Is it payback time?

The issue of the restoration of judges has kept the whole nation on tenterhooks for the last so many months. Negotiations between the two parties at London have come to an end. Both mainstream parties - PPP and PML-N - have diverse perceptions on the subject which resulted in the failure of talks. PML-N thinks that the people voted it into power because of its unswerving principled stance on restoration of the deposed judges; PPP contends it earned victory at the polls because of its catchy slogans for the poor. Thus, both parties hold onto their own sensitivities. But PPP and PML-N are not the only two stakeholders; there is one more - Musharraf with US backing. The general offered Asif Zardari and associates an instrument - the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). How does Zardari expect to return the favour offered to him as a bailout bonanza? Hence, Zardari remains indebted to the president for withdrawing cases of money laundering against him and bestowing upon him the litigious billions in foreign bank accounts and real estate abroad. The NRO was neither a one-way affair nor an act of philanthropy by the general. In power politics there is no free lunch. General (retd) Musharraf and Asif Zardari are in the bind because of their own predicaments - Zardari for getting back his enormous riches duly cleared of culpability and the president for remaining in power.

Since the PPP has returned to power after ten long years; it cannot afford to miss the opportunity the elections have offered it, for the sake of principled politics. Its stakes, however, are not as high as Musharraf's, who faces a serious dilemma of his survival. By fighting the US War on Terror, which many consider a superpower's ploy to exploit resources (oil and gas estimated at 11-13 trillion dollars) of the Central Asian States, he has infuriated his own people. For his personal protection, therefore, he has to cling to power to live behind hermetically sealed security perimeters, which cost the poor nation dearly. He is even willing to concede 58(2)(b) to retain his present position.