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Military turns up heat on Pakistan leaders
New York Times - September 30, 2010
Jane Perlez, Islamabad – The Pakistani military, angered by the inept handling of the country's devastating floods and alarmed by a collapse of the economy, is pushing for a shake-up of the government and, in the longer term, even the removal of President Asif Ali Zardari and his top lieutenants.
The military, preoccupied by a war against militants and reluctant to assume direct responsibility for the economic crisis, has made clear it is not eager to take over the government, as it has many times before, military officials and politicians said.
But the government's performance since the floods, which have left 20 million homeless and the nation dependent on handouts from sceptical foreign donors, has laid bare the deep underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders.
US officials, too, say it has left them increasingly disillusioned with Mr Zardari, a deeply unpopular president who was elected two-and-a-half years ago on a wave of sympathy after the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
In a meeting on Monday the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, confronted the President and his Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, over incompetence and corruption in the government. According to local media reports, the general demanded they dismiss at least some ministers in the oversized 60-member cabinet, many of whom are facing corruption charges.
The government has so far resisted the general's demand. But the meeting was widely interpreted by the Pakistani media, which has grown increasingly hostile to the President, as a rebuke to the politicians and as having pushed the government to the brink.
Since the floods, the government has defended its handling of the crisis, arguing any government would have been overwhelmed by the scale.
But General Kayani, head of the country's most powerful institution and the one that has taken the lead in the flood crisis, has ratcheted up the pressure on the government.
Having secured an exceptional three-year extension in his post from Mr Zardari in July, General Kayani appears determined to prevent the economy from falling into bankruptcy.
Military officers in the main cities have been talking openly and expansively about their contempt for the Zardari government and what they term the economic calamity, an unusual candour, reporters and politicians said.
"The gross economic mismanagement by the government is at the heart of it," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University and a confidant of the military. "And there is the rising public disaffection with the Pakistani Peoples Party under Zardari and Gilani."
Much of the rising distain for the government has to do with the perception of the callous and inept handling of the floods by the wealthy ruling class.
In his most recent visit to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the international community could not be expected to provide all the billions of dollars needed to repair the flood damage, a warning interpreted here as a rebuke of the civilian government and its mismanagement.
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