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Musharraf's crisis of legitimacy

A week, they say, is a long time in politics. On May 5, even after Iftikhar Chaudhary made the point in Lahore that the people of Punjab were on his side, the possibility existed that President Pervez Musharraf could still fall feet first from the crisis triggered by his ill-advised decision to sack the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. A show of contrition from the General withdrawing the reference against Mr. Chaudhary may have deflated the agitation. The Pakistan leader would not have come out of the mess completely unscathed but a deal with Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto, which was very much on the cards then, would have cushioned his fall. After the events of May 12, President Musharraf has closed virtually every dignified route out of the present crisis. Using the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the government's ally in Sindh, to prevent another possible show of strength by the Chief Justice in Karachi was a spectacular own goal. As long as President Musharraf projected the judicial crisis as something to be sorted out by a panel of judges within a courtroom, he could paint the political agitation as unjustified and unreasonable. Allowing himself to be drawn into the streets was a tacit acceptance of the opposition argument that the government action against the Chief Justice was not "purely a constitutional and judicial issue" but a question of whether he should continue in power. It exposed the General's panic at the first serious challenge to his leadership since 1999 and deepened the political crisis. The violence unleashed by the MQM in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and its financial nerve centre, which resulted in 41 deaths, has united the opposition as never before and strengthened the agitation. The prospects of a deal with the PPP seem to have melted in the summer heat.

The wide response to an opposition call for a countrywide strike was evidence of the popular anger against President Musharraf for what happened in Karachi. The crisis has taken a new dimension, with the MQM, an ethnic party of Urdu-speaking `mohajir' or refugees from India, cracking open Karachi's ethnic tensions. In the weekend clashes, MQM versus Opposition translated into Urdu-speakers versus Sindhis, Pashtuns, and Punjabis. A mohajir himself, the President has given room to the charge that he is using the ethnic card to ward off his troubles. The predominantly Punjabi military is no doubt watching the situation, and may even play a role in the denouement. Nobody yet knows how this crisis will end — but what is clear is that General Musharraf's power and political stock have been undermined. Will he, in desperation, score more own goals such as clamping an emergency?

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