jason burke watches the same old actors playing for power on the Pakistani stage |
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So another act opens in the Shakespearean drama that is Pakistani politics. Scene One, Islamabad airport: enter stage left one of the villains of the piece - a short, tubby, uncharismatic man called Nawaz Sharif (right), who was PM until 1999 when he was ousted in an army coup.
Waiting for him on stage is General Pervez Musharraf, the man who kicked him out of power and sent him into a seven-year exile. Musharraf, who is coming to the end of his second presidential term and retains the command of the armed forces, is looking weaker than ever before.
Waiting in the wings is Benazir Bhutto, who like Sharif has also been PM twice - and twice dismissed for incompetence, corruption or both and still faces charges of graft.
While Sharif was attempting a frontal assault on power before he was summarily deported this morning, Bhutto is looking |
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| Nawaz Sharif is a short, tubby, uncharismatic man who was PM before being ousted in a coup |
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to go through the back door. For six months she has been negotiating a deal with Musharraf which would, more or less, see him staying put as president with her as his prime minister (or at least offered a good chance of election at coming legislative polls).
Last week Bhutto told me that she would return whatever happened – for the good of the constitution and the
nation.
Looking on are 150m Pakistanis, most of them in rags, some angry lawyers who have needled Musharraf for months, the army
themselves (who are loath to give up power and its political, economic and social benefits), and the religious lobby who, under Musharraf, have succeeded in entrenching themselves solidly in the west of the country, not least because the president has had to lean on them for political support given his lack of the genuine democratic variety.
Is this the denouement? Unlikely. There will be plenty of sound and fury and Pakistan may soon have a new political set-up. But it’s far from the end of the play. It’s a shame however that it’s the same old players. 
FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 10, 2007
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