It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world

Cyril Almeida | Opinion | From the Newspaper

JUST when you think this place can’t get any loopier…

Now that news of the coup that never was is abating and safe passage has proved illusory, what happened anyway?

Zardari’s innner circle is tight and it’s become even tighter in recent times. But in the land of perma-crisis, where the highest house on the hill is under the most intense of scrutiny, information does trickle out.

Zardari has not quite been himself lately. Obama and the Americans aren’t the only ones who felt AZ wasn’t quite all there after speaking to him: it’s an opinion shared by others here. While Zardari’s minders have tried to cover it up, they can’t prevent the boss from talking when he wants to.

A president under pressure and talking weird leaves the country suddenly in mysterious circumstances — it was a script too tempting for the political opposition and a media waiting to pounce to pass up on.

Cue madness and mayhem here.

Aggrieved as they may be, blame for the speculation lies primarily with the PPP PR machine. Contradictory, nonsense messages put out about the health and whereabouts of the man who sits at the apex of the government isn’t a good idea in the best of circumstances. In the context of the past few weeks, it was sure to ignite a firestorm.

Surely, though, there was something more to it, some may argue. If nothing else, the crafty AZ had decamped to plot a fresh strategy to fight back against his enemies, the least-conspiratorial conspiracy theory goes.

Maybe. And maybe we do have a president who is few cards short of a deck, or worse.

But reality isn’t determined by the state of Zardari’s mind alone. The get-Zardari brigade may want him out, sections of the media, political opposition and army may want him out, but they’re still stuck with the same old problem: how do you get him out?

The only obvious constitutional mechanism: impeachment. But the numbers in parliament simply do not add up. Two-thirds is unthinkable and a simple majority, necessary to get the impeachment ball rolling, is difficult to conjure up in either the

National Assembly or the Senate.

Next is the quasi-constitutional option: use the courts to unseat Zardari, on the grounds he is unfit to hold office because of various cases and allegations against him or because holding dual office is against the spirit of the constitution or via the doctrine of necessity dressed up as some fancy new legal theory.

But that would take the court on to decidedly political terrain, something some on the bench may not be willing to go along with. And it still leaves the awkward question of a third coup, soft or hard, on a certain judge’s watch. One he sanctified, the other he rejected, can he afford to dabble in a third?

Since a hard coup is dismissed by one and all — not even the highest power may be able to save a would-be saviour if he decided to climb into the snake pit just now — that leaves the instrument of the impotent but hopeful: a mistake by AZ.Hound him, harass him, provoke him, test him, see if Zardari makes a mistake and then pounce on it and hope it leads to an unravelling.

After all, a loopy memo no one took seriously decapitated Haqqani. The fishing in that pond is continuing, and other hooks are being tossed in elsewhere. When you want your man but don’t know how to get him, you keep trying.

It helps to have a massively unpopular figure as a target, a hound-like media ready to tear after any rabbit flung in its path and a country which seems to have just two settings: more crisis and less crisis.

Unhappily for the get-Zardari brigade the ones who ultimately matter, the boys in uniform, aren’t willing to bite yet. Sure they curse their fate and grind their teeth but self-interest can be a wonderful thing: it helps man endure much pain.Oust Zardari

and get what out of it? A caretaker government that buys some time and little else? Fresh elections in which Sharif, who still won’t play ball with the army, or a wounded Zardari/PPP will get another shot against each other or the untested IK? It

doesn’t make sense.

But for the clowns at the amateur hour known as the PPP PR machine, the last week could have been one of ordinary rumour and speculation. Instead, they let it snowball into an epic media circus.

So is Zardari safe until the end of his term in Sept ’13? Not quite.

Outside the core of the get-Zardari brigade, the ones who want him out because they just can’t stomach the idea of him as president, is a bigger group with much self-interest at stake.

Constitutionally, the latest the next general election can be held is May 2013. Even if Zardari doesn’t stretch this parliament’s existence to the absolute maximum, as things stand he will still be president come the next general election.A partisan president with a hand-picked caretaker government and sacks of money to throw around: it’s not exactly a combination Zardari’s adversaries will relish competing against. The political opposition because it means the electoral pitch will be queered against it. The boys in uniform because they’re the ones who prefer queering the pitch and deciding such stuff.

So there will be an almighty attempt to nudge Zardari out eventually. Just not for the reason or at the time many suppose.

Whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad: it still applies. But madness must come from up above, not thrust on from the desperate below. For sure, there’s been a case of madness in Pakistan this week, but it’s not quite where many are assuming it occurred.

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com