Between them, Pakistan’s four military rulers since 1958 have virtually created a new concept in political science that can best be termed ‘the divine right of army chiefs’. It is patterned on the ‘divine right of kings,’ the absolutist doctrine that asserted that a monarch derived his right to rule from the will of God.

According to the doctrine of divine right, a king’s authority could not be restricted by the will of his subjects, the aristocracy, the judiciary or a Constitution. Any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers was deemed as rebellion against the will of God. A similar philosophy appears to be at work in Pakistan. Only a belief in the divine right of army chiefs can explain some of the assertions made by General Pervez Musharraf in his press conference over the weekend. Quite clearly, he sees his decisions as the law of the land.

His statements also indicate his belief that the army chiefs, and not judges, have the ultimate authority to interpret the law. But he is not the first military chief to consider himself above the law. Field Marshal Ayub Khan abrogated the 1956 Constitution and then introduced a Constitution in 1962, which began with words to the effect, “I, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, do hereby give the Islamic Republic of Pakistan the following Constitution.”

That language was unusually similar to the one used by King John of England in the preface of the Magna Carta in 1215! In 1969, Ayub Khan abrogated the 1962 Constitution and handed power over to the next army chief in a move akin to abdication in a monarchy.

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