GENERAL Musharraf says he must remain at the helm beyond October of this year in order to safeguard the reforms he has instituted and others that he may introduce later. What exactly has he done so far?

I shall leave the economy alone, partly because I don’t understand it well enough, but also because no structural changes in this area appear to have been made. Potentially far-reaching changes in the structure of government have been approved, and these are in the process of being implemented. They are intended to decentralize governmental authority and locate a good deal of it at the district and sub-district levels. Critics are sceptical of both the real intention behind the plan and, given the accompanying specifics, its feasibility and utility.

Changes in the system of representation — enlargement of the assemblies, reservation of seats for women and technocrats, abolition of the separate electorates-have been announced. Having discussed them in an earlier article I shall forego further comment on them. Other changes in the governmental system are said to be under consideration, but it would be premature to discuss them until their content is known.

A brief comment on the general subject of amending the Constitution may, nevertheless, be in order. Many politicians have been insisting that the Constitution, being the country’s fundamental law, should be approached with a degree of reverence and not meddled with to suit any particular ruler’s preferences or convenience. They say also that the general does not, in any case, have the right to change it. These objections are valid as norms but our own historical experience does not support them.

In this connection, let us try to understand the general’s situation. That he intends to remain president is a given. How is he going to accomplish it? Would a proclamation, appointing himself president for a certain number of years, do? Would it be regarded as valid and binding upon the post-election parliament? If not, an enabling amendment in the Constitution may be the only way to go.

Needless to say, Musharraf does not want the office simply to get the salary, a rent-free house, an army of servants, free food, and various other privileges and perquisites that come with it. He does not want to be another Fazal Ilahi Chaudhury (who was generally perceived as a helpless captive in the President’s House). He wants to have substantial power and authority even after the country has been returned to parliamentary government. He wants to be a real captain at the helm, actually directing the ship of state. But the Constitution, in its present form, will not allow him to do any of this. Thus it follows that the Constitution has to be amended.

We don’t know the form and coverage of the amendments the general and his associates have in mind, but we do know that they are intended to give the president a preponderant role in certain policy areas and a general supervisory role vis-‘-vis the prime minister. Neither of these purposes can be achieved without adding appropriate provisions in the Constitution.

Much more worrisome than any constitutional amendments he may be contemplating is Musharraf’s general political orientation. His public statements lend themselves to the interpretation that he shares his predecessors’ (including both generals and politicians) reservations about the efficacy of democracy in our political culture. It should be borne in mind that, with the possible exception of Mohammad Khan Junejo, our prime ministers since 1973 — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, and Nawaz Sharif-had little use for democratic ethic and ethos as shown by their autocratic style of rule, neglect of the legislature, oppression of opponents, electoral rigging, and “horse trading” to build legislative majorities.

Just as the military’s inclination to want a say in the making of public policy is a fact of life with which we have to learn to live, the Pakistani people’s democratic urges are too deeply embedded in our political culture to be ignored by the generals. In addition there are pressures for the restoration of democracy coming from the United States, Japan, Britain, and the major European powers without whose economic support no government in Pakistan can function. The general has to bring democracy back but he wants to place as many restraints upon it as he can get away with.

There is then the matter of his ambivalence with regard to any role that Islam and the Islamic establishment may have in the polity. He is probably a good “moderate” Muslim and, at the same time, a secular-minded person, like many of the rest of us. He has taken measures to suppress Islamic fundamentalist and extremist groups. He has, perhaps unwittingly, expressed his admiration for the Kemalist model in Turkey. On the other hand, as we will see shortly, he cannot quite resist the temptation of roping in Islam for his own purposes. A word first about the Ataturk.

Mustafa Kemal ruled Turkey as its president from 1923 until his death in 1938. Much like some of our own generals and politicians, he was ambivalent in his attitude toward democracy. He continued the Grand National Assembly, never suspended it, and held regular elections to it. But he reserved a substantial number of assembly seats for military officers and civil servants, denied franchise to the bulk of the Turkish peasantry and the urban working class, and allowed no political party other than his own. As a result, he was able to manage and manipulate the assembly.

Kemal Ataturk was a frank, straightforward, and blunt man who despised the typically oriental indirectness of approach and adorning of speech. We see not even a trace of hypocrisy in his affirmations and conduct. He took no money beyond his salary, lived modestly, and divorced his wife because she would not stop interfering in his official business to seek advantages for her relatives and friends.

He modernized the Turkish military, bureaucracy, and education. Acting from the unwarranted premise that westernization was good in all its aspects (cultural as well as organizational and technological), he went out of his way to force western lifestyles on his people. In his passion for westernization, he dis-established Islam in the polity, abolished Islamic courts, replaced the Islamic law wholesale with the Swiss code, discouraged Islamic modes of worship, and changed the Turkish language script from Arabic to Roman. A great many of the Turkish people never accepted his anti-Islamic measures or his forced westernization.

General Musharraf should stay away from the Kemalist model. It would not work even in Turkey in the twenty-first century; it would be foolish and entirely counterproductive to try to adopt it in Pakistan.

A few weeks ago, addressing himself to the Islamic fundamentalists, and referring to a verse in the Quran (III, 26), Musharraf claimed that he had received his ruling authority from God, and that his acts should therefore be regarded as divinely approved. At the time I thought this was a taunt made half (if not altogether) facetiously. On the evening of February 13 he spoke before a group of some five hundred Pakistanis in Washington, D.C. The man who opened the proceedings with a recitation from the Quran, recited the verse referred to above. A coincidence, was it? Later, during his speech, the General made the same assertion that he had earlier directed to the ulema in Pakistan. This leads me to think that it was never a taunt, and that he really believes he is divinely appointed.

It may be useful to quote the verse in question: “Say: O God! Lord of Power (and Rule), Thou givest Power to whom Thou pleasest, and Thou strippest off Power from whom Thou pleasest; Thou enduest with honour whom Thou pleasest, and Thou brigest low whom Thou pleasest; in Thy hand is all Good. Verily, over all things Thou hast power” (Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation).

A similar postulate circulated in Christendom, in the form of a doctrine of the divine right of kings, both before and after the advent of Islam, and propounded more notably by St. Augustine (354-430), King James I (r. 1603-1625) of England, and a French political thinker, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1724). The main thrust of the doctrine, as advanced by these men, is essentially the same as that of the Quranic verse quoted above: all ruling authority or power belongs to God, and He may bestow it upon whomsoever He likes.

A corollary, which the Quran does not spell out but which these Christian thinkers (and most the Muslim rulers and some of the more influential medieval Muslim jurists) do admit is that the ruler is accountable for his acts to God alone, not to any person or institution on earth, and that for anyone to question his authority is to rebel against God. He must be obeyed even if he is unrighteous.

The proposition that God confers ruling authority upon whomsoever he chooses does not necessarily allow the inference that whosoever happens to have such authority has received it from God. He (God) may simply ignore many of the actual rulers at any given time. Bossuet addresses this issue and asserts that only certain rulers (among them his own king, Louis XIV), but not all, are divinely appointed. Furthermore, as St. Augustine says, kings may be “ungodly.” The same follows from the Quranic assertion that God may take power and honour away from rulers who have presumably been wicked. We may then conclude that neither the Quran nor the western doctrine of divine right will support the proposition that all acts of a ruler are divinely approved.

We may conclude further that General Musharraf will do well to leave Islam alone and refrain from invoking it selectively to justify his own ends.

THE presidential order for elections in October has been issued and along with it has come an assurance by the chief election commissioner that the polls will be held under the supervision of the judiciary.

Despite the “order” and the “assurance”, anxiety and doubt persist whether the whole process will be untrammelled and fair. Neither is without basis. Over the past two years a number of conditions for the contesting parties and candidates have been mentioned which might exclude them from the electoral process altogether or compel them to boycott it.

When it comes to fairness, gone are the days when the judicial supervision in itself instilled confidence. Now when even the superior court judges seek jobs, tenure extensions and other favours from the executive their presence assures neither the opponents of the government nor worries its allies.

By a sheer coincidence on the very day the Election Order was published, the elevation of all the five accountability judges to the Lahore High Court was also announced without reference to their seniority, merit or posts available. When a judge gets a favour he is expected to return it. The victim in this exchange is justice.

In any case so large and widespread is the whole operation that an odd judge at the top, even if he wishes to be fair, can make but little difference. He may not subscribe to a daylight fraud of the type that General Zia-ul-Haq perpetrated on the people in the form of his referendum but cannot prevent political interference nor tempering of the ballot in thousands of polling stations across the country.

What makes fair elections really possible is the executive arm of the state if it feels secure and confident. The nomination papers are scrutinized and polls are conducted by the officials drawn from every possible department. Critical to fair polling is the role of the police and revenue officials. That explains a torrent of their transfers by the provincial administrations on the eve of polls on the urgings of the candidates and the ruling party. In the rural areas in particular half of the battle, it is said, is won if a candidate has secured the posting of the officials of his choice in is constituency.

The departmental officials can remain detached and also keep the tycoon politicians and political fixers at bay if they are not under the pressure of the political authority or, as in the current situation, of the military command.

It was so amply demonstrated in the 1971 elections. That was the fairest of elections which, ironically, ended in the deadliest of pogroms. Justice Abdus Sattar, a noble judge, wholly uninterested in the victory or defeat of any candidate, was the chief election commissioner (sadly, he was killed by the Mukti Bahini for being a “collaborator”). The Sindh governor of the time, General Rakhman Gul was also made in the same mould. Both were worried about rigging and disturbances in Karachi because of the consternation caused by a rising Bhutto among the hard-core urbanites. This writer as district magistrate had the good fortune of helping the CEC in delimiting the constituencies and then in organizing the polls. There was not even a whiff of a suspicion nor murmur of a complaint about the fairness of the entire process. The credit for it all belonged to General Yahya Khan for he made no transfers nor whispered into any ears.

It is another irony of that fateful period that Yahya who could hold the first, and so far the last, fair election in the country could not hold the country together. If General Musharraf chooses to follow the example of General Yahya he cold give the country the second fair election (the first in the diminished country), and if he doesn’t follow Yahya’s other example (not implementing the results of a fair election) he would also hold the country together. In fact, the danger now lies the other way round — the country may face disaster if the elections held are not fair.

The first test of Musharraf administration’s neutrality and even-handedness would arise in the delimitation of the constituencies. Delimitation is important to the prospects of a candidate or a party. It is more important this time round because the number of constituencies has increased — needlessly though. This task therefore should be entrusted to a delimitation commission (as distinct from the election commission) comprising experienced administrators, and not judges. It can be reviewed by the election commission and appeal may lie to the high court for the provincial constituencies and to the supreme court for the national.

A difficulty peculiar to delimitation this time would be that the deputy commissioners who provided the data and advice for it are now replaced by the nazims. The deputy commissioners were neutral, or at least were expected to be, and most were. The nazims who now control the revenue field staff are political figures. The safeguards against gerrymandering thus must be multiple. The delimitation commission should be brought into being straightaway for its task is both stupendous and sensitive.

The polls being just six months away, the government should now announce the disqualification criteria for persons and parties both to enable the aggrieved to seek remedy from tribunals and courts. The criteria themselves should be liberal for a widespread boycott would rob the elections of democratic credentials, and yet not bring about good sense and stability.

General Musharraf has already exacted a heavy toll of democracy by appointing himself as the supreme head of the country. He should not bilk the people of a parliamentary government altogether by foisting on it a national security council comprising commanders and technocrats. The arbitrary exercise of power by the prime minister, his shenanigans and frolics can be easily and effectively checked through the cabinet and committees of the senate and national assembly.

The constitutional amendments the president has in view should establish the cardinal principle of the parliamentary system that the prime minister is first among equals in the cabinet and not its master, and all his executive actions are subject to investigation by the committees of the legislature. The NSC will further weaken the parliamentary system and make it more irresponsible.

A democratic destination is better reached by muddling through rather than by adopting a module which exposes the armed forces to the same hazards and infamy the politics and civil administration have suffered. Musharraf may bring in his pet NSC if at any stage in his five years he finds the parliamentary muddle degenerating into anarchy.

The imminent threat to President Musharraf’s credentials to hold free elections is, however, arising from a different source. The alternating prime ministers of the last decade totally disregarded the basic rule of public life that what is morally wrong cannot be politically right. The yesterday’s lackeys now hobbling on the political stage on military crutches should not be able to persuade the president that morality has no place in politics. He needs to be wary of them.

President Musharraf could pick and choose for accountability. In elections that privilege belongs to the people.

DEJA VU as the French would say we have all been there before. The familiar story of the military rulers quest for legitimacy. It is said that General Musharraf has decreed a term of five years for himself as president-cum-army chief after the forthcoming October elections. In the meantime, constitutional amendments are being proposed thick and fast.

We have lived through the abrogations of the ‘56 and ‘62 Constitutions, now no longer remembered, by Presidents Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. Bhutto’s crippling amendments of his own consensus Constitution and Zia’s 8th amendment to the ‘73 Constitution, which was virtually a new Constitution. The past has a nagging tendency to preview the future. Historical circumstances change, so do the actors, but not their ambitions.

Certain features of rulership are common to all our military rulers. The first phase of rule is marked by success and public approval. Corruption is curbed, public services improve and the administration is generally more efficient. Public finances improve. Ayub Khan’s ‘58 - ‘62 period was popular besides being extra-ordinary productive. The foundations of a modern economy were laid, as was the first anti-feudal land reform and the start of the green revolution. Our international esteem was at its apogee. Ayub Khan ranked among the first statesmen of the period, rubbing shoulders with Eisenhower and De Gaulle.

Yahya’s period of public approval lasted some twenty months after coming to power in March ‘69. Some say it was a coup. It marked the first grand sweep against corruption at the top; the hated one unit of West Pakistan was dismantled and we were given our first and possibly last really free and fair election in 1970. Internationally, Yahya brokered the US recognition of China. Nixon wrote him a touching letter of thanks in his own handwriting.

Zia-ul-Haq’s initial period delivered Pakistan from the clutches of a threatening fascism. In the Bhutto period the rule of law was vexatiously manipulated; we were headed in the direction of a North Korean type state complete with stiff high-neck collars. A retrogressive nationalization destroyed our education, industry and enterprise. For the first couple of months after the Zia’s coup of July 4, 1977 there was a sigh of relief.

An Islamic state was promised which was in keeping with the mood of the times after Iran’s Islamic revolution. Internationally, Zia showed courage in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and threats of the Soviet Union to Pakistan for arming the Afghan “bandits”. The Soviets had never been rolled back from an occupied country at least since 1945 and the Russian yearning for warm waters was well known. Our anti-Zia leftist groups were all for surrender to Soviet threats.

In the second phase hubris sets in. And as we know from Greek tragedy nemesis follows. None of our marital law rulers is today well remembered. None of them had the courage to obtain a free and fair endorsement of their rule directly from the people. Ayub Khan had a chance of winning a fair election by adult franchise in 1962 and even in 1965; the opportunity was missed.

In the dynamics of hubris, each military ruler has wished to stamp the period with his own vision and simultaneously to civilianize his regime — usually under US pressure. It is at this stage that fault lines develop, and the clefts, in due course, become yawning cleavages. The problem that arises is that the rulers ‘grand vision’ is not shared by the politicians that the ruler inducts in the quasi-political phase.

Ayub Khan’s ‘grand vision’ was a presidential form of government. The problem with this concept was that since early British times we were used to the idea of winning an election as a means to ministerial power or pelf, or being in the opposition baiting power, which of course is a power in itself. In the presidential system power is held by the directly elected president and exercised through his personal appointees. The loss of a majority in the assembly or a defeat of a bill does not bring down the government. This simply was not understood by the electees to the ‘62 assembly. Besides the National Assembly was given no power through a committee system as in the US. Ayub’s grand vision envisaged a legislature, which was no more than a talking shop.

The 1956 Constitution, which was perhaps our best constitution, was jettisoned. Ayub’s visionary 1962 Constitution actually collapsed within a few weeks of its inauguration. Legislators led by Mohammad Ali Bogra threatened to walk out of the assembly if they were not made ministers. The threat worked. One by one all the props of the ‘grand vision’ fell apart till Ayub Khan handed over power to the army chief on March 25, 1969 in violation of his own Constitution.

The easy going Yahya Khan had no ‘grand vision’ as such other than a bluff personality exuding authority and strength, which was perhaps a reaction to the weakness and nepotism which marked Ayub Khan’s last years in power.

Tragically for Pakistan when the hour struck for Yahya to show courage and stand steadfast, he got cold feet. He took fright and cancelled the assembly meeting scheduled to meet on March 3, 1971 in Dhaka. This proved to be the beginning of the end for united Pakistan.

What should Yahya have done when Bhutto threatened to “break the legs” of any of his party men who dared to go to Dhaka?

Bhutto should have been arrested for sedition and his party men given the option of violating Bhutto’s dictate or facing expulsion from the assembly. Besides all the other smaller parties e.g. the National Awami Party were prepared to go to Dhaka. No tears were shed for united Pakistan in what became Bangladesh.

The tragedy was compounded by the intelligentsia and politicians by abetting the excesses of the army in East Pakistan in the summer of 1971. We refused to believe international press reports reporting expulsion of minorities, rape and plunder, which were classified as ‘anti-Pakistan’ by our media. The door to a political compromise was slammed by Yahya and Bhutto. Our silver haired lion turned out to be a timid house cat.

Zia’s ‘grand vision’ was to bring about an Islamic state. This vision was an exciting proposition; it appealed to our masses, but there was little unanimity in its interpretation. So in Zia’s years and that of his chosen successor, Nawaz Sharif, we did not get a pristine Islam but a renegade chauvinistic mullaism.

This leads us to the greatest lesson of the 20th century: all utopias, religious or secular, are roads to serfdom, loss of liberties and eventually Gulags. In pursuit of the utopian mirage all types of murder and mayhem are justified.

We now come to our fourth military ruler General Musharraf.

First to thank him for allowing press freedom. This safety valve will ultimately protect him from sycophants and keep him to human size.

What should be General Musharraf’s route to legitimacy? Does the “flickering lamp” of history show a way?

The politicians and lawyers will suggest the well-beaten track of the legal course. A king’s party of the like-minded in parliament, which will steer an indemnity bill and provide a tenure of office for the president. In this way the politicians will gain leverage and exemptions from accountability, as some have already.

We have seen how the timid Mohammad Khan Junejo changed colour within a few months of acquiring power. There is nothing new about this and surely the phenomenon will repeat itself. The familiar story of the ‘great vision’ coming into conflict with the nitty gritty of politics followed by the overthrow of the ruler and yet another cycle of corrupt political rule followed by an army take over.

President Musharraf might consider legitimizing his appointment and agenda in a manner that none of his predecessors have dared to do; let the voter before he casts his vote in box be required to cast a vote, negative or positive, for the Musharraf presidency. The president should clearly spell out his constitutional deviations e.g. the composition and power of the National Security Council for he intends this Council to be an apex body with power to dissolve assemblies and decide on vital matters affecting the state.

A general election normally attracts around 40% of the voting public. A vote of confidence, if obtained by the president from the nation, can be the only possible sanction for Musharraf’s vision. In this manner Musharraf will not be beholden to politicians to uphold his programme. The politicians’ claim is to be the voice of the people; the proposal has the merit of obtaining the direct stamp of the people.

A free and fair referendum in secret ballot, under the eyes of the world, will give the president a legitimacy that none of his military predecessors had. The president should offer to resign, if the electorate rejects him. Given the present popularity of President Musharraf and signs of a shakeup in the economy coupled with the decline and fall of religious extremism in public esteem, he can most probably win a referendum.

This is not to suggest that General Musharraf has all the right ideas for future governance. One does not even know what his ideas are. But, if we are to move ahead of Deja vu to something new, let it be above board giving the electorate at least 90 days to think it over. If he loses the referendum, he must hand over power to the elected assembly; at least he should leave office in honour and grace, which is a greater feat than having acquired power through a coup.

The writer is a former member of the National Assembly.