Déjà vu in Pakistan: Decoding Musharraf’s 'safe passage' to Saudi Arabia

The wheel appears to be coming full circle in Pakistan in case of its two leaders – current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president General Pervez Musharraf. Thirteen years and three months ago, it was Musharraf who had consented to give Sharif a safe passage and packed him off to Saudi Arabia. Musharraf had terminated Sharif’s second prime ministerial tenure (17 October, 1997- 12 October, 1999) in a bloodless coup and had put him in jail. Unlike the highly vindictive and ruthless General Zia ul Haq, Musharraf was not heartless and did not hang him like Zia had hanged Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto – a starkly similar situation of a benefactor-beneficiary equation turned upside down in the two sets of hunter-hunted leaders of Pakistan: Zia and Bhutto and Musharraf and Sharif. Musharraf agreed to give Sharif a safe passage and allowed him to live in exile in Saudi Arabia. [caption id=“attachment_1462693” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Musharraf’s entry into politics failed. AP[/caption] On 10 December, 2000, Sharif, accompanied by 18 members of his family including his elderly parents, wife Kulsoom and three children, landed in Jeddah in a private jet belonging to the Saudi royal family. Sharif’s Saudi-brokered exile had ended 14 months after Sharif was in jail. Now it is déjà vu in Pakistan’s theatre of the absurd again as Musharraf finds himself in a snake pit having been indicted by a special court in a treason case on 31 March, 53 weeks after he made a foolish move to end his self-imposed exile abroad and returned to Pakistan to contest the general elections. Reports emanating from Pakistan clearly indicate that Musharraf may well be heading the same destination where he had sent his benefactor-turned-foe Sharif. The supreme irony is that this time it is Sharif who would be returning the favour to Musharraf – the starkly similar favour in equal measure. The irony of ironies is that it is once again Saudi Arabia that is brokering the exit deal. The moral of the story is simple and unmissable: Saudi Arabia remains the most potent foreign player in Pakistani polity while the domestic dramatis personae change. Who said Pakistan is driven by three A’s – Army, Allah and America, not necessarily in that order? This is clearly not true. Saudi Arabia is the real X factor in Pakistani polity. It has been there for decades and will continue to be there in the future too – as long as Pakistan survives in its present geographical shape. The Saudi intervention in Musharraf’s case has been the buzz word in power corridors of Pakistan for months. It came to a feverish pitch in January this year when Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal visited Pakistan and met the top political and military leadership. On 7 January, Prince Saud told a press conference in Islamabad that he had not come to Pakistan for any sort of deal with regards to Musharraf and categorically stated that “Saudi Arabia will not interfere in Pakistan’s internal affairs.” Nobody was fooled by Prince Saud’s traditional brand of diplomacy of denial. What has changed since 7 January is the fact Musharraf has been indicted of the most serious charge that can be levelled against any individual on this planet: treason. This is a charge which attracts nothing less than capital punishment. What has given more traction to the talk of impending ’exit plan’ and ‘safe passage’ for Musharraf is the fact that the trial court has very conveniently given a long rope to the Nawaz Sharif government and said that it had no objection if the government were to remove travel ban on the 70-year-old Musharraf for medical treatment abroad. No wonder then within hours of the court ruling Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif reportedly went into a huddle on Tuesday and decided to remove Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List. This makes it clear that Musharraf’s exit from Pakistan is very imminent, perhaps by Wednesday night itself. I have consistently pointed out in my columns in Firstpost that there is no way that Musharraf would be sent to the gallows. A day will never come in Pakistan when a former army chief would be executed by a civilian government for whatever charges, true or false. The army was, is and will always continue to be the extra constitutional body in Pakistan. It will never allow its former chief to be executed. There is one important thing which needs to be kept in mind in context of Musharraf’s exit plan: the terms and conditions of the Saudi-brokered deal. In the case of Sharif’s safe passage to Saudi Arabia, he had agreed not to take part in politics in Pakistan for 21 years. He had also forfeited his property (then valued at 8.3 million dollars) and agreed to pay a fine of half a million dollars. Sharif’s brothers Abbas and Shahbaz, who were serving jail sentences for corruption, were also freed and allowed to leave with him. After a few years, Sharif violated virtually each and every condition he had agreed to and a fuming Musharraf, who was at the peak of his power and glory then, could not raise a finger as Saudi Arabia conveniently looked the other way. It will be interesting to see how the future pans out in case of Musharraf this time. After all, nothing is impossible in politics even in India; and here we are talking about Pakistan. The writer is a FirstPost columnist and a strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha.