Wajih in the race

[Omer]

THE lawyers have sprung a surprise on the nation by proposing Mr Wajihuddin Ahmad as a presidential candidate. This would now appear to vindicate the government spokesman’s claim that by deciding to contest the election the lawyers have accepted the existing assemblies as the electoral college for the presidential election. All this gives a new twist to the constitutional drama being enacted in Islamabad. Until Monday’s unexpected announcement, the retired Supreme Court justice had shown no proclivity for politics, though there is no doubt he proved himself to be a man of principles when he refused to swear allegiance to the 2001 Provisional Constitutional Ordinance. As he told the DawnNews channel, he had no illusions about the outcome of the contest, but his idea behind the decision was to help lawyers win their first battle for democracy. The nomination will now ensure that the presidential polls are contested and General Musharraf is not given the dubious honour of being ‘elected unopposed’.

The opposition has been caught unawares by the turn the situation has taken and the various parties are now seen scrambling to adopt a ‘correct’ (read expedient) position on the presidential election. As a result what we have at the time of writing is a bundle of contradictions with various political leaders adopting a stance that amounts to their going back on what they have been saying for some time. The PML-N is the only one to have extended support to Mr Ahmad’s proposed nomination without reservations. The PPP, while reacting positively, is now considering the option of putting up its own candidate. As for the MMA, its own house is so divided that the lawyers’ move has confounded the confusion in their ranks. Qazi Hussain Ahmad’s promise to support Mr Ahmad’s candidature is intriguing given the JI chief’s zealous pleadings with the MMA leadership for quitting the assemblies en bloc. If his plea is accepted it would leave the electoral college without the MMA men and women, apart from the handful in the Senate. This too is hypothetical since the resignation issue that has been talked about for nearly two years has eluded a definitive decision. And now we have the NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani opposing the dissolution of the provincial assembly saying such a move could benefit Al Qaeda. This muddies the political waters even further.

That leaves us with many ifs and buts and the Supreme Court has yet to give a decision on the uniform issue. Pakistan is neither a dictatorship nor a democracy and the current situation epitomises this truth. We have a general in uniform insisting on being elected president by the outgoing assemblies. The state’s coercive apparatus is busy rounding up the regime’s opponents. The bewildering array of President Musharraf’s opponents have now decided to give legitimacy to the electoral college by taking part in the stage-managed presidential polls to take place on Oct 6. Let us hope the outcome of it all does not mean a regression to unbridled despotism.