Musharraf's aura has been shaken: S Asian expert

Washington, March 22: The recent events in Pakistan which witnessed violent demonstrations following the sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry by President Pervez Musharraf shows how it has ''shaken the aura of invincibility that Musharraf has enjoyed until now'', says a South Asian analyst.

In an article published yesterday, Ambassador Teresita C Schaffer said, ''The thing to watch now is whether someone emerges as the leader of the protests and whether they expand beyond the status of the Chief Justice to the political and electoral issues Musharraf is facing, or to other emotive issues such as his policy in Afghanistan.

''If this does not happen, Musharraf is likely to weather this storm. Even so, it will leave a mark on his government and will add to the baggage he is carrying as he governs one of the world's most difficult countries,'' said Ms Schaffer, who is also the Director of Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) a think tank.

According to Ms Schaffer, when President Musharraf announced on March 9 that he was ''suspending'' the country's Chief Justice, it looked like ''another of the classic Pakistani clashes between the judiciary and executive. In the past, these have been embarrassing and high-handed affairs and the executive has always won''.

President Musharraf's action has sparked outbursts all over Pakistan, leading to questions about whether the government is losing grip. ''It is not clear whether this will snowball, but it has shaken the aura of invincibility which Musharraf has enjoyed until now'' she remarked.

Commenting on the events she asked, ''How dangerous was Chaudhry to the Musharraf government?'' In 1999, he was willing to validate Musharraf's coup, unlike several other judges who resigned rather than do so. But more recently, he had ruled against the government on a couple of cases.This may have led Musharraf to worry about how he might deal with potential future cases involving his eligibility to remain both President and Army chief and the sequence of the presidential and Parliamentary elections.

These issues are central to Musharraf's calculations for remaining in power. He and his government are determined to control issues of this nature and Mr Chaudhry's perceived unpredictability might have been seen as a real threat.

Technically, what President Musharraf did was refer alleged improprieties in the Chief Justice's conduct to the country's top judicial council. The accusations are said to involve abuse of authority. Mr Chaudhry apparently had a reputation for high-handedness, a characteristic that may have made President Musharraf confident that sidelining him would win plaudits from Mr Chaudhry's legal confreres.

It didn't work out that way and the heart of the protests against Mr Chaudhry's suspension came from the bar associations, which she says, ''have almost always been at odds with the Pakistan government. This time, however, the lawyers didn't just vent their spleen in print. They went into the streets and they did so all over the country - including normally placid Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.'' Ms Schaffer futher said, ''Street protests are a sensitive issue for the army. They challenge the army's control and the protests over the Chaudhry affair generated a media crackdown including the raid on TV channel, Geo, which had its offices broken into and its windows smashed. This might have passed without a murmur at other times in Pakistan's history, but for Musharraf, who has publicly taken credit for Pakistan's free press, it was embarrassing enough to lead to police arrests and a public apology - in an interview with Geo.''

UNI