The King of Cliftonia
By HUMA YUSUF
LONDON — General Pervez Musharraf has announced his intention to return to Pakistan this Sunday. The country’s former president and army chief is coming home as a civilian politician to contest an ordinary parliamentary seat in elections scheduled for May.
Not so long ago, this would have been inconceivable.
After assuming power in a bloodless coup in 1999, Musharraf ruled Pakistan for almost a decade, until he was ousted by a popular movement calling for an independent judiciary and democratic rule. He spent the next five years in exile between London and Dubai. In the meantime, democracy settled in: This past weekend, the current civilian government became Pakistan’s first popularly elected government to complete a full term.
Despite lingering concerns that the army is still trying to rule by proxy, reactions to news of Musharraf’s return — rage and ridicule rather than fears of a military takeover — reveal just how much the Pakistani military has been humbled.
When I interviewed Musharraf in London in 2010, he had settled into a modest three-bedroom apartment near Edgware Road, which is most famous for its kebab shops. Very soon, he will get a welcome no Pakistani general is accustomed to.
Musharraf is wanted by an anti-terrorist court on charges that he failed to provide adequate security for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in Deccember 2007. Some politicians are calling for Musharraf to be tried for treason, a crime punishable by death. The Pakistani courts have confiscated his property and frozen his bank accounts.
Nor does Musharraf have much public backing. According to news reports, he has struck an agreement with the Karachi-based political party M.Q.M., a former ally, to stand unopposed by its candidates in the race for the parliamentary seat from Clifton and Defence, a constituency of posh seaside residential areas in the port city.
The Internet-connected, Facebook-happy elite living in those neighborhoods seem to be his only political support. Just weeks ago, in the drawing rooms of Karachi’s upper class I heard praise for the former military dictator. Never mind his authoritarianism: His tenure was remembered as a time of security, prosperity and liberalism. But this privileged demographic is increasingly disconnected from the pro-democracy groups revving up for a historic election: the first handover from one civilian government to another.
The gap between the two was aptly captured on Twitter recently — admittedly by other elite netizens — in some mocking tweets imagining life “when Musharraf becomes King of Cliftonia.” One went, “Clifton Beach will be like the south of France.” Another, “Luxury will not be taxed.” There was also the photograph of Musharraf’s campaign billboard in a Karachi garbage dump.
The general’s return under these new circumstances brings home just how much Pakistan has accomplished in his absence.
Huma Yusuf is a columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and was the 2010-11 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
hopefully he gets clapped up w/some aftermarket ak47s