Author: Ahmed Rashid
Publication: The Daily Telegraph,
UK
Date: November 7, 2002
Pakistan's military regime last
night abruptly postponed the inaugural meeting of the first parliament
since the 1999 coup as an anti-army coalition of parties looked like forming
a government.
"The government is considering the
proposal of some political parties to postpone the national assembly's
inaugural session," Gen Pervaiz Musharraf was quoted on state-run television
as telling a cabinet meeting yesterday.
"A decision in this regard will
be taken in the best interests of democracy."
Three years after the military seized
power, the country was expected to return to a semblance of democracy tomorrow
when the 342-seat National Assembly was scheduled to meet and choose a
new prime minister. The military has set no new date for the assembly to
meet.
On Tuesday night, after Gen Musharraf
had conferred with his generals, several leading politicians close to the
army began to call for a postponement of the assembly. It is believed that
the army had asked the politicians to do so in order to avoid a debacle.
The Oct 11 elections, which most
international observers say were rigged by the military regime, produced
a hung parliament.
The army had attempted to create
a parliament that was unable to question its domination of the political
scene. But the scheme backfired.
The assembly broadly divides into
the pro-army Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) or PML-Q and its allies
and an anti-army coalition of political parties.
This coalition includes an alliance
of six Islamic parties and the secular Pakistan Peoples Party and another
faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by two former prime ministers,
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who are both in exile.
The coalitions are running neck
and neck, with neither being able to muster a majority.
The army's Inter-services Intelligence
(ISI) has been trying to give the PML-Q and its candidate for prime minister
- the Baloch politician Zafrullah Khan Jamali - a workable majority before
the assembly is summoned. The postponement is a result of the ISI's failure
to secure Jamali a majority.
Over the past few days there have
been conflicting claims. On Monday, the PML-Q said it had a majority but
the next day the opposition coalition made the same claim.
Politicians are having endless meetings
in Islamabad hotels and homes as ISI officers in civilian clothes linger
in the lobby or the street watching who meets whom. Other parties are having
to communicate with their leaders by telephone because they are in exile
abroad.
Gen Musharraf is also in favour
of a postponement because opposition parties refuse to accept amendments
to the constitution that would give the army a permanent and powerful role
in running the country.
Gen Musharraf is also under pressure
from Washington, which is concerned I the opposition coalitions candidate
for prime minister. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, an Islamic fundamentalist.
Mr Rehman is a leader of the Muttahidda
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) or six-party Islamic alliance, which won an unprecedented
59 assembly seats. He is anti-American, has been an ally of the Taliban
and was once sympathetic to al-Qa'eda.
The MMA is almost certain to form
governments in the North West Frontier and Balochistan provinces bordering
Afghanistan, arousing fears they will provide a safe haven for Taliban
supporters.
Whoever does become prime minister,
political instability is almost certain to follow because the new government
will not have a workable majority, and the army is determined to keep real
power for itself.
