to circulate with rumours that all was not well between the President and his handpicked prime minister.

But the sacking of the National Security Adviser, Maj Gen (retd) Mehmud Ali Durrani, has brought this simmering discontent into the open, leaving nothing to the imagination. While speaking to an Indian TV channel, Durrani said that Ajmal Kasab, the lone Mumbai gunman in Indian custody, was a Pakistani national. The prime minister was livid because he had not been taken into confidence. Without consulting President Zardari he ordered Durrani‘s sacking. I have it on good authority that Zardari called Durrani and apologised to him over the manner of his dismissal.

Durrani, of course, thought that he had done the right thing. Again on good authority I have it that he had discussed the issue with the ISI chief, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who said that he had cleared it with the President to the effect that there was no harm in saying that Kasab was a Pakistani national.

Durrani, however, was forgetting two minor details: (1) he was NSA to the prime minister, not the President; and (2) Gillani, miffed at being taken for granted by the Presidency, was now increasingly inclined to take his own decisions.

Durrani is an extremely pleasant person to talk to. He was General Jahangir Karamat’s batch mate in the PMA, winning the Sword of Honour. Very close to Musharraf, it was at Musharraf’s asking that he went as ambassador to Washington. But when Musharraf’s impeachment drama began, it was Durrani, at Zardari’s behest, who went to tell Musharraf that his time was up, a message to which Musharraf could not have taken kindly. Et tu Brute? 

But more than his Sword of Honour or his ambassadorship, Durrani is likely to go down in history’s footnotes — where most of us belong — as the man who highlighted the growing gap between Zardari and Gillani, a gap likely to show history repeating itself, down almost to the last details.  

General Ziaul Haq chose Mohammad Khan Junejo as his prime minister in March 1985 on the recommendation of the Pir of Pagaro and on the assumption that Junejo who was not much of a political figure, someone who had last seen political service way back in the 1960s as a provincial minister under Governor Amir Mohammad Khan of Kalabagh, would be his most obedient servant. Imagine his surprise when at their first meeting Junejo pointedly asked him when he proposed lifting martial law.  

To Zia’s further astonishment, Junejo took himself seriously as chief executive, deciding things for himself and not even taking Zia’s wishes into account when it came to signing the Geneva Accords (which paved the way for the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan).

During the 1986 budget session, Junejo said that government officials would use small cars and even generals would be put in Suzukis, a remark which caused consternation in military circles.  

By 1988, Zia had had enough. Removing Junejo was not easy because the National Assembly would not have approved. So Zia dismissed the National Assembly, thus effectively putting an axe to his own feet because the 1985 National Assembly was his creation and its destruction left him with few options.  

Thus Junejo is the great-unsung hero of Pakistani democracy. True, Benazir Bhutto symbolised opposition to Zia but Zia’s real undermining took place at the hands of Junejo.

Musharraf did not commit Zia’s mistake. He kept his prime ministers -- three of them to Zia’s one — on a short leash, not giving them the space Junejo had managed to carve out for himself. He also remained a hands-on president, using his uniform to impose his will upon his political lackeys.  

But he was also lucky in the sense that his appointee was Zafrullah Khan Jamali, who had it not in him to become another Junejo. In good time Jamali too was shown the door but because he was seen as ineffective, not because of any declaration of independence on his part. 

As a stopgap measure, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of Musharraf’s Q-League (Quisling League?), was made prime minister for 45 days before being replaced by Shaukat Aziz. Shujaat would have dearly liked to stay on but despite his tough talk nowadays and his attempts to distance himself from Musharraf, when it mattered he had not the guts to stand up to Musharraf and insist on his claim to the prime ministership.  

As for Shaukat Aziz, standing up to Musharraf was no part of his agenda. He helped himself to what he could and sold an impression of economic wizardry when, in fact, he was sowing the seeds of economic disaster. When the sun was about to set on the Musharraf order he was smart enough to make a quick exit.

Shortcut Aziz was the sobriquet his countrymen gave him. He lived up to it in every measure.

Musharraf too was undermined but by an obstreperous Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, and the lawyers’ movement which took birth from Iftikhar Chaudhry’s defiance. So badly was he stricken that his American patrons came round to the opinion that he was a spent force and that American interests were better protected by a change of guard.

The change was meant to be Benazir Bhutto but fate determined otherwise. The pantheon of Pakistani rulers contains some decidedly strange figures, none stranger, or more out of their depth, than Zardari. But give full marks to the creativity of Pakistani politics. Just when it appeared Zardari was unstoppable, there emerges an unlikely counterweight from within his own ranks. And there is little he can do about it.  Gillani cannot be shown the door as Jamali was by Musharraf because Gillani will have support, and more of it if put to the test, from across the political divide in the National Assembly. The PPP parliamentary party will not rise up against Zardari. This is a foolish dream. But it will not pull down Gillani. Sacking the National Assembly is no option because that would plunge the country into turmoil and end Zardari’s political career.  

So he must put up with Gillani as best he can. He has amassed a great deal of power but this is about it. Limitless ambition is a bad thing, undeserved ambition even more. And let’s not forget the ace up Gillani’s sleeve.

If pushed too far he has only to say it on the floor of the National Assembly and it will be curtains for the Dogar Supreme Court. Provided, of course, he doesn’t lose heart and has the sense to understand the position of strength in which events unwittingly have placed him.

Ayaz Amir is a distinguished Pakistani commentator and lawmaker