After the changes last month, hopes of crisis ending rose. General Pervez Musharraf finally retired. Hard to say whether he bowed out under foreign or domestic pressures. He is now a civilian President, though with powers to keep the Parliament, Federal Cabinet and provincial governments with their Assemblies under control.

Musharraf had proclaimed the state of emergency, not as President but as Army Chief – a procedure that he admitted was “unconstitutional and illegal”. That should cover the Provisional Constitution Order(PCO). Under this he empowered the President to go on amending the Constitution as he felt like. Under pressure of worldwide criticism, he bowed and announced he will probably lift the emergency by December 16th and the PCO will go with it. It is unclear whether the changes he would make under the PCO will survive (after National Assembly’s approval) or would disappear.

The Constitution already empowers the President with the power to sack the whole elected system in his discretion. A National Security Council exists in which the armed forces were brought in on a par with the rest of elected system, giving to President a casting vote. Thus the elected system had been straitjacketed, subject to dismissal by the Army Chief or the President.

With all these powers, President Musharraf will hold the January 8 elections. He condemns any talk of boycotting it. The parties fear the polls will be rigged. But who is going to boycott, leaving the field open to unprincipled power seekers, ready to do what the establishment requires. Opportunists will get elected. But who has ever worried about the legitimacy of an election in Pakistan? Not even close friends of Pakistan, US and UK, felt embarrassed at gerrymandered elections. Some more chatter about illegitimacy will not hurt those who either wield real power or fill offices to create a façade of democracy.

But thanks to their agitation the country’s lawyers have emerged as new heroes; and they continue protesting.

They want the original superior judiciary back that had virtually cornered Musharraf by simply acting independently and who are now interned. The two major political leaders, Benazir Bhutto of PPP and Nawaz Sharif of PML(N) are now in the field. They are anxious to participate in elections alongwith or without the smaller parties. King’s party is anyway sure to. Despite noises about boycotting, most parties will not boycott; a few will but they are sure to be small ones, unlikely to affect the outcome. Why would most parties participate? Reasons are many.

One nominal opposition alliance, Muttaheda Majlis-e- Amal (MMA), is likely to split with its largest segment, Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiate Ulmai Islam (JUI), sure to participate. His colleague in All Pakistan Democratic Movement (APDM) has decided to boycott; this move is led by Jamaate Islami Chief and Nawaz himself. Nawaz has in fact gone a step further. He has demanded that the old Supreme and High Courts should be restored as they stood on November 2.

Benazir will participate “under protest”, reserving the right of boycotting the election later. But all of these leaders have filed nomination papers with the impugned Election Commission (for not neutral enough). Observers think that no party will leave the field open to its rivals, despite knowing the system is stacked against them or polls will be neither free nor fair.

An amount of uncertainty persists about the elections. That is due to grave crises. One is the insurgency in NWFP and parts of Balochistan by a plethora of Taliban groups. It is indeed a war in which total casualties so far are over 2000. A tidal wave of Islamic extremism appears to be sweeping over the north western Pakistan, not excluding parts of Punjab itself while NWFP and Balochistan are directly involved.

The second is a low-level insurgency in Balochistan by Balochistan Liberation Army. It frequently sabotages rail tracks or sometimes attacks military outposts in Balochistan. 

The third is the raging movement of lawyers, now having been joined by civil society, particularly journalists. The movement had a remarkable political trajectory this year. It was flagged off by the maladroit Musharraf’s sacking of Chief Justice of Pakistan who refused to resign and challenged him to prosecute in an open court. This is what happened. But with  changed popular mood and with media’s support, it unnerved the General. Initially he appeared to accept the judgement of Supreme Court reinstating the CJP.

But he retaliated on November 3: imposing the state of emergency, giving a PCO and two ordinances meant to muzzle the media. He banned all the troublesome TV news channels and some radio channels. One of them, Geo, continues to be banned, while others were permitted after informal negotiations and gave assurances not to be too troublesome again.

His moves were directed against superior judiciary that was sacked en bloc, except those who were prepared to accept the condition of a new PCO oath. The judges who refused are still under house arrest and more or less kept incommunicado. This movement is alive and kicking viciously.

Since the lawyers’ movement was joined by journalists and other civil society elements, it continues to gravely embarrass the authorities and the political parties that do not wish to boycott polls. New winners will take office knowing that reality of power eludes them while their inability to help lawyers can embarrass them and may cause new crises. But even veteran political leaders never keep the big picture in mind nor do they seem committed to any higher value of democracy or liberalism.