“The elections will be rigged. Expect a big crisis”
[ IT ]
Ahmed Rashid, the author of “Taliban”, interviewed by Alessandra Cardinale“Musharraf is still here; he is still very much in power and absolutely nothing has been done about extremism. He wants to be re-elected in 2007 and he wants to remain in office until 2012”. It was in July 2005, after the terrorist bombings in London, that Ahmed Rashid, journalist and author of “Taliban”, a worldwide best-seller which was adapted into a course book at over 200 U.S. Universities, made these predictions. In more than three years nothing has changed in Pakistani politics and according to Rashid, nothing will vary if Musharraf does not step down. But the President has failed on one thing: the support of his people, the real foe to his ruling.
Everybody in the media and in the political spectrum is arguing that the elections on the 8th January will be rigged. Everybody is anticipating Mr. Musharraf will be re-elected. Mr. Rashid, what do you think will happen?
There are all the signs that there will be rigging, simply because Musharraf is going to need his own government and his own Parliament in power in order to validate the state of emergency that he declared on 3rd November and to validate all the measures that he has taken. He cannot afford to take the risk of having a Parliament that is solely made up of the opposition, who may oppose him. So I think there all the signs that the elections will be rigged and I think that there will be a big crisis after the elections, very loud protests and he will have to deal with that.
According to the American International Republican Institute poll published a few days ago in the New York Times, 67% of Pakistanis want Mr. Musharraf to resign and 70% think he does not deserve to win the elections.
So that Musharraf could remain in power, we have been in a permanent state of crisis since March of this year when he first suspended the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Now, we have been in crisis for nine months: inflation has doubled, there is a shortage of everything, investment has stopped, the economy is paralyzed, the Court is not working because no lawyers have submitted any cases to the judges. Musharraf always says that he is helping the country when actually the country is heading towards great chaos and paralysis.
Despite all of this, in some parts of Pakistan, for example in Punjab, Mr. Musharraf still has a lot of support.
Yes, there is no doubt he has some support: the Army, big businesses, lobby groups are backing him. But this doesn’t mean he has political support because public anger is increasing more and more. The crisis which we have been living in since March and has made people more hostile towards Mr. Musharraf.
How do you think Mr. Musharraf’s re-election can be avoided? I mean, do you think that boycotting the elections could be a solution or that the alliance between Mrs Bhutto and Mr Musharraf could have been a reasonable option?
I think that if Musharraf had been fair, he would have handed over the power to a civilian government, empowering civilians and reducing the role of the Army in politics. In doing so, there could have been an alliance between Bhutto and Musharraf. But now it is very clear that he has no intention of sharing power with anyone. We all know that because of the measures he has carried out: martial law and thousands of arrests, first of all. Everybody understands that the next government will also be powerless; it will not have any real power; the Army will continue to rule and I think people are very fed up: the Army is not a solution to these problems.
So, is there any solution?
In fact the only solution is that Musharraf should step down, there should be a civilian President and if this doesn’t happen, the next best thing is that there should be a partnership between the Army and the civilians, but Musharraf is not even prepared for that. He wants to continue ruling as he has ruled in the last eight years and I think that is no longer possible.
Could international pressure, for example from the U.S., help Pakistan get out of this deadlock?
Unfortunately the U.S. is backing Musharraf. President Bush is still calling him “my buddy”. There is some guarded pressure from the United States but essentially they do not want Musharraf to quit; they will continue backing him.
Why do Bush and his Administration support Musharraf?
I think it is because Musharraf is closely allied to the new conservatives in Washington D.C. He has done a lot for them and maybe they still need Musharraf in order to deal with Iran and the countries in the Middle East. We still do not know what will happen in the next 12 months before the American presidential elections.
President Musharraf in his last visit to Washington D.C. said for the first time that Pakistan security forces have identified an area where they think Bin Laden may be hiding: between the Bajour province and the Afghanisatn Kunar province. Is he trying to reassure Bush and his Administration that the Pakistan government is working hard to defeat terrorism?
I think the only reason he said that was because there is a great deal of American intelligence which is saying that. Americans have repeatedly asked Musharraf to take action against terrorism. Therefore, in my opinion, that is why he is finally admitting this. But there has still not been any military action in Bajour: there are some troops over there but they are not offensive.
So Musharraf is not doing a lot to defeat terrorism?
No, he is not. Terrorism in Pakistan has increased. There was a terrible suicide bombing yesterday (December 17th, editor’s note). Extremism is in fact spreading and the Army is being targeted: it is a very dangerous situation.
30 Dec 2007
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