That his surrogates, the MQM in Karachi and the PML-Q in Punjab, did indeed do so in an underhand way at times to please their master and benefactor general is another story. The MQM’s virtual sealing of Karachi on May 12, 2007 to prevent the deposed chief justice from entering the city after he had landed there, and the PML-Q’s sealing of the opposition Jamaat-i-Islami headquarters to prevent anti-Musharraf rallies in Lahore, or its crackdown on Sharif supporters to prevent them from going to Islamabad airport to receive their leader coming back from exile in September 2007, were the only occasions. However, both the MQM and the PML-Q denied that they had ordered any preventive measures to keep the people from exercising their right to protest; they sheepishly shifted the blame of such measures taken on the local police.

This time round, Zardari cannot even hide behind any such excuse. His ministers and advisors have made no bones about having ordered a crackdown on opposition and civil society leaders to prevent them from converging on the capital to demand the restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary, and that Zardari fulfil his other promises including restoring parliament’s sovereignty vested in it by the constitution, and which Musharraf stole by amassing all powers in the president. Many in the People’s Party itself find Zardari’s brand of politics as lacking morality and thus untenable. An old Bhutto loyalist, PPP’s Senator Raza Rabbani, resigned from the cabinet in protest a day before Zardari nominated his own loyalist and a newcomer, Farooq Naek, for the post of Senate chairman. There are expected to be more fissures of the kind within the party in the weeks ahead, as Zardari’s own trusted men replace those who enjoyed Benazir Bhutto’s confidence.

... contd.