Waiting in the General Lounge

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Eventually it was all three speeches that Musharraf decided to read out.

For the week preceding his address to the Nation- he must have been considering his options- just as drawing rooms across Pakistan were, just as journalists like us who were gathering in Islamabad were. PTV, with a flourish unknown to state television anywhere had a permanent popup box flashing on its screen- Impeachment or Resignation? it said. Impeachment or Resignation? Would he quit without a fight, or stand and face parliament?

Or, as we had watched him do since the February 18th election, simply pretend nothing had happened, that he was going to continue as Pakistan's legally-elected President until his term expired in 2012, and extend our waiting game by another week, another month. But nobody I knew, nobody I met who knew him thought he could actually stay. So, when would he go? I believe, not even Musharraf knew until just before it happened.

As I touched down at the Rawalpindi airport on Wednesday- an SMS from a diplomat lit up on my telephone screen- "Welcome to Islamabad. Who else is here to circle the corpse?" Because that's what we were, foreign journalists hovering in to watch the end of Musharraf's era close-up- an endless game of wait and watch. Would it be at the stroke of the midnight hour on Thursday, on Independence day eve? Or would he wait till Friday, after the celebrations were over? It couldn't possibly be Saturday, many in his inner circle pointed out- as he was due to attend the wedding celebrations of his son's sister-in-law (a high-powered Army affair). And Sunday? Sunday marked 20 years to the day the last military ruler of Pakistan, General Zia Ul Haq went up in a plane and never came down. No matter how good the goodbye speech was, there was no way the next day's newspapers wouldn't draw unfortunate comparisons between the two.

I was glad I got in on Wednesday night, to witness a surreal scene. Inside the Presidential palace, the Aiwan-e-Sadr Musharraf was watching a tacky song and dance Jashn-E-Azaadi performance with his friends and the few politicians still allied to him. Outside dozens of people were filling up the road and main piazza of constitution avenue with flaming torches, candles, shouting "Go, Musharraf, Go!". I've heard those chants many times in the past few months- but the fact that most of the protestors were lawyers in black court outfits meant that on that black night all I could see were a thousand lights- the festively lit up Presidential secretariat, Parliament and all the other official buildings as a backdrop, and the glow of a thousand flames marching up and down the road in front. Great TV moment, that didn't change much the next morning. Independence day dawned, and Pakistan wasn't yet free of all the uncertainty that was casting a shadow over the celebrations.

By Sunday, I joined the ranks of those who felt the waiting game would take another week at least- for months before that, news from Pakistan had ensured my weekends were ruined- from the Chief Justice's sacking in March (on a Friday), to the violent protests in Karachi (Saturday) to the Lal Masjid crackdown (Sunday-Monday) to Musharraf's emergency declaration (Saturday night), Musharraf had gone single-mindedly after all my weekends. So why should things change now? I decided to head back to Delhi for some fresh clothes, with a resolve to return to the waiting game the following weekend. I was saved by the bell quite literally that Monday. A phone call from a colleague in Delhi who said Musharraf's resignation was near, another from a local channel Editor in Islamabad informing me he was about to address the nation. I promised to remember them both in my prayers forever, and doubled back from the airport, fighting Islamabad's rush hour traffic along the way. Clearly no one was bunking working amidst all the uncertainty, and I huffed and puffed my way to a television screen at a colleagues office to make it in time.

You may remember, I mentioned three speeches at the beginning. I also said that Musharraf was probably still making up his mind to the last minute.

So, I guess, being the master-planner that he is, he had prepared three speeches in advance of the big day. And eventually, it was all three that he delivered, back-to-back.

One was the defence of his actions. All that he had done for Pakistan in 9 years at its helm. Leave out the coup and dismissing the judiciary, put in the dams and the roads, the empowerment of women and rural governments, take credit for the economy and currency boom, blame the rest on the new government. It was a speech he would give to the whole nation on TV if he chose to resign, or to Parliament if he chose to fight the impeachment.

The next speech was the defiant one- 'I will defend my honour and my record- bring on your charge-sheet - because I will prove you wrong.' Even as he delivered that part of his address I could see heads drooping- at markets where people watched him in small crowds around tv screens- he's not going without a fight, they said. My SMS inbox was busy- NW WHAT? I CNT BLV HE ISNT GNG! IMPCHMT WILL BE LONG AND BLDY AWFUL-were the msgs filling up my screen. My fledgling bookie business was in real peril during those moments- I had practically committed on air and in bets with other journalists, that the President was going to quit. (My conviction not coming from superior journalistic analysis- but from the fact that PTV- that had blacked out his Jash-E-Azaadi speech just four days before, was now taking it, all 75 minutes of it, live!)On Dawn News, an anchor later described the speech as a roller-coaster ride.

And then, he paused, looked up, and made sideward eye-contact with his audience- as if to say he wasn't convinced about what he was about to do, but here goes anyway. The General took a deep breath, held his nose, and jumped off the high-diving board. If you ask me, it was the best of all three speeches- the one Musharraf gave so completely from the heart. He had tried to make friends with the government and had failed. He had hoped they would work with him, but was convinced they never would. He could stay and fight, but there would be no winners from that bout, only losers. And the biggest loser would be the country, that needed desperately for this war between its Presidency and its Parliament to end.

As he said Khuda Hafiz to the nation, his admirers had tears in their eyes, but I saw that even those who had cursed him, had prayed he'd go, were looking embarrassedly at their feet. Musharraf had been hated by many, but it was easier to hate the man who had doggedly resisted all calls for his removal, than the man who was admitting on national TV that he had tried to fight and failed, that he was a middle-class man defeated by the feudal and powerful forces that still controlled Pakistan. You must remember that not everything Musharraf says is true, but once he says it,oracle-like, he is completely convinced it must be. But whether you believe him or not, you can bayonet a soldier guarding his bunker- not a man who comes out with his hands in the air on national and international television.

With that final speech, Musharraf has drawn the curtains on the completely bizarre drama he began more than a decade ago. He has squared the circle with a zero-sum game. He took charge of a Pakistan controlled politically by the Bhuttos and the Sharifs, and returned Pakistan to them, with the exception of Benazir. (The Army and the ISI's control of the country, is of course, a constant, no change there.)

So how will the Musharraf decade play out in the country's history books?

Will the architect of Kargil, be given any credit for rewriting a whole new chapter in the India-Pakistan peace process? Will the man who imposed martial law twice, and dismissed his chief justice also twice be remembered at all for holding one of the few elections in Pakistan that was acknowledged as fair? Can a man who shut down channels, banned anchors, muzzled the media and stifled all protest, be seen as the one who ushered in the media revolution in the first place, and allowed the most openly critical commentary of him on TV programmes? Can the man now being blamed for the country's economic crisis be credited with having left office with no charge of having debited the exchequer for personal gain? In the black and white of our views on democracy and military rule, I certainly hope there's space for some grey here.

And what will the former crack-commando in chief himself do? I don't know about you, but I am praying there are no more speeches for a while. My weekend bag is packed, though, just in case.