Analysis:Don't hold your breath, history rhymes

BALLOT AND BOMB: History does not repeat in Pakistan. It only rhymes. Badly.

        

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Not in recent memory has there been an election that has attracted so much attention, despite it being well known that it won’t amount to much. It reflects the world’s anxiety over Pakistan. It also reflects how much the world wants the Pakistan ship to right itself with these elections and sail out of troubled waters. It’s called wishful thinking. Here’s why.

The last time there was so much anticipation when Pakistan went to the polls, it was 1970. The polls then were acknowledged by all to be as good as polls get. They were seen to make or break Pakistan, quite literally.

They were also held under another military man, Gen Yahya Khan. The result was unpalatable to most of the Pakistan army, to Yahya Khan and, more importantly, to the then king’s party, the PPP, led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The PPP had a majority in West Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s Awami League had made a clean sweep of all seats, save two, in East Pakistan. Despite the numbers advantage, Yahya Khan did not invite Mujibur Rehman to form the government.

He delayed convening the then National Assembly, favouring calling Bhutto, who had threatened to boycott the assembly and protest against any government that Mujib was called to form. He opposed Mujib’s autonomy plans and hated the idea of a Bengali ruling over West Pakistan, like the Pakistan army. And he wanted to be invited to form the government.

The political deadlock was the immediate provocation for martial law and Mujib’s declaration of the independence of Bangladesh in March of 1971. East Pakistan’s assertion of its Bengali identity was never understood in West Pakistan, which saw it with suspicion and treated it as a secessionist movement.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s democratic credentials were questionable even then. When Gen Zia-ul Haq deposed him on 5 July 1977, he had been accused of massively rigging the elections that year. He was however, tried and hanged on an entirely different charge of a political murder.

Here’s the curious twist to history. Today’s PPP, led by Bhutto’s daughter’s husband, fears massive rigging and threatens to take the fight to the streets, if that happens. In the same breath, it is willing to sup with the devil and form a government of national consensus.

Asif Ali Zardari will not rule out anything. He will not rule out becoming the Prime Minister. He will not rule out working out a formula with either the king’s party of the day, the PML (Q), Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N) or both, if necessary, to bring the PPP to power.

In 1970 there were strong political personalities. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. Today, there are only ghosts and apparitions of strong political leaders. The PPP is hoping to capitalise on the ghost of Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif is only a mascot for his PML (N) since he’s been debarred from running.

There were issues in 1970, like Mujib’s autonomy plans for East Pakistan, strongly resisted by Bhutto. In 2008, the issues are all saved up for what happens after the elections. Will the National Assembly have enough numbers to force Musharraf out of power, re-instate deposed supreme court judges, restore the 1973 constitution to what it was on 3 November 2007 when Musharraf imposed martial law in the guise of ‘Emergency Plus’ and overturn all the changes he introduced since?

All the issues are to do with saving personalities, more than the country. Nawaz Sharif has to reverse all these changes if he must survive his political ban. Zardari must break bread with anyone who comes to power if the PPP and his son must survive as a political force. If Jemima Khan is to be believed, Musharraf says it will be a PML (Q) and MQM win. Either way, ultimately Musharraf will decide who to invite to form the government.

He also told Jemima, he regrets having given amnesty to Zardari and Benazir Bhutto on corruption charges, through that national reconciliation ordinance. Benazir’s death had made it irrelevant. His dislike for her now is only trumped by hatred for another. Deposed Chief Justice Iftekhar Muhammad Choudhary. Jemima quotes him as calling Choudhary, ‘scum of the earth’.

Ironically, Musharraf owes a lot to him today. Last Friday, 15 February 2008, the judges he appointed to the Surpreme Court completely regularised all his moves since that ‘emergency’.

And what precedence did the 13-member bench use to justify them? 12 October 1999, when the same Choudhary legitimised Gen Musharraf’s coup against Nawaz Sharif. And the legitimacy for that was in turn drawn from 5 July 1977, when Gen Zia-ul Haq deposed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

This is not the 1970s. Not even its evil twin. No, history does not repeat in Pakistan. It only rhymes. Badly.

(CNN-IBN's Executive Editor/Anchor Dr. Vidya Shankar Aiyar has been following international affairs for two decades now, both as an academic and a TV journalist. He has worked as a strategic affairs analyst and continues to write regularly on international affairs.)