Daily Times

Those who saw Gen Musharraf in Dubai in March ’13, just before he left for Pakistan and expected hundreds of thousands of his Facebook followers to greet him at the Karachi airport, will also remember how the former president misread the situation waiting for him back home. He would never admit that the following two years — court cases, medical confinement, etc — humbled him somewhat, or even undid his plans profoundly. But he was glad enough to be out when Gen Raheel, for all intents and purposes, facilitated his exit from the country one more time.

But now he’s seemingly moving his pieces again. And, from the looks of things, he really believes that he is Pakistan’s difference maker. On the surface there’s not much doubting the authenticity of his argument. Uniting the Leagues can change the entire ballgame. And, yes, just about everybody is sick to the stomach of most senior members of PML-N, not the least because of how the Panama disaster is further tarnishing everybody’s reputation in the party.

He is also spot on about the mohajir card. They have been drifting, literally, since Mustafa Kamal finally poked a hole in the Altaf Hussain balloon. Since the Pak Sarzameen Party could not fill the vacuum, Musharraf is right about the right kind of people with the right kind of policy being able to consolidate the mohajir vote bank.

But he wasn’t too far off last time he ventured back home either. The return to democracy had left nobody impressed after a full cycle of the PPP and another unappetising one of the Sharifs underway. And his time was better than subsequent democratic governments. The security situation had taken a dip while he was still in office, but he clearly scored far better points on the economy; not to forget the load shedding disaster at that time also.

But landing back he quickly noticed that the Facebook following hadn’t exactly translated into snowballing on-ground support. Also, Gen Kayani may have owed him a great deal in the old days — he was Musharraf’s blue-eyed after all, which made him DG ISI as well as COAS — but at that time he was serving out his controversial extension (which many even in the military did not like) and did not quite turn out into the kind of general who ruffled too many feathers as long as the personal going was good.

That is when Musharraf should have started admitting, even if just to himself, that he had read the situation completely wrong. It didn’t improve much with his chota bhai Gen Raheel becoming army chief. Musharraf could still not read the tea leaves. Times were such that even a COAS hell bent on protecting him could only maneuver from the sidelines. If the N league hadn’t blundered its own way with the military, Gen Musharraf might still have been in confinement. Yet Gen Raheel was able to finally get the old man out of the country in one piece, thinking that was the end of it.

The recent maneuverings of the former president must have come as a shocker to most people, even in the army. And it’s a bigger surprise to see his old friends in politics once again rallying around him. Take the case of the Chaudhrys. They’ve been standing on the road side waving to practically anybody that would help take the Sharifs down. Their recent friendship with, and investment in, the Tahir ul Qadri brigade is still fresh in most people’s mind. Like Sh Rasheed of the Awami Muslim League, the Gujratis’ main endeavour right now is sending Nawaz and family packing.

Other people taking some sort of interest in Musharraf’s initiative are the leaders of the Functional League. There was a time, now long long ago, when the Pir of Pagara could exercise at least a unifying influence among old time Leaguers. That time died long before the last Pir breathed his last, of course. So mostly what Musharraf has achieved so far in his latest crusade is getting a bunch of have-beens to notice him. If he would give him a moment to rethink and recalculate, he’d realise that there is no way this latest roll of the dice will take him to the presidency once again — or the PM house in the new democratic setting.

For him success does not mean winning one or two seats in the House. It means winning outright and taking care of the so called democratic system that does not work with so called democrats that we are blessed with. And by thinking riding the Chaudhrys, etc, will bring him within striking distance of that goal, he is only reinforcing his own failure; something he said he learnt not to do long ago in the military. Perhaps it would be best to just sit back and just let it slide. He has already found out how hollow an ex-chief’s profile can ring, even if he is a former strongman president, once he bows out of the uniform. Even some of his strongest supporters in the army feel, sometimes, that he should never have come back because of all the mud that fell on the institution as the farcical treason trial lingered.

Now the General has put himself at the crossroads once again. Sure, he makes good, convincing points on talk shows. But talking tough was always his strong point. Clearly he sees it as his responsibility to upset this apple cart of a democratic system that governs Pakistan at the moment. And he may very well be completely sincere in his conviction. But, since the proof of the pudding lies in the eating, there’s very little chance practically, if any at all, that he will be able to play a winning hand one more time. Things are just not the same when you do not have entire corps responding every time you snap your fingers, or legions springing up when you stomp your feet on the ground.

The writer is the Resident Editor, Daily Times Lahore, tweets @yourafiq and can be reached at yourafiq@gmail.com