Non-Subscriber Extract
Military reshuffle key to Pakistan's political future
28 September 2007
A few years ago, a new concept began to gain currency among members of US President George W Bush's administration and the military's Central Command. This was the 'Musharraf Model', an unofficial doctrine of promoting seemingly moderate and popular US-friendly dictators, fashioned after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in troubled countries across South Asia, such as Nepal and Bangladesh. However, it was never successfully advanced. Now, with Musharraf's announcement on 18 September that he will give up his army uniform if he is re-elected as president, the model's prospects are being challenged in Pakistan itself.
As Pakistan looks towards presidential elections, scheduled for 6 October, and then general elections, many analysts predict a repeat of the 'democratic transition' of the 1990s. Following General Zia ul-Haq's death in 1988, the army returned the country to nominal civilian rule, but continued dictating foreign policy, and had a hidden (or not so hidden) hand in domestic affairs as well. One of the key ingredients of that dispensation was for the army to have a reliable civilian ally in the presidency in the form of bureaucrat Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who used his presidential power to dissolve the elected assemblies (under Zia's eighth amendment to the constitution), and sack the first Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif governments once the army had had enough of them. Musharraf is essentially trying to reverse that equation: a powerful civilian president with reliable allies in command of the army, who will side with him when he thinks it is time to dismiss the party in power.
As part of this strategy, Musharraf undertook a military reshuffle on 21 September. The reshuffle saw Lieutenant General Mohsin Kamal promoted to commander of the 10th Army Corps, which is based in Rawalpindi and, militarily, he has arguably the most important area of responsibility, including Kashmir. The main political significance of the promotion is that in the event of a coup, the role of the 10th Army Corps becomes critical. In this situation, the notorious 111th brigade, which falls under the command of the 10th Corps, is the unit that would surround key government establishments and arrest key political personalities, as it did in the October 1999 coup against Sharif's government.