LAHORE: The historic restoration of the Pakistani superior court judges who had been sacked by Musharraf in 2007, ostensibly in the wake of a massive show of peoples’ power arranged by Nawaz Sharif, has literally eroded the authority of Presdient Asif Zardari and has established Sharif as the only popular political leader today who has the support of the masses.
Just when it seemed that all efforts by international power players had failed to defuse a rapidly escalating political crisis, the Zardari government capitulated to the demands of protesters in the wee hours of Monday in a bid to avoid the arath of the masses. The restoration of the judges ends, for the moment at least, a two-year struggle to undo the wrong committed on November 3, 2007, when emergency was declared and a series of illegal actions taken under its cover. With thousands of people on the streets heading for the capital Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced on state television at 5:45am that former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and other justices are being reinstated.
Yousaf Raza Gillani’s surprise announcement which was taken as the defeat of the presidency, followed intense negotiations over the past few days in which the opposition parties and the lawyers community led by a defiant Nawaz Sharif had flatly refused to make any compromises with the government. The concession came as thousands of protesters led by opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister and head of the largest opposition party, were travelling to Islamabad to join the sit-in. The eleventh hour retreat by the president led the protesting opposition parties’ activists and the lawyers to drop plans to march on the federal capital, Islamabad, and stage a sit-in outside the Presidency.
Political analysts in Islamabad say the restoration of the judges has also changed the political dynamic in Pakistan given the fact that the leadership of the Zardari-led liberal and progressive Pakistan Peoples Party which was voted to power in 2008 general elections has been discredited to a great extent and the right-wing Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif has established itself as a popular political force to reckon with. These analysts are of the view that although an immediate political crisis in Pakistan has been defused, the pot is still boiling and the PPP government remains under threat, especially due to the rising popularity of Mian Nawaz Sharif and the deepening credibility crisis of President Asif Ali Zardari.
“President Zardari has been highly weakened by the latest developments. His actions were untenable and were rejected by the people and even his own party,” said Lt Gen (retd) Talat Masood, one of Pakistan’s leading political and security analysts. Former ISI chief Hamid Gul felt that “If Zardari does not mend his approach to the problem, then he would have to say goodbye to President’s House very soon. He is a very weak politician who does not understand the mood and the temperature of the people. He tried to run the affairs of the state by gimmickry rather than by principles and that is where he has gone wrong”, the former general said.
There are analysts who believe Zardari had been misled by aides who believed that Nawaz Sharif would not be able to organise a major protest. “The March 16 developments should serve as a reality check for the president who has confined himself to the presidency. If common people can bring down a strong military dictator, they can also bring down a civilian president with a serious credibility crisis”, said analyst Rashid Rehman while referring to the movement by lawyers and opposition parties last year that led to the ouster of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. The developments had also proved that Zardari was largely a successor to the leadership of the PPP and not a political leader in his own right”, he said.
Even as Zardari grappled with the new onslaught by his former ally, he has had to contend with growing dissent within the PPP. For instance, Premier Gillani openly opposed the President’s move to impose governor’s rule in Punjab, which was ruled by the PML-N, while two senior ministers — Raza Rabbani and Sherry Rehman — quit to express the federal cabinet their unhappiness with Zardari’s functioning. Analysts here say Premier Gilani, who was hand-picked for the post of prime minister by Zardari, had emerged stronger from the political crisis by convincing the President to reinstate the former chief justice. “Gilani’s stature has improved as he is now perceived as honest and reliable”, said Talat Masood. Though his abilities as an administrator remained questionable, Gillani now had a higher level of credibility, he said. “The prime minister will be more assertive both in the party and in the government now and he could help the parliament re-assert itself”, he added.
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