Musharraf’s Last Stand

But over the past year, Musharraf has embarked on a series of moves that have destroyed his claims to being a modernizer, his reputation as a statesman and his popularity with his own people. Many outside Pakistan do not quite realize the sea change that has taken place. Musharraf is now deeply unpopular; significant majorities distrust anything he says. He is routinely accused of masterminding Bhutto's death, rigging the elections in advance and being in cahoots with terrorists. His approval rating was 30 percent in November 2007, in the latest of five national surveys conducted by the International Republican Institute over the previous 18 months. It has almost certainly gone down significantly since then, in the wake of Bhutto's assassination. When asked what they thought of his (engineered) re-election as president in October 2007, a stunning 61 percent said that they "strongly disagreed," and an additional 11 percent said they "disagreed." And polls in Pakistan are likely to overstate the level of support for a military ruler.

Why has this happened? Musharraf realized last year that Pakistan's laws and courts were obstacles to his central aspiration—to remain in power—and he responded by cutting them down. When it became clear that the Supreme Court stood in his way, he fired its chief justice. When the charges he brought against the chief justice were unanimously dismissed by a 13-judge panel (including five hand-picked ones), he declared an emergency and fired the chief justice and 60 other judges of various superior courts, placing most of them under house arrest. When lawyers protested, he arrested their leaders, including the highly respected head of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan. Musharraf shut down TV stations, then reopened some after they were forced to sign a "code of conduct."

Musharraf has explained his actions—all wildly unpopular—as necessary to fight terror, and banked on foreign reporters' not checking the details of a complex saga. For example, Musharraf claims the judges had gone soft on terror, releasing jihadists arrested during the siege of Islamabad's Red Mosque last year. It's true that three judges had acquitted the Islamists, but Musharraf has retained all three. "The principle by which he fired judges is clear," says Asma Jahangir, the courageous chair of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and a respected lawyer. "Those who were relatively independent were sacked. Only the scum remain."

Musharraf's struggle to stay in power has also reinforced his alliance with thoroughly illiberal forces. Having packed the courts, amended the Constitution, muzzled the media and battled with the major political parties, Musharraf has alienated all the modern, secular and liberal forces in Pakistan, with the exception of some businessmen and his own community of "mohajirs" (refugees from India) in Sindh. He now relies for his support on the military, an assortment of feudal politicians and some friendly fundamentalists. In Rawalpindi he spoke of other politicians, including the late Benazir, with undisguised hostility. Although he is an intelligent, well-meaning man whose vision for Pakistan remains moderate and secular, he has become a deeply polarizing force in Pakistan. Musharraf's selling point has always been that even though he was not elected, he has been a liberalizing dictator. Over the past year, he has lost claim to the adjective.

Does that mean Musharraf's days are numbered? Not exactly. Mushahid Hussain, secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party aligned with the president (often described as the "king's party"), says, "He's a cat with nine lives, and he still has two left." It may not be his feline qualities that keep him in office, though, but the support of the armed forces. Whatever happens at the polls, Pakistan's military, allied with elements of the country's traditional, quasi-feudal establishment, will still wield immense power. Its control of the Pakistani state is deep and has actually increased over the past decade, as Musharraf has placed retired generals in key positions of authority.

But Musharraf could also face a powerful political opposition in the National Assembly. Unless the elections are rigged, every independent expert predicts that the king's party will do badly. Opposition leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari (Benazir's widower and the new co-head of her Pakistan Peoples Party) are united in their basic agenda. "Our No. 1 demand is the restoration of the judiciary," Sharif told me. "Nothing is more important than that." Zardari said, "The whole structure of power must change in this country. The military must get out of politics."