• English Site
• > World
• > Pakistan

The West's Favorite Dictator

General Musharraf Searches for a Way Out

By Susanne Koelbl

The declaration of emergency in Pakistan was supposed to shore up President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's power. Instead, he has emerged weaker than ever. On Sunday, he announced January elections, but the crisis is a long way from over.

General Pervez Musharraf has managed to survive at the helm of Pakistan, a wild, almost ungovernable country, because of a few unusual traits. The general is a gambler who knows how to improvise. And he doesn't mind taking big risks, especially knowing that he is sufficiently ruthless to see them through.

Musharraf hasn't complained about the current conditions in Pakistan, about the attempts on his life, which he only barely managed to escape, or about the fact that Islamist terrorists have shifted their preferred targets from neighboring Afghanistan to major Pakistani cities like Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar. These are simply the facts of life for a general who also happens to be the president of a country that, 60 years after it was established, remains more of an artificial entity than a full-fledged nation.

More than other heads of state before him, Musharraf, 64, likes to showcase his private life. He lives in a charmingly decorated colonial-style house in Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad, in a highly secured location on the grounds of an army barracks. At home, Musharraf comes across as youthful, thoroughly grounded and anything but pretentious. He sometimes introduces visitors to his mother, who he seems to worship and to whom he dedicated his memoirs. Apparently Musharraf also considered having his wife elected president so that he could remain in charge of the army. But he quickly dropped the idea.

'I Simply Have to Play'

Musharraf likes to spend his evenings playing cards with friends in his house, sitting on his British furniture. The price of entry into the president's card games is apparently high, at least €100. "I'm passionate about playing cards," says Musharraf. "I simply have to play."

When the president-general plays for high stakes, he usually wins. He came to power eight years ago in a military coup. After the Sep. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US, he made an about-face and positioned his country squarely in the US camp in the war against terrorism, despite the fact that Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, had given training and support to the Taliban and other Islamist groups. For a while, Musharraf's insistence that he sought to provide his country with stability and democracy even sounded credible.

But that has now changed. What has happened to Musharraf is what often happens to autocratic rulers. He now considers himself indispensable and is prepared to sacrifice whatever vestiges of democracy the country has left. His message is that there is only one choice for Pakistan: Musharraf or ruin. He is fighting a lonely battle for himself and for power, one in which the stakes are high and the president's scruples are low.

Musharraf couldn't have been too surprised by the response to the state of emergency he declared on Nov. 3. The country's small elite refused to accept the dismissal of judges, the placement of opposition leaders under house arrest, media censorship and the shuttering of private television stations. Lawyers, traditionally a bastion of resistance on the Indian subcontinent, have also spearheaded the resistance movement against Musharraf.

Nervous and Trembling

Some Pakistanis wept when the president gave his odd television address on the first Saturday of November, in which he compared himself to Abraham Lincoln. Wearing a plain black suit, the normally self-confident president was nervous and perspiring as he explained that it was his duty to save "democracy" from the Islamists. His hands were trembling as he read his speech.

Not only has Musharraf weakened his own position by staging this coup, but he has also offended a mentor and ally he cannot do without: the United States and the administration of President George W. Bush.

After almost a year of intensive efforts, the White House, with help from the British government, managed to broker a deal between Musharraf and his biggest rival, Benazir Bhutto. The two agreed to a power-sharing arrangement in which Musharraf would remain in office for another five years but would relinquish the leadership of Pakistan's armed forces. Bhutto would embody the "democratic face" of the new government.

Bhutto, who was born into a prominent political family, is tremendously popular in Pakistan. Her October return from exile in Dubai turned into a triumphant homecoming but was marred by a deadly attack in Karachi that claimed 139 lives. Despite her popularity, Bhutto is hardly a shining example of democratic leadership. She has served as prime minister twice, but both of her terms ended in scandals and charges of corruption.

The West's Favorite Dictator

Nevertheless, Musharraf couldn't afford not to cut a deal with Bhutto. He had become so weak that he had no choice but to agree to the power-sharing arrangement. Nevertheless, he did feel strong enough to declare the state of emergency, apparently hoping that the move could improve his bargaining position in the power struggle with Bhutto.

The West's favorite dictator has been showing his ugly face since then, ordering groups of thugs to attack lawyers in their suits and ties as they courageously attempt to defend the constitutional state. He has ordered beatings for insubordination and house arrest for his rivals. Even Bhutto was briefly placed under house arrest when she announced plans to lead hundreds of thousands of supporters in a march on the capital Islamabad.

The images of respectable lawyers being chased by bruisers, of tear gas being used against protestors and of mass arrests did not go unnoticed in the West. Pakistanis, accustomed, in their short history, to coups and presidents going on rampages, have managed to keep a stiff upper lip, partly through gallows humor. "Only one coup per president, please," a student protestor in Karachi wrote on her sign.

The reaction abroad has been moderate. US President George W. Bush spoke with Musharraf by telephone for 20 minutes. He told the president that he was "disappointed" and asked him to stick to the agreement, give up the office of commander of the military and hold elections soon. Nevertheless, Bush still called Musharraf an "indispensable ally" in the war against terrorism. Referring to Britain's large Pakistani immigrant community, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said, cautiously: "I want them to know that the government shares their concern, has transmitted that concern at the highest levels to the Pakistani government." German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was at least slightly condemning when he characterized Musharraf's move as embarking on a "dangerous path." China, a country that already sees democracy as an excess of the West, was downright nonchalant in its assessment of the situation: "We believe that the Pakistani government and people are capable of settling their problems."

Military Has Been the Sole Constant

Everyone is apparently hoping that Musharraf will prevail once again. And yet no one seems to know what to make of him. What is Musharraf: friend or foe -- or is he both? The answer must be that Musharraf is on the side of Pakistan, which, for him, means on the side of the army.

"The uniform is my second skin," the president writes in his autobiography, "In the Line of Fire." He has been a military man for more than 40 years. Since its bloody founding in 1947, the military has been the sole constant in Pakistan, the dominant power and, with its nuclear weapons, a symbol of national pride.