The writer is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist

mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

As one sat listening to CE-President General Pervez Musharraf announcing his road map to 'real' democracy on the telly, one's mind began playing truant. How is it that men on horseback keep coming as saviours and always promising to make a new beginning? How Pakistani politicians always make a mess by their mal-administration and corruption? Across a few hundred kilometres, there are those Indians - quite like us in civilisational attitudes, traditions and outlook - who can work at least a passable democracy that permits rule of law for the most part.

Is it in our stars that we be ruled by military dictators? Or is there some special genius among Muslims or in the genes who need to be kicked around by masters, always craving privileges that others enjoy as rights?

One saw with the mind's eye the initially unsure figure of General Ziaul Haq in 1977 promising truly free and fair elections within 90 days that the opposition PNA had wanted under cast-iron constitutional guarantees. He would also keep law and order and prevent the civil war that was supposedly ready to break out, although few thought it was at all likely. One briefly reviewed the subsequent events and saw how those 90 days stretched to 11 years and not once did that kind of polls take place that the PNA and Bhutto government had negotiated - and actually agreed.

There were the other saviours in Khaki: General Yahya Khan promised to do all that the discredited Field Marshal had agreed to do: restore one man one vote, allow the press to be free and hold normal free polls to a new Assembly to frame a new constitution in 120 days-a task that two constituent Assemblies could not perform in nine years in 1950s and with so much travail. Pakistanis could only get a representative government after the Assembly had performed its assigned task to the satisfaction of - General Yahya; such as the proviso. And how did he fulfil his promises? Everyone talks of the subsequent tragedy, trauma, defeat and dismemberment.

Earlier, the archetypal Pakistani general, Ayub Khan, had promised to clean up the Augean stables in 1958. He held forth on politicians' incompetence and corruption. Building on what his guru, Col Iskandar Mirza, had taught, he waxed eloquent on democracy not being suited to the genius of Pakistanis and how they could understand only grassroots level democracy. They needed a friend and firm guide at the top. Thus he delivered a Basic Democracy and a constitution tailored around his own needs and the greed of cornering all power.

Weren't there some common elements in all the military coups d'etat? The background to the first coup was quite complex and it covered much of the fierce struggle for power between the Punjab and Bengal Groups of the first Constituent Assembly that had continued in the second. The Punjab Group was hell-bent on preventing the emergence of Bengalese as the newly elected dominant group in Parliament after a new election. Afterward the West Pakistanis would then remain a permanent minority sans power. Bengalese would keep all power to themselves for all time to come. So, first they prevented a constitution coming into force so as to prevent an election and later, when a constitution was made, they kept postponing the election. Ayub Khan and Iskandar Mirza represented this basically Punjabi Group's sensibility and their coup of 1958 was aimed primarily at preventing the scheduled (Feb '59) elections under the 1956 constitution.

There was also an international dimension. As a recipient of American aid and a member of two pacts - SEATO and the Baghdad one - not to mention the all-important bilateral security treaty with the US, America enjoyed extraordinary influence in Pakistan of the 1950s. Little happened here without their involvement. Even today the US envoy is all but a Viceroy. Ayub had convinced John Foster Dulles that East Pakistan was teeming with subversive Commies and an election might destabilise this whole bastion of the freedom. There are many indications and some recorded evidence that it was no less a person than Dulles who gave a green signal to Ayub for staging a coup-perhaps as far back as July-August of 1958 in Ankara.

Yahya's coup was also staged to pre-empt the implementation of the agreement that had emerged from the All Parties Conference: viz general election on one-man-one-vote basis to a third Constitution-making Assembly. He, by taking over, postponed the polls for a long while and when held them nearly two years later, he did so under impossible rules and after a lot of manipulation to influence the results. And when the polls returned an unexpected verdict, he rejected it and refused to convene the Assembly. He cracked down on - who? The same elected Bengalese, of course. The net result of his labours was Pakistan's military defeat and the country's dismemberment.

The US was of course on board - haven't we heard of Yahya's role in Sino-US rapprochement? - until he cracked down on East Bengal. The Americans by then had other irons in the fire, among them Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, apart from not having the stomach for so much blood letting in the domestic sphere of an ally.

General Zia intervened primarily to prevent an agreed and scheduled free re-election in October 1977. Bhutto was anyhow expected to be returned. Who does not know Bhutto's falling out with his American friends in 1976 over the nuclear reprocessing plant deal with France? Who also does not know the sighs of relief by Americans when Zia had overthrown Bhutto - and later hanged him?

Did the pattern hold in 1999 also? There is no evidence. What is known is that Nawaz Sharif had certainly disappointed the IMF-WB community in Washington; the latter was disenchanted by both democratic leaders - Nawaz and Benazir Bhutto - each of whom had been tried twice and had been found wanting in the crucial test of implementing the IMF conditionalities in full. These experts should certainly have welcomed the Musharraf regime's 'competence' and as a result are now loosening their purse strings gradually-lest the regime lapses into old habits of eschewing hard options.

But it is fair to say the State Department and White House did not seem to be on board insofar as this particular military coup was concerned. Indeed they seemed to have been somewhat rattled because Nawaz's India policies appeared to them to be positive; his action in the Kargil Crisis could only have endeared him to Clinton government. Even so, what was this coup about? Wasn't it to break the cycle of Benazir and Nawaz taking turns to rule after an election? It would seem from the proceedings of the last 22 months that the next election will be different in kind; they look like being calculated to achieving pre-conceived 'positive results' through the political engineering now underway. But attempting such a thing so late in the process might seem foolhardy even for this Army (most political enterprises of which have fallen flat on their faces). Anyhow Americans are beginning to accept (approve?) the regime's domestic policies, may be after the event.

The question about Army's role during the period 1986 to 1999 remains? It was certainly active and clearly aimed at preserving its own power and privileges. Civilian governments, in addition to its agencies' rumoured role in the successive polls - some of which is on court record while a lot more is being commonly discussed - were kept confined to inconsequential subjects: foreign policy vis-a-vis crucially important countries - India, China, US, Afghanistan - was the Army's preserve as also the Finances, for which a person acceptable to or cleared by WB-IMF experts was forced on the Prime Minister. The Army certainly played a role in all the changes of governments. Roles of General Aslam Beg and General Abdul Waheed were brash and quite open. Was Benazir dismissed in Nov 1996 solely by her own nominee off his own bat? How could a Farooq Leghari do that unless the COAS had not pressed him to?

Except for ZA Bhutto's less than six years - which is a special case - the Army has either ruled directly after 1958 or has supervised civilian governments as overlords. In an important sense the Army generals had merely resumed their direct rule in 1977 as also in 1999, all with American concurrence. Insofar as the 1988 decision of the generals to abstain from direct rule after 11 years of Zia and his having accumulated a lot of ill will for the Army in Sindh and Balochistan, the credit for allowing some democracy is strenuously claimed. But this credit is for a tightly controlled democracy.

Remember the dinner at Army House on Dec 1, '88 at which all corps commanders were present who virtually interviewed Benazir Bhutto who was alone except for her husband who had driven her. Weren't the terms of the "job" settled: the exact size of her turf settled, two major Ministers and two special assistants to guide were foisted on her. As for Nawaz Sharif, the claims of General Aslam Beg and a few affidavits in SC are on record about IJI's origins. Let no one conclude that there ever was democracy after 1958; it has always been Army ruling directly or indirectly.

Pre-1958 and Bhutto periods require more qualifications and references to circumstances; those are stories for another time. But the conclusion to emerge from this recital is that Army does not trust Pakistani people; it pre-empts, directly or through backseat driving, the right of the common citizens to govern themselves without any hindrance. It reserves the right to be overlords of all the systems.

In short, no one can now be palmed off with a controlled or guided democracy in 2002. No doubt, the effort is on and probably will be carried through; right now no one can stop it if the Army is so determined. Its compulsion to find a safe exit for General Musharraf - ie, to make him an effective and long lasting President, a la Ziaul Haq in 1986 - may be conceded. But history is not so kind. Unending military rule and Pakistan cannot long coexist; the enterprise is too risky for both. Let the Army not persist. A gentleman is one who knows when to count his chips and go home.