PAKISTAN'S AYUB STEPS DOWN

PAKISTAN'S welfare is my life's treasure. I love every particle of its dust. I am convinced that any step I now take to bring peace to the country will have an effect on its future and history." To millions of Pakistanis listening hushed around their transistor radios, the calm, measured voice of President Mohammed Ayub Khan seemed inadequate for the drama of his message. "In all my difficult times," said Ayub, "I have prayed to God for guidance." Then, in a striking echo of Lyndon Johnson's renunciation of the U.S. presidency last year, he declared: "I have decided, in the light of my faith, to announce that I will not be a candidate in the next election. This is my irrevocable decision and there is no possibility of my changing it."

Thus, after more than ten years in power, the 61-year-old President of Pakistan last week bowed to his conscience --and his critics--by declaring that he would step down at the end of his term next year. It was the decision of a concerned man, executed with the dignity and grace of the lifelong soldier that Ayub Khan is. Yet once again it underscored--in a world in which the people increasingly take to the streets--the fragility and vulnerability of all but the very strongest authority.

Candlelight Procession. The pattern of unrest in Pakistan had a familiar beginning in student demands for education reform, which sparked bloody rioting. By last October, however, when civil disorders began to erupt on a wide scale, the opposition to Ayub was pushing far more substantive complaints. One had to do with Ayub's system of "basic democracy," which was really little more than constitutional window dressing to ensure his stay in power. Another was the resentment of the people of East Pakistan, 55% of the divided country's population, over what they felt to be the neglect of their interests by the central government.

The crescendo of violence, of rioting and of police repression mounted over five months until the toll was more than 70 dead. Last week alone, in the five days preceding Ayub's radio surrender, at least 38 people died in disorders in West and East Pakistan. Most of the trouble was in the East, where mob rule shook Dacca, the largest city, and army troops with automatic weapons confronted demonstrators who shrilled: "Rise! Rise!" Scores were injured by bayonets and flying lathis, the steel-tipped bamboo sticks used by the police, and attempts at curfews proved useless. But when Ayub's message flashed across the country, the mood altered instantly. In Karachi and other cities, crowds poured into the streets to dance in jubilation at the news. In Rawalpindi, a candlelight procession took place.

Referendum in the Streets. Ayub had tried to stave off the final denouement by compromising with the opposition. In recent weeks he had canceled the emergency regulations, amounting to military rule, that had been in force since the 1965 war with India. He had released hundreds of political prisoners, and offered to sit down and negotiate reforms with his opponents. That was an invitation that his enemies refused. When Ayub met with leaders of his ruling Pakistan Moslem League to discuss ways out of the dilemma, one aide suggested a referendum on the country's problems. The President, his face grey and hag gard, replied: "What is happening in the streets in the whole country is already a referendum."

The army, which had always been Ayub's primary base of support, may have begun to waver: there were suggestions that Ayub sensed a growing skepticism among its officers. He also realized that he had underestimated his opposition; he knew that former Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, once a loyal ally but now a determined enemy just released from jail, meant business when he declared: "This campaign is not a movement--it is a real, full-fledged revolution." Short of ceaseless bloodletting, there finally seemed to Ayub no alternative but surrender.

Befriending China. Mohammed Ayub Khan came to power in 1958 after a lengthy period of political upheaval and instability. The ramrod-straight, tall (6 ft. 2 in.) Sandhurst-trained commander in chief of the army had a soldierly disdain for politics that initially moved him to resist a military takeover. Once in control, however, he proved to be a natural politician who understood power and knew how to use it. He quickly set to cleaning the political house, pushing land reform, education and an end to corruption. From the beginning, he operated with a mixture of autocracy and measured democracy. In 1962, he pushed through a new constitution that provided for election of the President by 80,000 (later raised to 120,000) so-called basic democrats--men who could theoretically make their own choice but who were essentially under his control. The government "guided" the press and, while Ayub permitted a national assembly, it had only limited powers.

Initially, there were few complaints about Ayub's attempts to create much-needed stability. Displaying a surprising grasp of economics, Ayub modernized agriculture through subsidized fertilizer sales to farmers and through irrigation development, spurred industrial growth with liberal tax benefits. In the decade of his rule, gross national product rose by 45% and manufactured goods began to overtake such traditional exports as jute and cotton.*He shunned prestige projects and stressed birth control in a country that has the fifth largest population in the world: 125 million. He dismissed criticism with the comment that if there was no family planning, the time would surely come when "Pakistanis eat Pakistanis." In foreign affairs, he retained his ties to the West but also maneuvered toward a more neutral position by befriending China and moving closer to the Soviet Union. His main foreign policy executor then was Bhutto, who was militantly nationalist, often strongly anti-Western and afflicted with a near fanatic hatred of India.

By 1965, shortly after Ayub had won a second presidential term in a surprisingly close election that pitted him against Fatima Jinnah--the sister of Pakistan's founder, Mohammed AH Jinnah--he began running into problems. Pakistan's small educated elite, shut out from power, began to turn against him, criticizing his arrogance and intolerance as well as his reluctance to delegate authority. There were increasingly bitter allegations of corruption, centering on his eldest son Gohar Ayub, who had risen from army captain to millionaire in six years. Ayub's reaction to all complaints was to impose tighter curbs on the press and his opponents. His reputation took another dip with the near calamitous war with India. Ayub's propaganda organs claimed victory when even the simplest peasant could see that that was nowhere near the truth.

When Bhutto condemned the Soviet-sponsored Tashkent Agreement, which restored the old Indo-Pakistan borders, Ayub fired his Foreign Minister--although offering him an ambassadorship as a sop. Bhutto elected to stay at home and became increasingly critical of the President, a stand that gained him wide support among students and intellectuals. Last November, Ayub finally jailed him on charges of inciting to riot and endangering the national security--clearly an attempt to head the former Foreign Minister away from a presidential challenge later this year. By that time the opposition had hardened about demands for abandoning the "basic democrat" system, and Bhutto had become one of its loudest spokesmen.

Titular Presidency. When Ayub finally gave up last week, he renewed his offer to negotiate with his opponents on constitutional reform based on "free and democratic elections." If there was no agreement, he warned, he would evolve his own proposals. Some sources think that they will probably feature a titular presidency in a British-style parliamentary democracy, based on universal suffrage, as well as more regional autonomy for East and West Pakistan. Ayub has a year to lay the foundations for his ideas while opposition leaders struggle for the succession.

The challenge with which the President has confronted the opposition is formidable indeed. By removing himself from the political scene, he has deprived his opponents of the one aim that all agreed on: opposition to his rule. To avoid the instability of the pre-Ayub period--the President once called that era "an agonizingly prolonged political farce"--the opposition will have to work together. But existing divisions among the opposition parties make that at best a tenuous hope.

Moreover, the leading contenders for future leadership either have only local backing or command only a small popular base of support. Bhutto, the only Ayub enemy to have announced his availability for the succession, is strong only in West Pakistan and would probably not receive the endorsement of the Democratic Action Committee, an essentially conservative alliance of eight parties that combined forces to pressure Ayub. Sheik Mujibur Rahman, a fiery and popular East Pakistani who advocates partial autonomy for his area, would do well in East Pakistan but might raise fears of secession in the West. Retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan, a recent arrival on the political front and the sober, solid head of Pakistan International Airlines, has virtually no popular base, though he might eventually appeal to the Democratic Action Committee parties. For all his weaknesses, Ayub was an imposing national figure even before he took power in 1958. None of the men who have combined to depose him and propose to replace him can make that claim.

*The country's wealth still remained concentrated in a few hands. A government economic expert estimated last fall that 20 families control 66% of industry and 80% of banking.

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