The State of Emergency imposed in Pakistan by President General Pervez Musharraf comes as no surprise if one looks at the chaos and disorder that has enveloped the country’s social and political landscape. But since extremism and violence in Pakistan had been on the boil for quite sometime, the timing of the emergency is highly suspect. This is more so given that the Supreme Court was due to give its ruling on the legality of Gen Musharraf's October election victory. It is obvious that Gen Musharraf was feeling the threat of losing legal legitimacy from an ‘independent’ judiciary, which was not only proactive but also unwilling to follow diktats from the President. For Gen Musharraf, therefore, to secure his own position, the only option left was to clamp down hard on the judiciary. And this he did it with finesse immediately removing the Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and quickly moving in to appoint a new Chief Justice to further consolidate his power. Not surprisingly, Chaudhry and eight other judges refused to endorse the emergency order, declaring it unconstitutional. But within no time this was overruled by Gen Musharraf’s new coterie of obliging judges.
The two reasons cited by Gen Musharraf—judicial interference and growing terrorism—for imposition of emergency needs greater insight in order to understand the changing dynamics of Pakistan as it is today. While Gen Musharraf is right when he says that Pakistan is in a crisis caused by extremism and violence, he is misleading the world when he justifies martial law in order to rein in the judiciary. It is not so much about the judiciary paralyzing the government, as Musharraf would want the world to believe, but rather the judiciary remaining as the only vibrant and independent pillar of people’s democratic aspiration. And obviously a functioning judiciary does not suit the designs of a military general, whose only motive now appears to be to hold on to power absolutely. It is therefore not so much about Pakistan but Gen Musharraf himself who is facing a crisis both of legitimacy and power and he knows that unless the judiciary is shut down, his political ambitions cannot be realized.
The unfolding drama in Islamabad has therefore more to do with the struggle for political- power and not about fire-power to fight pro-Taliban militants in the volatile northwest or to contain the string of suicide bombings blamed on Islamic militants. Gen Musharraf should be sensible enough to understand that in order to control the growing terrorism he will need broad based political support and a semblance of stability. Although Gen Musharraf may claim that Emergency will help preserve the democratic transition and the ultimate return to civilian rule, he needs to act quickly and it is time Pakistan returned to full fledged democracy and the military returned to its barracks. The United States as a key ally of the Musharraf regime in the war against terror must now press the General to restore people’s fundamental rights and conciliate with other political forces in the country in order to see a smooth transition towards multi-party democracy at the earliest.
