Do I Dare
A Tale of the Unexpected
Politics in Pakistan
According to the country's Constitution the election of the President of Pakistan should be a relatively simple affair. The President is elected by an electoral college comprising the two Houses of the National Parliament and the four Provincial Assemblies. This is how, Mr Rafiq Tarar was elected to, what should now be, a purely ceremonial post of the President of Pakistan.
In a situation where the ruling Muslim League enjoys an overwhelming majority, the election of its nominee, Rafiq Tarar, was not expected to be a nail biting affair. Nevertheless dullness has hardly been an attribute of Pakistani politics, and the process leading up to Mr Rafiq Tarar's election, with all the twists and turns of events, has had a great deal of the excitement of the unexpected. The first unexpected element of the election has been the timing of the election itself, as the presidential election had not indeed been due. Farooq Leghari's unexpected exit, making him the first President of Pakistan to have resigned of his own volition, brought forward the date of the elections ahead of time. The second element was that Mr Rafiq Tarar was hardly known outside his immediate circle of friends and well-wishers though happily for the President-elect Mr Nawaz Sharif was one of them.
Not even in his wildest political dreams could Mr Rafiq Tarar see himself occupying the presidential chair. Yet events developed in such a manner that, for the first time in its history, Pakistan saw a properly elected President resign and also saw loyalty to the Prime Minister become the primary requirement of the new incumbent. Mr Rafiq Tarar was found eminently suited to fill the bill.
Mr Rafiq Tarar should normally have no illusions about the job that lies ahead of him although, in the power game in Pakistan, supposed lambs have on occasions displayed tigress teeth. Mr Tarar is not likely to be counted amongst his high and mighty predecessors like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul-Huq and Ghulam Ishaq Khan. He will not even be in the same league as Farooq Leghari who occupied the 'Aiwan-i-sadr,' the imposing presidential palace in Islamabad, during what may be termed as the twilight period of the decline of presidential power in Pakistan. In that respect President Tarar would be more of the ilk of President Choudhri Fazle Elahi who served the powerful Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, while he was Prime Minister, in the latter's failed experiment with the parliamentary system of governance in the seventies.
Since the fall of President Ziaul Huq in the late '80s it has been, by and large, the general desire of Pakistani politicians to turn to a full blooded parliamentary system. However, as opposed to a presidential form or governance so entrenched has traditionally been the post of the President in the power game that it has taken about a decade of gradual moves for that to happen. In that process Nawaz Sharif has emerged as the most powerful Prime Minister in Pakistan's history.
Mr Nawaz Sharif can be said to be even more powerful now than Mr Bhutto in his heydays, for a number of reasons. First, unlike Mr Bhutto, who came from the smaller province of Sindh, Mr Nawaz Sharif belongs to the Punjab which is glaringly becoming the central springboard of political power in Pakistan. Mr Sharif enjoys a comfortable two-thirds majority in a pliable parliament - something that Mr Bhutto never had. More importantly perhaps, Mr Nawaz Sharif has achieved complete mastery of Pakistan's political skies by completing the process of taming the President, by succeeding in installing judges who appear amenable and kind and by having an Army ever so understanding and helpful. In all this he must now also thank Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah's Don Quixotic extra judicial behaviour for accelerating a process that would have otherwise taken much longer in coming. Thus one may say that it is to Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah's action that Rafiq Tarar owes his job and Nawaz Sharif, his power. This tale of the unexpected has to be the Chef d' Oeuvre in the latest anthology of Pakistan's political tales and it is not likely to lose any of its lustre by a brief recounting of facts.
The story unfolded last October, when Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah quietly forwarded a list of five names to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for elevation as Supreme Court Judges. Nawaz Sharif smelt a rat in this, as he did not like its composition. There were certain corruption cases against Nawaz Sharif, pending in the Supreme Court, a remnant of his previous prime ministerial incarnation and the judges in the list did not seem like an amenable lot to the Prime Minister.
A split decision by the Pakistan Supreme Court had after all sealed Mr Bhutto's fate only years earlier and it was therefore not unexpected of Mr Nawaz Sharif to keep a wary eye on the composition of the Court. He therefore put the proposal regarding the elevation of five judges in the cold storage. This angered the Chief Justice, in whose view it was not for the Prime Minister to say 'why' but to simply accord his agreement to any Court proposal in such matters. The Chief Justice, acting in a huff, instructed the revival of the corruption cases against the Prime Minister. Not only that. He issued Court Orders suspending two constitutional amendments passed by the Parliament at the instance of Nawaz Sharif; one discouraging floor crossing by its members and the other withdrawing the power of the President to dissolve the Parliament. From the President's point of view, the pressure tactics appeared to be working as the Prime Minister now seemed willing to endorse the appointment of the five judges.
However, in the meantime the Prime Minister and some of his parliamentary colleagues, in their exasperation, had made some critical remarks in the parliament about the judicial process in the country. Instead of letting sleeping dogs lie, Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah decided to bring contempt charges against the Prime Minister and some of his parliamentary colleagues forcing the Prime Minister to appear in the court in person. A conviction by the court could have meant the end of Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister and this is something a Prime Minister, with an overwhelming electoral mandate, was not expected to take lying down. He requested President Leghari to get rid of the Chief Justice, but the President from his pedestal, as it were, refused to oblige. Therefore, with his two thirds majority in the Parliament Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif started drawing up plans to impeach the President. The crisis thus got elevated to the level of the President and the Prime Minister.
This is a situation where the Head of the Armed Forces cannot sit idle. After all the state machinery seemed like being on the verge of a collapse and no Army, least of all that of Pakistan, with all their exposure to statecraft could wait and watch the happenings from the sidelines. In the event the Army saw it prudent to stand by the elected representative of the people, viz. the Prime Minister.
Simultaneously two extra-legislative pre-emptive actions were taken by the Prime Minister's men. First, as the police watched unconcerned, they stormed the Supreme Court and, by creating a pandemonium, prevented the court from functioning. Second, it was charged that Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, a Sindhi, had superseded three judges senior to him in 1994 to assume the mantle of Chief Justice. The Baluchisthan branch of the Supreme Court was encouraged to 'dismiss' the Chief Justice thereby showing a rift among the judges and thus weakening the Chief Justice's position. The Prime Minister was using the technique of setting a "thief to catch a thief." At that stage a somewhat harassed President Leghari who actually had to approve the appointment and dismissal of the judges on the advice of the Prime Minister decided to throw in his towel and Wasim Sajjad, the Senate Chairman, took over as acting President. He as the acting President 'restrained' Sajjad Ali Shah from performing his functions and Justice Ajmal Mian was appointed as the Acting Chief Justice. Later a 10-member bench of the Supreme Court unanimously cancelled the 1994 appointment of Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah. Thus for the Chief Justice the die was cast, and Justice Ajmal Mian permanently replaced him as the Chief Justice.
Mr Wasim Sajjad now goes back to his old post of the Senate President, thus making room for the President-elect Rafiq Tarar.
With both the President and Chief Justice replaced, the Prime Minister is now firmly on the saddle. What started off with a whimper of a proposal of elevation of five judges has ended with a bang in a political battleground where casualties abound and new people are in charge. The battle now seems to be over, if not the war, and it is time now to ponder and reflect.
The stand off between the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice has led to quite unexpected results and has accelerated the process of establishing, in full measure, the Prime Minister's administrative authority vis-a-vis that of the President. In fact, it has taken Pakistan nearly a decade to reach this point and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif can draw some comfort in having been the main contributor. After all both he and his predecessor Benazir Bhutto, both elected Prime Ministers, had experienced the discomfiture of being dismissed earlier by the President of the country.
It is worth noting that the crisis was not triggered off by any fault of Pakistan's constitutional provisions, but by the failures of the leaders of various state institutions to approach the limits of their respective power and authority. Confrontational habits acquired under decades of dictatorial regimes die hard but the principal actors may have learnt the hard way that a system of checks and balances must be allowed to operate in a set up, which now is by and large democratic. It is heartening, however, that the tussle saw its end without anyone directly tinkering with the constitution and without a shot being fired.
While a stunned population watched the antics of some of the principal actors on the national stage, the press in Pakistan by and large behaved responsibly and the standard of their presentation of news and views, has been high. A great deal indeed can be said in favour of Pakistan's free and remarkably bold and courageous press.
The Armed Forces have emerged well out of the crisis. In a situation where the choice lay among the 'evils', the Army decided to back up the Prime Minister. By doing so, it may have chosen the least of the 'evils', appearing to be supportive of the democratic process.
The judiciary has had a bad mauling and as the leader of the country, it is now for the Prime Minister and his obliging parliament to restore unto judiciary the respect and dignity it deserves. A strong judiciary, it must be recognised by the Prime Minister and his men, strengthens democracy and in no way weakens it.
Indeed a couple of what may seem like favourable factors may ironically militate against the Prime Minister. His overwhelming majority may render into his political behaviour a dictatorial touch that he must make efforts to shun. And then there is the almost total Punjabi domination in all the branches of the government, something that the smaller provinces will find irksome, unless proper care is taken by the Prime Minister. Here there is a case for putting stitches in time.
In the regional polarization of society that has taken place in Pakistan in the recent years, it may not be wise to ignore the fact that both Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Junejo (the latter made a last minute effort as the Election Commissioner to put a spoke in the fast moving Presidential wheel of Rafiq Tarar by disqualifying his candidature), happen to belong to Sindh. It also should be noted that perhaps for the first time in four decades a Bhutto or anyone of the Sindh 'beradari" was not among the cast of characters in the political high drama. The months long political drama has done a great deal of damage to Pakistan's economy and an all-Punjabi show has disturbing implications. Cries of disparity and neglect are already quite audible in some corners of the Federation and the Punjab will have to demonstrate a degree of accommodation, understanding and fairplay, that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may not quite find easy to implement.
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