A PARADE FOR THE GENERAL

Fourteen months after the general election, General Pervez Musharraf's Legal Framework Order (LFO) has finally become part of the constitution. What has seemed like an eternity of wrangling between the government and the opposition (inclusive of the mullahs) has finally come to an end. The agreement reached between the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)—the alliance of six religious parties was announced by General Pervez Musharraf himself over national television. The general, and all the others associated with the deal, proclaimed the triumph of democracy.

Even though the opposition had been clearly disturbed by the whimsical decree which empowered Pervez Musharraf to remain president and army chief for another five years, head a military-civilian National Security Council, dissolve the National Assembly and sack prime ministers, yet to say that this development is unexpected would be naive. A final settlement on the issue had been imminent for many months, even though the MMA continues to strike a pose about the signing of the agreement against "dictatorship". It is now fairly common knowledge that the army has supported far-right religious groups in Pakistan for many years, including some of the parties which belong to the MMA alliance. It is also a well-known fact that there is still much internal tension within the army over the apparent moves of the current leadership to revoke the many privileges that have accrued to the religious right over the past two decades. Therefore, there was only ever going to be one outcome of this overplayed drama—the consummation of the long-standing re-lationship between the mullahs and the military.