HIGHLIGHTS
Fast forward to a year from now. It’s March 2010. Asif Zardari has been sent packing, Shahbaz Sharif is back in charge of Punjab, and Nawaz Sharif has outsmarted Gilani and Kayani, forced a national election and, on the back of a dominating performance in Punjab, formed his own government at the centre.
So what is Nawaz up to now that he’s calling the shots? Unhappy that the PPP still has one stronghold left, he imposes governor’s rule in Sindh and uses his two months to buy votes for a PML-led coalition in the province. The PPP, rudderless and demoralised, makes for easy pickings and the MQM, the PML-N’s ‘Qatil League’, is won over with juicy titbits, including the CM slot.
Having conquered the provinces, Sharif then turns his attention to the other potential threats: the army and the judiciary. Kayani is set to retire in a few months, so the jockeying for his position is intense. Sharif doesn’t really know the main candidates because they became eligible while he was stuck in Jeddah and London, so he goes with his gut. As ever, his gut tells him to throw caution to the wind and do the unexpected. Reaching down the ranks, he picks a junior officer to be his COAS.
The result is the stables are virtually cleared out as most senior officers opt to retire in line with army tradition rather than serve under someone who used to be their junior. Sharif is pleased; he thinks the army’s new top brass is beholden to him. Over in their palatial accommodations, the newly installed generals pensively run their fingers over the fine upholstery. One day, some of them think, one day, Sharif will pay for his arrogance.
The judiciary is the other thing on Sharif’s mind. The love affair with CJ Iftikhar is over because the shoe is now on the other foot and it’s Sharif who has to deal with the maverick judge.
And what a mess the CJ is creating. In Punjab, CJ Iftikhar is poking his nose into police encounters that take out drug peddlers, rapists, murderers and the occasional innocent. At the centre, the CJ is investigating private power project deals negotiated by the PPP. Prima facie this is another useful stick for the PML-N to beat the PPP with, but CJ Iftikhar is so zealous that he’s scaring off all new investors — something that is worrying the PML-N because it is now the one left holding the bag for the worsening power crisis.
And across the land fresh sugar and wheat crises are brewing and a whiff of scandal is hovering over the mills owned by Leaguers. Here too CJ Iftikhar is on the job, using his suo moto powers to sniff around and make some very important people very uncomfortable.
So Sharif resorts to the oldest trick in the book: stuff the courts and use the carrot and stick against recalcitrant judges. The good ol’ Charter of Democracy comes in handy, a way to clear the decks while abiding by the suddenly remembered principle of non-PCO judges (goodbye, CJ Iftikhar) or perhaps to kick CJ Iftikhar upstairs to the newly instituted Federal Constitutional Court.
Oh, and that business of constitutional amendments and righting the imbalances of power? Right on. With Akram Sheikh at his side, Sharif is pushing through ingenious legislation that widens the space for himself and narrows it for everyone else.
Before long we are back to square one, a discredited government fending off a rejuvenated opposition with the ever-watchful army standing on the sidelines.
Is the above scenario inevitable? No. But impossible? Surely not.
More importantly though, does it matter what Sharif does or will do? Or Zardari? One of the myths that refuses to die is the myth of the good politician. If only we had good politicians, things would be better. Or so people like to think. But by focusing on the individuals we miss the point. Who is a good politician?
Raza Rabbani? Demeaned and degraded by his boss, he stuck it out for reasons best known to himself. But did anything in Zardari’s record suggest he would give the Senate chairmanship to anyone other than a crony? After all, the Senate chairman is a heartbeat away from the presidency. And yet, hoping against hope, Rabbani has done his boss’s bidding until kicked to the kerb.
Why? Because a politician’s quest for power overwhelms anything else he may believe. So there was Rabbani again on the floor of the Senate yesterday, speaking on behalf of his government and vowing to defend democratic norms as the TV split-screens showed lawyers and opposition activists being bundled into police wagons.
Shahbaz Sharif? Administrator extraordinaire, he has resolutely stood behind his brother through folly and more folly. More than anyone else, he’s had the luxury of always looking good by comparison, hardly difficult if your brother is Nawaz Sharif. But the truth is we don’t really know much about Shahbaz’s politics, for rarely has a figure been in the national limelight for so long without having to take responsibility for the decisions of his party.
In the long run we may get better politicians, but in these days when Keynes is fashionable again it’s good to remember what he said: we’re all dead in the long run. What we really need is a system that forces the politicians to play by some rules, a system that survives despite the politicians not because of them.
Enter the judiciary. A rules-bound game can only work if someone other than the players arbitrates. The problem is that neither of the two options before us at the moment is the answer.
One side is epitomised by CJ Dogar. By wanting to be a justice rather than dispense justice, he precluded the possibility of ever becoming a legitimate arbitrator. The other side is epitomised by CJ Iftikhar. By elevating justice to a fetish, he’s gone beyond the call of his office. The gallery may applaud raucously, but a judiciary isn’t the vehicle for change, it’s only the referee. Forget that, as CJ Iftikhar has, and with it goes your chance to ever be a legitimate arbitrator. So democracy can work, just don’t expect this lot to ever make it work. The real tragedy of Pakistan is that long before any of us are dead, the country may well be.
NAWAZ Sharif’s declaration, that matters will now be settled on the streets, and Raja Pervez Ashraf’s statement, that attempts at reconciliation have been abandoned, have taken the political crisis in the country to new heights.
Normally, parliament is the forum where political battles are fought. That is the democratic norm to which the PML-N continues to be publicly committed. However, Nawaz Sharif’ pronouncement indicates that the PML-N has jettisoned the parliamentary route and opted for flexing its muscles on the streets.
PML-N politics since Nawaz Sharif’s second return to the country has centered around an absolutely uncompromising one-point agenda -- the restoration of Iftikhar Chaudhry as Supreme Court chief justice. The judicial crisis is essentially a political issue and politics is the art of compromise. Adopting uncompromising positions is tantamount to creating a deadlock and that is precisely what the PML-N appears to have done. Certainly, the PPP has reneged on agreements and the imposition of governor’s rule in Punjab is indefensible; however, a refusal to negotiate on a give-and-take basis amounts to allowing force to prevail over democratic processes.
The current crisis is stated to have been triggered by the disqualification of the Sharif brothers and the imposition of governor’s rule in Punjab. However, the crisis can be said to have been initiated by the PML-N decision to participate in the lawyers’ long march. The PPP is in government at the centre and was in coalition with the PML-N in Punjab. In this context, the PML-N’s decision to march against the federal government of their provincial coalition partner sealed the fate of the Punjab provincial coalition government.
From the PPP’s perspective, the PML-N could not be expected to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. The PPP and its coalition partners in the federal government command a clear majority in the National Assembly and, from their perspective again, an opposition party in the centre cannot be allowed to dictate policy to the federal government, even if that party is the ruling party in one of the provinces. Two important coalition partners, the ANP and MQM, have publicly disassociated themselves from the lawyers’ movement with the former explicitly stating that the NWFP has other priorities.
However, the PML-N’s position cannot be dismissed out of hand, despite the questions it raises. The PML-N has chosen to place the restoration of Iftikhar Chaudhry above the imperatives of a serious economic crisis and the security challenges facing the state of Pakistan, with insurgents striking in Punjab as well, including in the heart of Lahore. It was perplexing to find that hours after the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore -- an event with international repercussions -- Shahbaz Sharif addressed a press conference and continued to dwell upon the issue of restoration of the judiciary. This single-minded pursuit of a one-point agenda to the exclusion of all else merits a closer analysis and explanation.
The answers to the conundrum can perhaps be found in the arithmetic of electoral results. It is pertinent to note that, despite being billed as one of the two national parties with Nawaz Sharif as a national leader, the PML-N has emerged in the 2008 elections as a regional party representing Punjab and Hazara. The party has no representation whatsoever at either the national or provincial levels in Sindh and Balochistan or from the majority Pakhtun areas of the NWFP. That PML-N has been able to carry forth its current campaign only in northern Punjab cities underlines its geographically narrow political base.
PML-N’s jettisoning of the parliamentary route can, therefore, be attributed to the fact that it does not command the numbers in the National Assembly and in the Senate to be able to possess an effective say in national decision-making. The recent Senate election underscored the PML-N’s marginalisation, except in Punjab. Its coalition status government in Punjab did provide it with a tenuous hold therein. However, seasoned power brokers know that real power rests in Islamabad. And having been in power for most of the last 30 years, Nawaz Sharif is fully aware of this reality. Of course, the PML-N can wait for the next elections due in 2013 to improve its electoral fortunes, but appears to be unwilling to sit out of the corridors of power for that long. This may explain its current confrontational extra-parliamentary politics.
The alleged unwillingness to remain in opposition for another four years also needs to be accounted for. Two explanations can be forwarded. One is that the Punjabi elite has held virtually absolute power since the military coup in 1977. However, the party configuration in parliament that the 2008 elections has thrown up has placed regional forces from Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan in a decisive position and they are asserting their claims on state resources.
Resultantly, the Punjabi elite is no longer in a position to use its hitherto near-monopolistic influence in the federal government to sway resource-allocation decisions. And having thrown its weight behind the PML-N, it now finds itself on the wrong side of the power fence. Thus, its backing of the PML-N attempts to create centres of power outside parliament.
The other explanation for the PML-N’s alleged unwillingness to play the role of the parliamentary opposition for long can be found in the ideological composition of the PML-N and its allies. Many of the stalwarts of the PML-N have previously been affiliated with religious parties. These parties have now also allied themselves with the PML-N in the confrontation with the government in Islamabad. The PPP, ANP and MQM are perceived to be committed to a Pakistan that is free from religious bigotry. As such, the religious establishment too can be seen to be unwilling to tolerate, for the next four years, a government that is not only unsympathetic to their cause but is out to curb their influence. They do not want to risk seeing their gains since the Ziaul Haq days whittled away.
The battle lines are, therefore, drawn on two fronts. One divides the northern Punjab elite and the rest of the country; the other divides overt and covert proponents of varying degrees of religious theocracy and those who wish to see an enlightened society in the country. The present confrontation around Iftikhar Chaudhry’s reinstatement and the imposition of governor’s rule in Punjab, couched in moralistic terms, are mere symptoms of a deeper struggle for power and for control. Which way the conflict settles will decide the future of democracy in the country and of the country itself.
If the NSCW has so far failed to make an impact on the situation of women in Pakistan it is primarily because it had not been given the autonomy and powers needed to effect changes in the government’s policies and programmes. Although one of its functions was stated to be the review of ‘all laws … affecting the status and rights of women’ in addition to suggesting ‘repeal, amendment or new legislation essential to eliminate discrimination, safeguard … the interests of women and achieve gender equality”, the commission remained a weak organisation that served more as an appendage of the government.
Its earlier chairpersons and members cannot be held accountable for this failure because they were not empowered to play the role they were supposed to. It may be recalled that under Justice Majida Rizvi the commission had recommended in 2004 that the Hudood Ordinances be repealed as their enforcement had brought ‘injustice’ in its wake. This was not done.
The mandate of the NCSW is quite wide and comprehensive. If the commission is empowered to play a useful role it should be able to achieve much, given the performance of many of its members in the field of gender rights. One hopes that the government will introduce the required changes to make the NCSW an autonomous body — at present it is a part of the women’s ministry — and grant it financial independence and ministerial powers to enable it to investigate cases, review policies and, most important, enforce its decisions.
If similar bodies in other countries have proved to be effective, it is because they are more empowered. One hopes that the new members will make the empowerment of the commission their first priority.
There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip. Heralded as a national long march for the restoration of the deposed judges, Thursday’s showing in Karachi and Quetta has cast doubts on the ‘national’ tag of the movement. In both provincial capitals no more than a few hundred lawyers gathered and support from the opposition parties was noticeably scarce. On the day, the largest gathering of protesters was in Lahore, from where the long march is not scheduled to kick off for another couple of days.
The lopsided turnout has raised some important questions. In recent weeks, the political upheaval in Punjab has given the long march added impetus, but the raison d’être of the long march is the restoration of the deposed judges. Can the movement be judged to reflect the national opinion if it draws its support predominantly from one province? Surely not.
Without downplaying the government’s role in letting the judicial crisis fester, in the build-up to the march we have noted that there are other grave national crises confronting the state. If the lawyers and their supporters wanted to raise the stakes in pressing their demands, they should have paid heed to the need for their movement to demonstrate a national face. Otherwise they ran the risk of appearing to put their narrow interests ahead of the broader national interest.
At the very least, the leaders of the lawyers’ movement and opposition political parties should have led from the front in Karachi and Quetta. But in quasi-farce scenes played out on television yesterday, at times it appeared that the hordes of cameramen and reporters easily outnumbered the protesters they were there to cover.
Now the long march is shaping up to be a struggle that pits Punjab against the centre, with the almost inevitable result it will be seen through the political prism of a straight fight between the PPP and the PML-N. For the apolitical supporters of the principle of an independent judiciary, that will not be the outcome they could have hoped for.
On its part, the government was again guilty of overreaction and an excessive use of force. More sensible hands would have recognised that the protesters in Karachi and Quetta represented little threat and were clearly not pushing for confrontation. Instead, the scenes of scuffles and mass detentions that played out in front of the cameras have added fuel to the perception that the government is nervous and edgy and can easily be goaded into making a catastrophic mistake.
What the government appears to have failed to understand is the nature of power. Electing its candidate as chairman of the Senate or having a secure majority in parliament can become irrelevant if it appears the government doesn’t believe it is in charge outside parliament.
Take stock of the problems Pakistan represents from an international perspective. Top of the list are militancy and nuclear weapons. By themselves they are not insurmountable problems. After all, India has problems with militancy and Israel menaces its neighbours with nuclear weapons. But Pakistan is different in that control of the state is still being contested by groups that inspire little confidence. On the one hand, there is the political class, weak, fractious and bereft of statesmanship. On the other hand, there is the army, considered the only stable institution in the country, but guided by a predatory elite that hasn’t grasped the nuances of running a state despite four stints in charge and that has repeatedly made catastrophic military judgments. As these two groups have alternated in power, the state’s capacity to govern has gradually but definitely deteriorated. So when some of the world’s biggest problems are married to a declining local ability to deal with them, the world at large worries. Which is why the world powers roam the corridors of power here, trying to prevent the state from eventually keeling over.
But they can only do so much. Consider the present crisis in Pakistan. There is little leverage that the Americans or anyone else can have over the Sharif brothers at the moment. If they are intent on taking the battle to the streets in the belief that the Punjab public will support them, it is hard to stop them from going for broke. Meanwhile, with the PPP, if the leadership does decide that it wants a PPP-led government in Punjab at all costs and can in fact win the support of the PML-Q, there is little that can be done to deter it. So far from dictating outcomes, the outside powers will be trying to make the protagonists realise their own self-interest. There is no guarantee that they will succeed, but with all that is at stake it is hard to fault them for at least trying.
The country is in a state of political, economic and social chaos, leading us to contemplate the question of finding another political alternative, perhaps in the form of a new political party.
The crisis is two-fold. On the one hand there is the decay of existing parties, on the other the absence of an alternative. However, a new party that could fill the political vacuum is nowhere to be seen.
There is Imran Khan who is quite popular amongst some segments of the urban elite but has not managed to win mass support, mainly because he hasn’t offered a clear alternative and continues to drift between right and left political ideologies. To give Imran Khan his due, he and his backers have emerged as a pressure group though not as a political force.
Perhaps this lack of alternative is due to the death of politics in the country. One wonders what it would take for a new political force, the kind that previously created the two major parties, to emerge.
A common feature of all parties is a very strong leadership at the top, and an oligarchic structure which then connects with the lower rungs on the basis of the redistribution of rewards. Ultimately, the reward depends on access to and approval of the top leadership routed through the oligarchy. This works as a bond at the lowest level rather than at the top which makes most parties quite similar, especially the two major national parties of the country.
The Muslim League emerged from the pre-1947 crisis. However, after independence and the death of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, reactionary forces not only strengthened their control but also paved the way for the disintegration of the Muslim League. Since it was the only key party at that time, powerful establishment forces hijacked it. Thus, it was not surprising that the Muslim League kept splitting into several factions. Beginning with the first major splinter group controlled by Ayub Khan, the PML recreated itself in the form of different factions. At this point, the party leadership is divided on the basis of personal interests rather than on that of ideology.
The political crisis of the 1960s resulted in the creation of the PPP in the western wing and the Awami League in the eastern wing. The crisis led people to the streets. In West Pakistan, the PPP came into being with the combined efforts of socialist, left-of-centre, Islamic socialist and reactionary forces. The PPP’s political agenda and election manifesto of ‘roti, kapra aur makaan’ attracted the common man in search of his rights and hopeful of getting a state that could perform better in delivering basic services to the people.
However, the greatest mistake was to accommodate reactionary forces such as feudal lords and other powerful cliques. These were included in the party by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto because he was one of them, and without making deals he couldn’t build a strong party to displace Gen Ayub Khan and his political partners in a short time. In any case, in Pakistan there is a strong tradition of cutting deals with reactionary forces to enable the elite to remain in power.
The inclusion of this powerful elite was the PPP’s ideological undoing. During the 1970s, leftist and Islamic socialist forces were pushed to the background and the landed feudal and other powerful groups took their place. However, the PPP’s advantage rested in those pockets that looked upon Bhuttoism as an ideology and a symbol of empowerment for the dispossessed. The memory of Bhutto’s fiery slogans and the times when big business was pushed back, though in a superficial manner, did not go away. Without assessing the ability of their leadership to empower the masses, PPP voters were caught in a time warp, also the result of successive military interventions.
The PPP’s greatest advantage was in having charismatic leaders like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto followed by Benazir Bhutto, keeping the vote bank engaged with the idea of delivering to the masses once the party got the opportunity to do so. Credit also goes to the party’s peculiar vote-bank management structure for keeping Bhuttoism alive. A strong central control also ensured the absence of splinter groups. The PPP-SB is not even a proper splinter group; it merely indicates a division within the Bhutto family.
Like other national and ethnic parties, the PPP has a highly centralised structure controlled by a strong leader able to create and recreate slogans without delivering much. But, unlike the Muslim League, the PPP has an integrated three-tiered party management structure. With a strong leader surrounded by a set of senior leaders representing the party elite, the operations of mobilising voters and distributing rewards is carried out by the middle tier that also delivers the lower tiers to the top leadership. In the context of the country’s political patronage system, the middle tier has a better chance of getting rewards for keeping the ideology alive and the vote bank engaged.
This is a highly bureaucratic structure which feeds into the larger political structure of the country. This means that the political party structure is fundamentally part of a system where military dictatorships are replaced by dominant political parties, only to be replaced by another military dispensation. Party management depends on keeping the vote bank alive with the expectation of the even distribution of rewards once the military dictatorship is gone. This may keep the party alive but will not solve political crises.
The efficient party structure might come under greater pressure now that a charismatic leader is gone. While we hear about dissent inside the party, a real break might happen with help from the establishment. The long march and divisions between the prime minister and president could well be a precursor to the fragmentation of the PPP.
The bottom-line is that most parties have become less imaginative as far as ideology goes. This feeds directly into the death of politics in this country. All new alternatives now depend on the establishment as it was in the past.
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