Pakistan's new government has finally told Pervez Musharraf to quit, but will the president leave, asks Graham Usher in Islamabad Pakistan's shifting political alliances gelled anew last week, triggered by the man who has cast himself as the nation's great unifier. In an interview with the India Press Trust (IPT) on 22 May co-chairman of the governing Pakistan People's Party (PPP) -- and Benazir Bhutto's widower -- Asif Ali Zardari was asked what he thought about President Pervez Musharraf: the ex-military ruler who had enabled his wife's return from exile and Zardari's reprieve on a slew of corruption cases. "The president is a relic of the past and he stands between us and democracy," said Zardari. "For two months I have been trying to do a whitewash... to dialogue with the people of Pakistan and my party. That's okay, let's have national reconciliation but people are not willing to accept my position on that. They keep telling the PPP-led government we don't want bread, we don't want electricity, we want [Musharraf] out... I am the servant of the people, not the master of the people." Some saw this as a tirade, a foible for which the PPP leader is known. Butit was anything but unscripted. On 24 May the PPP unveiled its 18th Constitutional Amendment Bill: future legislation that tries to bring closure to the two issues that have dogged the government since its inception -- the role of the president in Pakistan's future "democratic" set up and the fate of the judges he sacked last year under martial rule, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohamed Chaudhry. The amendment is vague about the judges. But it is crystal clear about the president. He is reduced to a figurehead, losing the power to dismiss parliament, appoint provincial governors and choose the heads of the armed forces. These prerogatives will go to the prime minister, making Pakistan a parliamentary rather than presidential system. Zardari said neither he nor his government had ever accepted Musharraf as a "constitutional president" but would refrain from impeaching him. "We intend to walk him away rather than impeach him away," he said. But will the president walk away? On news of the amendment Musharraf told his shrinking band of allies to mobilise against it. Zardari's own band of allies was circumspect. Coalition partner and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif welcomed any law that cut the president down to size: Musharraf was the army chief who ousted him in a coup in 1999. But Sharif is wary that the amendment may also attempt to curb the independent powers of the chief justice. Pakistan's powerful lawyers' movement fears the same trade. It came out against the amendment. On 24 May thousands of lawyers turned out to greet Chaudhry in Faisalabad, a Sharif stronghold. The latter's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party provided the chief justice full protocol. PPP cadres were absent. Zardari (and many others in the PPP) have long seen Chaudhry as too righteous for his good, not least because they fear that he may overturn the amnesty granted them by Musharraf. "Do not try to tell us how to run politics," Zardari warned the lawyers protesting against him. "We have a little seniority over you". Why has Zardari turned against Musharraf? Until recently he appeared on board the American scripted plan that had the "moderate" PPP in government and Musharraf as a tamed but still relatively powerful civilian president. But two fears made the PPP leader realise "the point where US pressure ends and reality begins," says a source. One was the realisation among the PPP rank-and-file that the failure to reinstate judges was costing the party dearly among the public. The perception was growing that Zardari was tarrying on the judges to save his and Musharraf's skin at the expense of Chaudhry's. And the more the PPP's stock fell, the more the PML-N's rose. Polls showed solid support for Sharif's decision to resign PML-N ministries in protest at the government's failure to reinstate the judges. In a message to lawyers in Karachi, Chaudhry thanked that "political party" which had chosen principle over power. He wasn't talking about the PPP. But the main reason for Zardari's turn was the fear that unless he shackled the president, the president may shackle him. Rumours were afoot in Islamabad that Musharraf may still wield his powers to appoint a new army chief or invoke Pakistan's catastrophic economy as the pretext to dismiss parliament. Zardari clearly saw dissolution as a possibility. "There's no point in me working hard, giving my life, fighting terrorism, asking the parliament and the Pakistani people to make sacrifices if you're going to be sent home," he told IPT. But could Musharraf send parliament home? The army has reportedly told the various "stakeholders" that its former chief should not be "humiliated", and that includes impeachment. The message from Washington is the same. But there is a big difference between upholding the dignity of the president and rolling out the tanks to bring down a government. Says a source: "the army paid its dues to Musharraf throughout 2007; it stood by him when he sacked the chief justice, imposed martial law and refused to step down as army chief. But its message now is 'you're on your own'. It won't intervene to help him out". The hope amongst most Pakistanis is that Musharraf will get the message and go gracefully. The fear is that he will fight every move to chain him. If the former, "we will have a smooth transition", says a PPP leader: if the latter, "a train wreck". Zardari is hardly alone in being unable to read the tracks. "I don't know whether [Musharraf's] days are numbered," he said in the IPT interview. "Or whether my days are numbered or our government's days are numbered. Who knows that?"
