The long march to normalcy - Salil Tripathi

Pakistan did not follow the copybook of its past. This does not mean Pakistan has overnight become a full-fledged democracy. After all, there are legitimate questions about the soon-to-be-reappointed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. In 2000, Chaudhry agreed to take oath under Pervez Musharraf’s controversial Provisional Constitutional Order, even as 18 judges of Pakistan’s high courts and the Supreme Court resigned. In 2005, he dismissed petitions challenging Musharraf’s constitutional amendments and legitimized his Legal Framework Order. It was only two years later, when Chaudhry questioned the privatization of a steel mill, and later challenged the government over the detention of hundreds of people without trial, that relations between the general and the judge truly soured, leading to his removal. Lawyers spiritedly protested then, but they were not successful. President Asif Ali Zardari had agreed with Nawaz Sharif that Chaudhry would be reinstated; backtracking on that promise threatened to derail Pakistan’s flawed democracy once again as it unravelled that unlikely alliance; and only Zardari’s capitulation ensured that the dispute did not end violently.

That sobering reality does not alter the balance of power: The military comes out looking good; the mullahs are waiting; and Sharif is plotting his next move. Was the past weekend the turning point or the tipping point?