Going Deeper
Continuing political drama in Pakistan
General Pervez Musharraf has finally shed his military uniform and has taken oath of office as a civilian president, though his election was contested in the Supreme Court. Although most of the political prisoners have been released, it is not yet clear if the political crisis prompted by the declaration of emergency has subsided.
In a recent opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune, former EU commissioner Chris Patten, ICG President Gareth Evans and former German foreign minister Joschka Fisher described Musharraf's coup as "against the Constitution, the imposition of martial law by a man who feels more threatened by elections than jihadi groups."
They urged the Western governments "to give up Musharraf policy and adopt a Pakistan policy." The key steps to get the country back on track are for Musharraf to cancel the state of emergency and give up his position as army chief. Outsiders, they advised, should not worry which party wins, because PPP and PML are moderate, broad- based and opposed to extremism.
Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the new judicial appointees, the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association have asked their members to boycott all courts presided over by the judges who took oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). In all, 64 of 97 judges of Pakistan's superior courts have been removed for their refusal to take oath under PCO.
The US has reportedly given $10 billion to Pakistan in the last five years, most of which has gone to the military. It remains to be seen if Musharraf's rebuff to Negroponte will be followed by reduced assistance to Pakistan. One can try to understand Musharraf's obstinacy by his and the army's firm belief that they and they alone can save Pakistan from disintegration.
The question one can ask is why Pakistan should disintegrate and why the role of the army is so essential? How can destroying the pillars that sustain democracy in any country avert state failure?
Despite US's threat it is difficult to imagine that US assistance to Pakistan would face a substantial cut, because President Bush has made the so-called war on terror his cause- celebre and perhaps his legacy to the American people; that he saved the US from infamous Osama bin Laden's followers as Roosevelt/Truman saved the Western world against the Nazi menace.
Musharraf's handpicked judges of the Pakistan Supreme Court have thrown out the challenges mounted by the opposition parties to his election as president. Nawaz has called upon Benazir Bhutto to join the boycott of the coming parliamentary and provincial assembly elections.
Benazir's tone is now less strident than it was a few days back. It is possible that backdoor negotiations are going on between Musharraf and Benazir. Any analysis of Pakistani politics would be incomplete without taking into consideration the role to be played by MMA and Muslim League-Quaid-E-Azam (King's Party).
If one looks back to the democratic period, 1988-99, following the death of Ziaul Huq, one would find a Pakistan mired in conflict between the military and the politicians, Islamist parties and secular political institutions.
While the democratic political parties tried to move Pakistan from Islamisation to development and modernity, the military and Islamic forces were busy thwarting this trend by bringing Islam into the foreign policy matrix to strengthen Pakistan's fight over Kashmir and also to promote Pakistan's position in the Islamic world.
During this continuing struggle elections were held in 1993, where Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League won. In the words of political analyst Vali Nasr: "This was for the first time in the Muslim world that the democratic process had produced a brake to Islamism."
Sharif proved that the Islamic vote bank was not the sole property of Jamaat-e-Islami. General Musharraf's emergence in Pakistani politics in 1991 encouraged increasing radicalisation of Islamic discourse, and support to extremist Islamic groups in order to destabilise PML's Islamic constituency and undermine Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif's ouster was followed by the 2002 elections, in which Bhutto's PPP and Sharif's PML were severely disadvantaged. The military naturally regarded both as adversaries and hence looked towards the Islamists -- the MMA coaliton of the Deobandi JUI and Jamaat-e-Islami that won 11% of the votes in 2002 elections. Something that the Islamists had never won in the history of Pakistan.
The party won the majority of the seats in NWFP assembly, and 14 out of 51 in the Beluchistan assembly. According to some, the Deobandi ascendancy in NWFP, Beluchistan and Afghanistan created an Islamist-Pathan belt stretching from Kandahar to Quetta to Peshawar.
Does it necessarily mean the ascendancy of the Islamists in Pakistan? Though Pakistan is a deeply religious Islamic country, past elections have shown that the Islamists have not fared well at the polls. Therefore, the Western hope of establishing in most parts of Pakistan a form of secular government may not be ill-founded. Obstacles to deliberative and liberal democracy remain in the feudal structure of the Pakistani society and the extent of illiteracy in the country, that prevent the general public of knowledge of their rights and privileges written in the Constitution and in various laws.
In this case, ignorance of the general public is bliss for the military rulers, who often regard laws and rules with utter contempt.
A school of thought believes that Pakistan aspires to be the leader of the Muslim world as it is the only member of the OIC to possess nuclear weapons. It is, however, lost on many that possession of nuclear weapons does not necessarily ensure or enhance a country's security.
The US was defeated in the Vietnam War, France had to retreat from Algeria, and the Soviets from Afghanistan. All had nuclear weapons. These examples may not apply in the charged atmosphere of South Asia, where Indo-Pakistan rivalry is deep rooted in history.
The Saudis, as the guardian of two of the three holiest shrines of the Muslims, respect Pakistan in ways that are not given to other non-Arab countries. The exile of Nawaz Sharif was mediated by Saudi Arabia, as also his return to fight the coming elections.
If PPP and PML (both Benazir and Sharif have filed papers to fight the elections), decide not to participate in the elections, which both parties have threatened to boycott if the state of emergency is not lifted, then Musharraf and his Muslim League (QML), even with the help of MMA (coupled with suspension by the Commonwealth in its meeting held in Uganda) may not have international legitimacy.
The Commonwealth, however, has requested Pakistan to remain engaged with the group and support the return of democratic government and the rule of law. Commonwealth suspension may not have teeth, but certainly has symbolic political value.
In the ultimate analysis, all South Asian nations should endeavour for the establishment of electoral democracy in case liberal democracy cannot return to Pakistan due to ethnic and sectarian conflict coupled with the inherent conviction of the military that they would continue to be the guardians of the supreme interest of the Pakistan nation.
Kazi Anwarul Masud is former secretary and ambassador.
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