The smile of a spin doctor

Now, Hussain is more than just a spin doctor. He not only advises the Prime Minister on matters relating to the media, he also plays an active part in formulating many government decisions. Many see him as a voice of reason in a cabinet that comprises rich and powerful politicians, both businessmen and fuedal landlords. Mushahid is neither.

“Somehow, we never see Mushahid as a politician. We see him more as a journalist doing a politician’s job,” comments one journalist.

It is not the first time that journalists have ended up taking high-profile government positions in Pakistan. “And it won’t be the last,” says one old hack. Some became ambassadors: Maleeha Lodhi, editor of The News, completed a very successful term as an ambassador to the United States.

Another journalist, Wajid Shamshul Hasan, saw his tenure as High Commissioner in London come to an abrupt end with the fall of the Bhutto government last year. But there are some who couldn’t make it to the top: Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Times, was denied a position as High Commissioner to the UK by Benazir Bhutto which ensured that from then on, Sethi went on a rampage against the Bhutto government.

Nearly three years later, he got his reward: President Leghari made him an advisor on accountability in the caretaker government — an empty, if high-sounding, position. Today, in the accountability cell which functions out of the Prime Minister’s secretariat, another editor — Rafi Afghan of the ultra-right-wing magazine, Takbeer — advises Senator Saif ur Rehman. The cell tries to nail corrupt persons, particularly government servants and businessmen.

For the Pakistani journalist, politics has always been a tempting position. “But we should sit on the side of the fence and report. Not take active part,” says Rahimullah Yusafzai, a respected journalist based in Peshawar.

Yusafzai’s advice is heeded by few: Zia Shahid, the owner of the dubious Khabrain newspaper just got elected as senator by default. Columnist Ayaz Amir bade farewell to his outspokeness and joined the Pakistan Muslim League — Nawaz (PML-N), landing a seat as a provincial assembly member from Punjab.

And, of course, there is Mushahid Hussain, the former editor of The Muslim, once a leading newspaper of Islamabad, who was elected senator on a PML-N ticket within months of Nawaz Sharif coming to power in February.

For Hussain, it has been a long and patient journey to the envious position he is in today. It is a complete turnaround from where he stood about a decade back when, for a brief period of time, he was declared persona non grata in the circles that mattered in Islamabad. That regretable incident revolved around a meeting between Kuldip Nayyar and Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man behind’s Pakistan nuclear programme.

The meeting, understood to have been made possible by Hussain, cost him dearly. He lost his job as the editor of The Muslim. There was a brief period of oblivion before his entry into the Muslim League. It was, however, the manipulations of another journalist, Hussain Haqqani, that landed Hussain in the lap of Nawaz Sharif.

A staunch member of the right wing Jamaat a-Islami party, Haqqani became the press advisor to Nawaz Sharif in the formative years of the PML-N party. Before that, he had been a correspondent for The Far Eastern Economic Review. As the first acknowledged spin doctor of the post-Zia era, Haqqani built up Sharif’s image and also excelled in the dirty tricks department.

Some journalists say that Haqqani was behind much of the mud-slinging that took place between Sharif and Bhutto when the latter became Prime Minister in 1988 following the death of Zia.

But Haqqani was an ambitious man: he ditched Nawaz Sharif for President Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s camp in the 1993 tussle for power between the Prime Minister and President. Haqqani then left Ishaq Khan and joined the camp of Benazir Bhutto, who rewarded him with the position of federal information secretary.

Haqqani’s exit provided Hussain the chance he was waiting for. He joined the PML-N and within days was named the information secretary of the party. His journalistic credentials impressed Nawaz Sharif into giving him this important portfolio. The fact that both Hussain and Nawaz Sharif come from Lahore helped, especially since Haqqani, the “traitor”, was a Karachi-wallah.

Mushahid Hussain may have left The Muslim, but for most journalists he was still very much their colleague. He kept that special relationship throughout the years the PML-N was in opposition. He would sit at the party’s media centre, a two-room annexe at the back of the PML House in Islamabad and meet whichever journalist cared to drop by for information or backgrounders.

It goes to Hussain’s credit that the PML was able to get its information wing into order. Today, it is the only party that keeps detailed records of news events, regularly holds news briefings and even sends press releases through Internet.

Today, Hussain vows to take that technology into the dusty corridors of the information ministry. He has announced plans to totally revamp it. But some people are skeptical. But that doesn’t discourage Hussain. For him, this is the challenge that he has been waiting for.

He has ambitions to computerise the distribution of government press releases and hold workshops on a regular basis for journalists. The workshops have started but the computerisation remains elusive — the bureaucrats are still mulling over this revolution that seems to have swept through their ministry.

But for many others, Hussain comes as a breath of fresh air although his style of working has left many breathless. Since it is he who has the best understanding of the ground reality, he is slowly taking centrestage in Pakistan’s political arena.