It is open to question whether General Zia-ul-Haq will be able to form civilian governments in the four provinces and at the centre. He is trying to tempt some politicians, belonging among others to the late Mr. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, with the promise of early elections. He is said to be telling them that a poll under military auspices will not serve much purpose because the people will not take it to have been free and fair. But he has reneged on similar promises so often in the past that it is difficult to believe that any worthwhile politician will take him at his word. Reports from Islamabad suggest that he is not willing to commit himself to a specific date for the promised election. If this is true, it cannot but cast further doubt on his intentions. However, even if he is willing to so commit himself, what assurance can there be that he would abide by it? After all, one main reason why he has refused to hold elections so far has been his fear that the PPP led by Mrs. Bhutto and Miss Bhutto would sweep the polls and that this would seal his own fate. The formation of civilian governments, even with the help of some leading lights of the PPP willing to break away from Mrs. Bhutto, is unlikely to jeopardise the party’s prospects. The chances in fact are that those who make common cause with the general will lose whatever credibility they may now possess. We in India have seen the fate of Congress leaders who broke away from Mrs. Gandhi in 1969 and 1978 and there is no good reason to believe that the story will be any different in Pakistan if elections are in fact held.
General Zia is too shrewd an operator not to know all this. What then is his game? In a sense the answer is obvious. The facade of civilian government will strengthen his position even if marginally. A split in the PPP will also suit him if only because it will enable him to argue that the Bhutto family is not as formidable as most observers take it to be. And while under the proposed dispensation he can keep the reins firmly in his own hands in his capacity as the Chief Martial Law Administrator, he can leave unpleasant decisions to be taken by others. General Ayub Khan did that fairly successfully. Perhaps General Zia is making some other calculations which are not quite obvious. Having met the challenge from other senior Generals which he undoubtedly faced till only recently, he perhaps feels that the facade of civilian government will help prevent a similar threat rising again. While he is strong enough to relax control to some extent, he may well be looking for an arrangement which can give him a longer lease in office than a couple of years. Amidst all this speculation, one thing is certain, General Zia cannot afford the lift the martial law and genuinely share power with active politicians.