In an apparent last-minute, late-night climb-down, President Asif Ali Zardariof Pakistan agreed on March 16, 2009, to reinstate as the Chief Justice of thePakistan Supreme Court Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhury who was twice removed fromoffice by the then President Pervez Musharraf in March and November, 2007. Hisreinstatement will take effect after the present Pervez Musharraf-appointedChief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar reaches the age of superannuation on March 21,2009.
There were earlier reports that Zardari was contemplating to give Dogar anextension. The unprecedented support for Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhury not onlyfrom the community of lawyers, but also from large sections of the peoplemobilized by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), has forced him to accept thedemand for his reinstatement. Pressure from the Army and the US to avoid aviolent street confrontation on the issue has also forced his climb-down.
The events leading to this climb-down would strengthen the misgivings not onlyin Pakistan, but also in the US about Zardari’s leadership qualities. Hebrought this humiliation upon himself by his ill-advised attempts to underminethe political position of Nawaz, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and their PML (N) inPunjab. For this purpose, he allegedly manipulated a ruling by a bench of theSupreme Court consisting of judges appointed by Musharraf disqualifying Nawazand Shahbaz from holding any elected office. The bench gave the ruling on theground that Nawaz was a convict in a case filed against him by Musharraf afterseizing power in October,1999, and that Shahbaz was a co-accused in a caserelating to the death of a person at the hands of the police when he was theChief Minister of Punjab before the 1999 coup.
Allegedly acting on the wrong advice of his cronies, Zardari tried to takeadvantage of the ruling to have the PML (N) removed from power in Punjab and tohave an engineered coalition consisting of his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)and the PML (Qaid-e Azam) created by Musharraf in 2002 to defeat the PPP and thePML (N) inducted into power. His attempts, made through Salman Taseer, theGovernor of Punjab, who is a crony of Zardari as well as Musharraf, boomeranged.
The fresh agitation by the lawyers for the reinstatement of Chaudhury, the datefor which had been announced by them long before the events in Punjab, might nothave assumed the dimensions of a people’s revolt against Zardari but for hisfailed attempt to capture power for his party in the Punjab through engineereddefections from the ranks of the PML (N) and back-room manipulations with thecomplicity of some sections of the Musharraf-appointed judiciary.
The last elections to the National Assembly held in February, 2008, two monthsafter the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, surprisingly showed that the sympathywave for her was confined to the rural constituencies of Sindh. The PPP failedto do well even in its traditional support bases in southern Punjab, largelyinhabited by the Seraikis. The sympathy wave in Punjab was more for Nawazbecause of the way he was sought to be humiliated by Musharraf after the coup.The PML (N) won many more seats in Punjab than the PPP. Even the Rawalpindiarea, where Benazir was assassinated, voted for the PML (N).