Was President Zardari's speech to the party faithful this week such a big deal? Not really. Or at least it shouldn't have been.
Another speech by another leader of a party long used to casting itself as the perennial outsider, it could have been written off as the necessary but unfortunate (especially since he is the president) rantings of a PPP leader.
Except there is at least one other institution that is also in a heightened state of distrust "” the army. And that made all the difference.
It's an open secret by now that the army high command doesn't really like or trust Zardari and takes a dim view of his government's record in office. Perhaps less well known is the fact that Zardari and his closest advisers are disdainful of the army leadership.
You don't have to be a marriage counsellor to figure out that that combination bodes ill for the relationship between the army and Zardari. Frankly, both sides are to blame.
The army's attitude smacks of typical institutional arrogance. Musharraf nearly took the country over a cliff and did many things in secret, but the army stood by him. That's because he was their guy, one of them, something which Zardari most certainly isn't.
Zardari is just as unpopular with the public and the media as Musharraf at his nadir, but the wagging tongues carrying tales of the army's preferences and opinions didn't wag quite as much while Musharraf was being hounded out of office. That is telling, and so is the fact that the army has done little to quell the rumours.
But if the army is afflicted with institutional arrogance, Zardari seems to be weighed down by personal hubris. They may not like him, but they can't touch him "” the Zardari camp's triumphalism, or raw defiance, is based on what it sees as the constitutional reality that the president is virtually impregnable. That may well be true, but it ignores the obvious: in a country where politics has trumped the law so often, it's probably wise not to tempt the gods.
Predictably, the unpredictable happened next. Panicked by the Supreme Court's musings about money stashed away in far away lands, the presidency rushed Kamal Azfar to the court during the NRO hearings.
But here's where it gets tricky. On behalf of the Federation of Pakistan, Azfar filed applications that read in part: "If however, this Hon'ble Court wishes to rule upon wider issues other than those raised in the petition "�. [Pakistan today] is poised at the crossroads"�. The second road leads to destabilisation of the rule of law. The people of Pakistan await your verdict."�
When pressed by the 17 judges in open court to explain what the applications were implying, Azfar uttered the fateful words connecting the GHQ with some plot to destabilise the government. Cue pandemonium and uproar.
This is the tricky part: did Azfar implicate the army at the behest of the presidency or was it an unplanned gaffe?
The army appears to believe it was intentional, and was not amused. Did a furious ISI chief and Kayani really confront the prime minister and the president and demand proof of the conspiracy? Perhaps not as directly as some seem to believe, but the army's point was almost certainly put across "” don't drag us into your games.
But is the army right in believing that Azfar was ordered to implicate the army? There is certainly a case to be made that the army is wrong. Seventeen Supreme Court justices are an imposing sight, and when questions are flying thick and fast, sometimes from the left, sometimes from the right, sometimes from the middle, and the justices want answers immediately, even the most poised of lawyers can be thrown off.
We will eventually know the truth. Right now it is still politically sensitive, so we will have to wait before Azfar tells us what really happened.
Keeping this recent background in mind, though, it's easy to see why Zardari's speech was such a bad idea. Here again was talk of conspiracies against democracy and the government by unnamed conspirators. Was Zardari upping the ante against the army again, so soon after the fiasco over Kamal Azfar's words? Had insanity prevailed and a clash between the president and the army become inevitable?
I doubt it. The fundamental reasons for the army avoiding a direct role in politics still apply: it is busy fighting the counter-insurgency; the disastrous end to the Musharraf era continues to cast a pall over the army's reputation; and the only electorally viable civilian option, Nawaz Sharif, continues to be eyed with great suspicion by the army.
But the onus remains on Zardari to keep the system in order. For that the Zardari camp needs to first and for most stop carping and complaining.
Absolutely, few are demanding that the army high command wear sackcloth and ashes and walk on coal to atone for their sins, even the more recent ones.
And the Zardari camp is right when it complains that it simply can't win with the media, parts of which are rabidly opposed to the president and have called for his ouster on moral grounds, whatever those may be.
But Zardari and his advisers need to learn to nurse their wounds and indignation quietly and very privately. The reason is obvious.
Together, the army's institutional reasons for not wanting to wade into the muck of politics again so soon and the president's constitutional armour can keep the system running. But rely on one factor alone, and, well, be prepared for the worse.
The army's reluctance to "�intervene' overtly in the presidency is not guaranteed to hold if the presidency is seen to be on the "�attack'. Whatever its reasons for staying out of politics at the moment, if push really comes to shove, everything else will become secondary to institutional "�integrity' for the army.
And if the presidency operates under the assumption that it can do and say whatever it pleases because the only way to constitutionally remove the president "” impeachment "” is a non-starter, well, then like Icarus it may soon find itself plunging towards the sea.
Perhaps one of Zardari's advisers needs to pen a note to his boss along these lines: Hush, Mr President. There's a lot more work yet to be done.
cyril.a@gmail.com
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