Rumble in Pakistan as middle-class foot soldiers march

PAKISTAN’S legal community is in a fighting mood, launching this week its “long march” to oust President Pervez Musharraf. China’s “long march” in the 1930s was a series of retreats from an advancing Kuomintang army. Then 1960s leftist radicals in the West launched a “long march through the institutions” by entering conservative establishments to change the institutions from within. Pakistan’s long march today, however, is a forward push to return such institutions like the courts and the presidency to pre-Musharraf rule. Whatever the precise outcome of these protests, Musharraf’s government already appears to teeter on the brink of disappearing. Last month a key Musharraf ally in the country’s army was replaced, leading to speculation about the president’s continued tenure. Then there was talk of his taking sudden retirement in Turkey, a friendly Muslim nation where he spent part of his childhood. On Tuesday, government officials played down reports of a US unmanned drone firing onto Pakistani territory near the Afghan border. Similarly to minimise further loss of credibility, officials are avoiding comment on an Afghan army unit’s attempt to set up base on Pakistani soil. This week, opposition leader Imran Khan and former premier Nawaz Sharif returned to Islamabad from London to join the long march. One section of the march left Karachi on Monday, with various others leaving Sindh and Balochistan at the same time to reach Sukkur, then Multan and on to Lahore yesterday, heading for the capital Islamabad today. Other sections of the march would leave Muzaffarabad, Abbotabad and Peshawar for Islamabad today. They would meet in Rawalpindi, then continue on to Islamabad to converge on Parliament House. Two days ago Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani dared Musharraf to address a largely hostile Parliament. The president had not addressed a joint sitting of Parliament for four years already, so that doing so now could seem like delivering a farewell speech. Other developments add to a growing sense of Musharraf’s isolation, as even whether or how police are to be deployed for today around Parliament House seems unclear. On Tuesday, the country’s Economic Survey 2007-08 showed a widening gap between rich and poor under Musharraf’s rule, as inflation ran above 11%. The economy fell short of the 7.2% target by 1.4%, while agriculture under performed by 3.3% as output of food and cash crops fell. Meanwhile, confusion added to unease as protesters widened their target from Musharraf alone to an unresponsive Parliament over the demand to reinstate sacked judges. The credibility of Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari also came into question when he had promised freedom of movement to protesters, who later encountered blockaded roads. Official attempts to dismiss protesters as lawless rabble are limited by the fact that they are led by lawyers and judges seeking better rule of law. Equally, attempts by protesters to denigrate Musharraf are frustrated by their simultaneous focus on parliamentary apathy. As is typical of Pakistani politics, foreign connections abound. During the week, Imran Khan in London attacked Washington’s policy of supporting Musharraf’s dictatorship as stupid, and as conflicting with an avowed US policy of promoting democracy worldwide. Originally the US position had been to support Musharraf as a buffer against terrorist elements, but by the time the late Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan last October, Washington was already hedging its bets. The Bush White House has had its share of critics over its positioning on Pakistan. Should an Obama presidency materialise in November’s US election, Musharraf might find himself losing his most powerful source of support. The long march in Pakistan, with all that it implies, may not end in Islamabad today. It is more likely to find closure after a refurbished White House from January, without diminishing all the hard work in Pakistani society still needed to make that possible.