Pakistani army chief considered plan to oust president

Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, considered pushing President Asif Ali Zardari from office and forcing him into exile to resolve a political dispute, the US embassy cables reveal.
Kayani aired the idea during a frantic round of meetings with the US ambassador Anne Patterson in March 2009 as opposition leader Nawaz Sharif rallied thousands of supporters in a street movement that threatened to topple the government.
Kayani said that while he disliked Zardari, he distrusted Sharif even more, and appeared to be angling for a solution that would prevent the opposition leader from coming to power.
The cable illustrates the strong behind-the-scenes hand of Pakistan's military in civilian politics only six months after the last military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, resigned.
It also highlights the central role of western diplomats in Pakistani power games – as the Americans spoke with Kayani, British diplomats forged their own plan to broker a political deal between warring factions.
The crisis was sparked by Zardari's attempt to bar Sharif from running for parliament and his refusal to reinstate the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry.
As a powerful protest movement of opposition supporters and lawyers grew in Sharif's stronghold of Lahore, western diplomats scrambled to defuse the situation with Kayani's help.
During his fourth meeting with Patterson in less than a week, the taciturn army chief "hinted that he might, however reluctantly, have to persuade President Zardari to resign if the situation sharply deteriorates".
He said Zardari could be replaced by Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Pashtun nationalist Awami National party, but the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, would remain in place.
As such, this "would not be a formal coup", Patterson noted, but would leave in place a government led by Zardari's PPP party.
But Kayani made it clear he hoped the US could resolve the crisis through negotiation because he did not want Sharif in power. "Regardless of how much he disliked Zardari he distrusted Sharif even more," it said.
Kayani told Patterson that his top generals, known as the Corps Commanders, had expressed disquiet about Zardari because he was thought to be corrupt and had neglected Pakistan's "economic and security challenges", he said.
The military's spymaster, ISI chief General Shuja Pasha, made similar complaints about Zardari during a flight to America for a review of the strategic relationship between the two allies, the ambassador reported. "We have multiple sources demonstrating army complaints about Zardari," she said.
The preference for Gilani fuels long-standing speculation that the army leadership views the prime minister as a more palatable, or pliable, figure.
Patterson speculated that the army chief did not air his grievances directly with Zardari because he wanted to avoid any confrontation that might prompt Zardari to try to oust him – a "disastrous" possibility.
The British ambassador, Robert Brinkley, was working his own lines. He told the Americans he had received permission from London to "approach the various sides [and] discern their bottom lines". But the UK had not decided whether it would take on the role of mediator.
In the end Zardari was forced into a humiliating climbdown on 16 March when, under massive pressure, he dropped the ban on Sharif and reinstated Chaudhry. Reports at the time speculated that Kayani had played a central role in forcing Zardari to change course.
The drama prompted an American re-evaluation of the critical relationship between the president and army chief. Only a month earlier, the embassy reported that they had developed a "respectful if not entirely trusting working relationship".
"Kayani has gone out of his way to publicly defer to Zardari because he needs political support to wage successful military operations. After eight years of military rule under Musharraf, Zardari is re-shaping civilian-military relations in the shadow of Pakistan's history of repeated military coups."Sharif has much in common with the army leadership – his Punjabi roots, conservative politics and a history of supporting military rule. But he earned the army's wrath in 1999 with his bungled attempt to fire the then army chief Pervez Musharraf – a mistake that ultimately forced Sharif into exile.