Plain Words
A troika rules Pakistan
DESPITE the passing of over a month after the election, Pakistan still does not have a new government(s); the people having spoken loud and clear, what does this delay signify?
There was much intrigue, only in part secret, emanating from two sources. First, the President House, which was manoeuvering to stay on in power, if possible with the powers he now has, and maybe to create a rift between the two winning parties -- Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's PML (N). The two have, however, mustered a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, and who knows whether the Senate may not soon lose the Musharraf-supporting majority. Vibes are that this might happen soon.
The second source is now all too open. It is the US administration, and western and Nato powers that want to ensure that Musharraf stays with effective powers to lead the new government in the war on terror and they may have persuaded the winners to keep Musharraf in place with enough powers to be able to conduct the war on terror more vigorously.
The choice of new leaders was not in American hands, but they seem to have succeeded in keeping the winners amenable to American advice. The Arab diplomats have dutifully done their bit for the US.
The third decisive force is the Pakistan army. It has ruled Pakistan since 1953; originally its generals strengthened civilian bureaucrats by the C-in-C becoming defence minister in uniform and enabling the governor general to dismiss the elected Constituent Assembly to prevent it from promulgating the almost complete constitution in 1954. In another four years, that general took over the country as its president and ruled for 10 years.
Another bumbling general, who presided over the country's dismemberment, succeeded him. Against that backdrop, other generals put Z.A. Bhutto in power. Bhutto helped the army regain its morale through expansion, and better pay and perks.
He was rewarded for his pains with being overthrown and later hanged. General Zia went on to rule for another 10 years, and perfected the military's alliance with both Americans and mullahs, enabling the US to win the cold war in Afghanistan.
The poor and downtrodden people of Pakistan are not even a fourth force in governance process. Maybe things will now change. Thanks to developments in 2007, with many crises bursting upon the country, and the army withdrawing support, the otherwise "manageable" elections, originally due in November last year, became unmanageable.
The year saw further rise of militant Islam, brought into most homes by the electronic media. The highlights of the year, other than the two ongoing insurgencies, were spectacular: the Lal Masjid affair polarising Pakistan society between supporters of militant Islam and the modern and moderate one.
There were also the gaucheries of Gen. Musharraf vis-à-vis the chief justice of Pakistan during 2007. First was the ham-handed attempt to sack him by a phalanx of generals demanding his resignation. He refused, and that simple action made him the symbol of Pakistani people's support for an independent judiciary, and their resistance against Pakistan's military. The attempt backfired.
The reason why Musharraf wanted to sack Mr. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was that he was asserting himself against an arrogant executive that habitually transgressed the laws; he was harsh on senior bureaucrats over the hundreds, maybe thousands, of "disappearances" of those who either supported the Baloch nationalists' war against Islamabad's army or were political opponents.
The civil bureaucrats always held that they knew nothing about the whereabouts of the disappeared; top military officials were reluctant to face the CJP in court. He also prevented fishy sellouts of public undertakings. He was perceived as a thorn in the side of Musharraf and the bureaucracy; hence, the decision to throw him out. Overnight, he ignited the prairie fire of the lawyers' movement, now being supported by all sections of intelligentsia in the media, academia and NGOs.
The lawyers' movement has made the going rough for Musharraf, and "go Musharraf go" is a popular outcry. It first forced the Supreme Court to reinstate the CJP and fine the government Rs.One lakh for submitting bogus and scandalous evidence. The lawyers' movement is demanding Musharraf's ouster. Several cases were filed in the SC about Musharraf's eligibility to fight the election on October 6. Musharraf's contesting presidential elections in October was a constitutional violation.
He got himself elected by an Electoral College that had elected him first in 2002; that body was about to die along the national assembly and other assemblies. Which is why many writs landed in SC and it can, in many cases, disqualify Musharraf for having been ineligible to contest the October election, if the original SC is restored.
That made Musharraf take preemptive action: he proclaimed a State of Emergency as the army chief (a wholly unconstitutional act), gave a second Provisional Constitution Order that gave the president (himself) extraordinary powers to amend the Constitution at his discretion. And he did, in effect sacking all the troublesome superior judges in the High and Supreme Courts by forcing them to take a fresh oath of allegiance to the amended Constitution.
For good measure, he locked up sixty superior judges in their homes and reconstituted the High and Supreme Courts with pliant judges who have duly done everything Musharraf wanted.
All this has enraged the people. The so-called establishment, often referred to as the invisible or permanent government of Pakistan, is the enemy. This establishment, however, has the support of all the social and economic elites, including the bureaucracy and top generals. This establishment has manipulated all governments after 1953.
The only exception could have been the six years (1971 to 1977) of Z.A. Bhutto, because the establishment had been discredited for losing the war and dismembering the country, but were not. He chose to rule as an autocrat with the help of the bureaucracy and the military rather than relying on his own party or the popular support that he did command. The military, once it had recovered, deposed and hanged him.
The next general ruled for 11 years, and his rule was a malleable tool in American hands just as earlier regimes were subject to American advice, and Zia perfected the military-mullah alliance and yoked it to US purposes. Zia should be given full marks for fathering the Islamic jihadists who defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1980s. The demonic force that jihadists and Taliban have become is the product of the CIA, ISI, and their other western sisters.
Much of the subsequent action, like jihad in Kashmir, took place during civilian governments in the 1990s. These governments lived on the sufferance of the army chief who made the door of Prime Minister House a revolving one: five prime ministers were marched in and out between 1988 and 1999.
Nominally, they were dismissed by the president with his sword of the Constitution's Article 58 (2) (b). But civilian presidents were non-entities with no personal constituency, and could never refuse the army chief's wishes; that sword was used at the discretion of the army chief, making so-called Pakistani democracy look ridiculous.
After 1999, Gen. Musharraf has ruled as President through bogus elections. He is clearly seen as America's man, who upturned Pakistan's Afghan policy on a single telephone call from Washington. He is still a tight buddy of President George Bush, and has been fighting Taliban enthusiastically with a strategy that most Pakistanis regard as unsuitable.
Militant Islam represented by Taliban, al-Qaeda and a myriad of militant groups, is now gradually spreading over most of Pakistan; it cannot be fought mainly militarily.
Pakistan stood perilously on the brink of being swept off by obscurant and intolerant mullahs into establishing a religious Caliphate, with such mullahs acting as a clergy without discipline. But the February election has provided a breather. It is Pakistan's problem that has to be fought by enlightened Pakistanis. America has no locus standi to suggest how. Pakistanis will hopefully devise a proper strategy soon for fighting the menace.
The Americans are mainly trigger-happy, and rely on superior firepower or intelligence that has proven grossly inaccurate umpteen times. They have not heard of the simple fact that there is no gun that can kill an idea. To fight an idea, you have to produce other ideas, reason it out, and remain content with simple non-manipulative democracy.
The current crisis is over a discredited dictator, who remains on the throne protected by security agencies; who held an election, that was reasonably free, under world pressure; and the people gave a clear verdict against him. But the US wants Musharraf to stay, democracy or no democracy; they are behaving as if they own Pakistan, and are forcing the parties to keep Musharraf as the leader to fight the war on terror under him.
The winning parties are being coy: most leaders seem to accept American overlord-ship though they are trying to turn and twist to also clip the powers of Musharraf. They would dearly like to send Mr. Musharraf home. Can they, or would they?
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments