(Top) Jemima Khan in London and President Musharraf votes in Rawalpindi. (Reuters, AFP)

Islamabad, Feb. 18: A rank non-journalist has scored the media coup of this non-campaign and President Pervez Musharraf’s PR machinery is struggling to put it down.

Part of their handicap is that their boss collaborated with the coup: he gave a good hour in conversation to Jemima Goldsmith, former wife of bitter critic Imran Khan, who arrived here last week with a calling card from The Independent of London .

Goldsmith returned to file a biting account on her meeting with the President at his colonial camp HQ in Rawalpindi — she called him a dictator-despot and took potshots at his “boot-polish” hair — but trouble has erupted over what Musharraf himself reportedly told her. Goldsmith quoted him on election-eve as saying the PML (Q), the President’s stooge party, would win.

Opposition parties and civil society groups have been in uproar since yesterday, blaming President Musharraf for blatant violation of electoral norms, such as they are in this remote-controlled state — he’s being partisan and is trying to influence the course of this election, they have charged, as President he is meant to remain neutral.

The criticism has clearly stung President Musharraf. His loyal spokesman Rashid Qureshi — Goldsmith likened him to Tony Blair’s famed spin-doctor Alistair Campbell — has been at pains to deny his master voiced any such sentiment.

“Jemima is no journalist,” Qureshi said dismissively of her. Anxious to underplay the import of the Goldsmith’s despatch to The Independent, he added: “She only wanted to see the President and was given time. She asked him a few questions, initially related to her former husband Imran Khan, and then about the results of the election.

“The President told her nothing about the outcome, he only said it was the will of the people.”

Goldsmith’s story makes it quite plain, though, that this was an image-making exercise gone horribly wrong.

President Musharraf was evidently lavish with time and hospitality — piping chicken rolls, roasted almonds, pomegranate juice in his private sitting room — but he may have relied too much on his charms with the British socialite-turned-reporter.

A little sample from her report on the meeting: “Somehow his civilian clothes have diminished him. I find his brown business suit and dainty penny loafers which have replaced the sturdy army boots almost unsettling. He seems to have lost both height and swagger.

“And his body language seems just a touch defensive. The immaculate hair also troubles me. Boot-polish black, artfully grey at the temples, it shows signs of some work. …I’d forgotten that Pakistani women are expected to overplay their femininity. I’m lounging like a bloke and downing pomegranate juice like lager.

“Often he fails to see the irony in his own words, which can be unintentionally comic. Several times I have to suppress a smile. When confronted with the suggestion, for example, that he will have to work with a coalition government consisting of some the most infamous crooks in Pakistan, he responds with great sincerity: ‘I’m not running a martial law here. What can I do?’”

Imran Khan, who has led a vociferous campaign to boycott these elections, is known to have advised his former wife — they are mates now, Goldsmith turned out at a rally in London demanding Imran’s release during the emergency — against going to see President Musharraf as a journalist.

He thought it a “terrible idea” and warned Goldsmith ahead of her meeting: “This will be misinterpreted in Pakistan , in any case you’ll be too soft on him.”

The jury is still out on who misinterpreted who following the meeting, but Goldsmith decidedly didn’t come out the softer. It’s President Musharraf who has been left hard put to control damage.