General’s Gaulle

According to a biography of de Gaulle: ‘‘Until 1958, (de Gaulle) opposed what became, in November 1946, the Fourth French Republic. He campaigned against the new constitution…In 1947, he formed the Rally of the French People (Rassemblement du Peuple Fran‡ais; RPF), a mass movement that grew rapidly in strength and that to all intents and purposes became a political party in 1951, when it obtained 120 seats in the National Assembly.”

So de Gaulle was, after the World War II, a political figure, not a military commander. According to one of his many biographers, here is how de Gaulle became head of France’s government: ‘‘(De Gaulle) affirmed his determination not to come to power by other than legal means, and there was never any evidence of his association with insurgent plans to bring him back…On June 1, three days after President Ren‚ Coty threatened to resign unless de Gaulle’s return to power was accepted, (de Gaulle) presented himself before the National Assembly as a Prime Minister-designate and on the following day attended the session (of parliament) (having been duly ‘‘invested’’ as PM) and was authorised to reform the constitution and accorded the special powers that he demanded…On December 21, 1958, de Gaulle was elected President of the Republic.’’

Thus, contrary to Musharraf’s assumption, de Gaulle was not a military ruler at all. He was just a military man who organised a political movement, got invested as PM by parliament and then gave his country a constitution. He did not imprison the politicians he replaced, did not involve the military in governance, and did not undertake ‘‘accountability’’ through military officers. De Gaulle did not rule by decree and ad-hoc measures and he did not try to alter election results. Each time he was elected as President, he allowed the Opposition to compete.

In April 1969, de Gaulle called a referendum for the acceptance of regional re-organisation and a reform of the Senate. After he lost the referendum, on April 28, 1969, de Gaulle resigned, to permanent retirement.

General Musharraf is not a widely acclaimed war hero who was called upon by the people and their elected leaders to set the direction of the country. General Musharraf took over as the head of an army that has taken over power in coups d’etat before. Unlike de Gaulle, who engaged in politics, General Musharraf does not like politics and reflects the Pakistan army’s historic dislike of politicians. De Gaulle gave France a constitution and then abided by it. General Musharraf’s constitutional scheme for Pakistan is constantly in flux. When the rules of the game do not suit the exigencies of regime survival, he simply changes the rules.

General de Gaulle’s example is not the only wrong analogy that General Musharraf and apologists for his regime cite. References to South Korea and Turkey are frequently thrown in, without going into detail of how these countries evolved from military rule to full democracy. Unlike the case of France, where General de Gaulle led as a politician-statesman and not as a military ruler, South Korea and Turkey did manage transitions after military coups. But the generals presiding over the ’evolutionary transitions’ of these countries also defined the political ground rules and then abided by them. Turkish and South Korean general-presidents drafted constitutions after some reflection but also wrote in them the manner and schedule for their own withdrawal. There were no clauses in the Turkish and South Korean constitutions that were person-specific, nor was there ambiguity about the exit scenario. Admittedly elections were in some cases delayed to make ’nation building’ possible, but there was no attempt to change election results once elections were held.

The reverse is true in Pakistan, where loyalties of parliamentarians are manipulated by the intelligences services and through the so-called accountability exercise. In Turkey and South Korea, when a political party the military did not like won, as it did in both cases at one stage, the result was respected.

Before General Musharraf invokes the example of de Gaulle or even the generals in Turkey and South Korea, he and his supporters should at least find out more about these political models. Incidentally, de Gaulle did not receive residential plots of land in Defense Housing estates at concessional rates either. There are no such estates in France, Turkey or South Korea. After all, some perquisites of military officers are unique to Pakistan, as is the military’s governance model.

(Husain Haqqani is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC and Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University. He served as adviser to Pakistani prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and as Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka)