Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had been a phenomenon by himself in Pakistan’s power politics. With his razor-sharp intellect he understood it the best. None could better understand than him the dynamics of Pakistan’s power struggle as an insider of Ayub’s inner circle till 1965. He had the feel of grasp of the generals’ ambitions and the politician’s limitation. He wanted to impose once for all the civilians’ supremacy over the politics and carefully proceeded to clip the wings of the potential Bonaparte’s and demanded the military’s unflinching loyalty during his civilian rule. He deliberately picked up an obscure general Ziaul Haq for the top slot of the army to rest assured about his vulnerable flank on the military front.

But when his political front was crumbling after the allegedly rigged 1977 election, his only consolation was that of a loyal military. Bhutto realised his gaffe when he was unceremoniously taken into custody after a state banquet for Iran’s Princess Ashraf although General Zia did not want to take charge immediately and proceeded with great circumspection. He howsoever accurately identified the potential opposition, if any, to his takeover in 1977 and did not hesitate to hang his benefactor in a controversial case of political murder.

Zia died before he could show predilection for any successor, many believe that he would not have done it at all. He never compromised on the question of power or its sharing even with his closest colleague or relative. Till the end he clinched the baton of Army chief of staff which he knew as his only source of power. But he did not patronise his admirers.

Nawaz Sharif, now Pakistan’s prime minister and acclaimed a democrat was a Zia protégé and was in a wider sense the favourite of the army with whom he hobnobbed throughout Zia rule. When General Zia put on a civilian façade for his administration during mid-eighties Nawaz Sharif was made the chief minister of the key province of Punjab. Although as a backlash to prolonged Zia rule, Banazir Bhutto came to power on a sympathy wave in 1986, Sharif remained the military’s democratic choice’ after Zia’s death.

In 1996 when Sharif returned to power for the second term with a resounding victory and later after a bitter struggle with the presidency and judiciary consolidated his power, the military was obviously on alert. It was on red alert when the prime minister fired general Jegangir Karamat to further consolidate power and did not relish Sharif who was in any case the military’s creation wielding such authority.

The whole nation watched with trepidation the removal of Karamat. As the prime minister’s choice fell on Pervez Musharaf to be the next chief of Army staff it was on its face value believed to be masterstroke of Sharif to get a Mahajir to quell the Mahajir uprising in Sind. Therefore there was not much reaction in the Army.

Few had thought that Musharaf, a person promoted by Sharif, would be anything more than a pliant subordinate to the prime minister. General Musharaf, however, soon showed that he was his own man and not willing to staunchly follow the benefactor. Within months he demonstrated a temperament which gave an indication of the shape of things to emerge later. When Atal Behari Vajpaee went to Lahore riding Amritsar-Lahore Bus General Musharaf with other two services chiefs defied the protocol and refused to attend the ceremonial welcome at Wagha along with the prime minister. The rift appeared between the two when Musharaf, the architect of Kargil wanted the prime minister to own it, but the latter made efforts to wriggle out of it.

The love once given to one can be dangerous if it is shifted to another. Sharif made his faux pas by doing exactly that. There was immediate backlash when Sharif chose loyalist to replace Musharaf. There were a plethora of justifications for Musharaf to topple Sharif’s elected government from misrule to economic bungling to destroy the country’s institutions but perhaps no less involved in it are the questions of the self-preservation of the military itself and perhaps its burning desire to avenge Pakistan’s humiliating climb-down from Kargil.

Ever since the mysterious death of general Zia the Pakistan political leadership, a byproduct of the military under its patronage, tried to sideline the army. The process gained momentum when Sharif won his last election. The Eighth Amendment of the constitution foiled by putting in place the troika -- a power sharing arrangement between presidency parliament and military was done away with. The political leadership gradually seems to be establishing itself as the main repository of the power in Pakistan. For a while the Army too seemed resigned to its unsoldierly role of maintaining routine law and order and collecting dues for the water and electricity board. The military’s latent displeasures were however inadvertently sparked by Sharif’s shifting favour. But would you call it return of classical democracy in Pakistan?

Brig (retd) Hafiz is a former DG of