| July 9, 2002 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 27,1423 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Murder in Kabul
Narrow escape in Faisalabad
YET another controversial law has been promulgated by the government. Called the Qualification to Hold Public Offices Order 2002, it bars a person from holding the office of prime minister or chief minister more than twice. It applies even in cases where a prime minister or chief minister might not have completed the full term of office. Coming in the wake of the package of constitutional proposals, this order will only add to the misgivings about the government’s intentions. No wonder, virtually all political parties have opposed the move and asked for its withdrawal. The strongest reactions have come from the Pakistan Muslim League(N) and the Pakistan People’s Party. The two parties between them virtually monopolized electoral support during the last four elections, and their leaders became prime ministers twice. Neither completed any of the terms. Nevertheless, they had reached the prime minister’s office through the democratic process. Each time they were either dismissed by the indirectly elected presidents or were made to resign. These dismissals contributed to political instability and added to bitterness and confusion.
The PPP and the PML (N) seem justified in coming to the conclusion that the law is specifically directed against their leaders. Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were elected prime ministers twice, and both were unable to complete their terms. The presidential order, therefore, does not merely speak of debarring a person from holding the prime minister’s office thrice; it specifies that the law will apply even in cases where a prime minister is unable to complete a term. This is clearly mala fide. The law appears designed less as a constitutional safeguard against over-ambitious politicians monopolizing power at the federal or provincial level, and more as a vindictive action against two leading party heads.
Article 63 of the Constitution already is there to bar the election of convicts to parliament. In view of this, a separate law specifically debarring someone from holding a prime minister’s or chief minister’s office thrice was wholly unnecessary. Whether a person should be a prime minister once or ten times is for the people of Pakistan to decide. There are examples where leaders have held the office of prime minister more than twice. Those who come to mind readily are Jawaharlal Nehru and Margaret Thatcher (both of whom won three consecutive terms), Indira Gandhi, Mahathir Mohammad (Malaysia), Suleyman Demirel (Turkey), Lee Kwan Yew (Singapore) and many others.
Regrettably, the generals have ended up annoying virtually all political parties. Their hostile attitude towards the PPP and the PML(N) is no secret. Initially, they were on quite friendly terms with the religious parties for having dispensed with Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. However, the Afghan crisis and the government’s decision to join the US-led world coalition against terrorism have alienated the religious parties, too. In their latest reaction, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy has termed the order an attempt to keep the “popular leadership at bay.” Similar reactions have come from most religious parties. Only those who hope to come to power through the back door and with the help of the generals have kept mum. The overall effect of the latest decree and the one on political parties promulgated last week will be highly negative. They throw into doubt the generals’ commitment to hold a fair and free general election. In fact, there is a widespread feeling that the ground is being prepared for manipulating the general election to ensure a pliant parliament and prime minister.
THE assassination of Afghan Vice-President Haji Abdul Qadir in Kabul on Sunday is a serious blow to the newly installed transitional government of Hamid Karzai. Qadir, who was one of the few Pushtuns holding a senior position in the cabinet, was a powerful warlord from the eastern Nangarhar province and one of the three vice-presidents of the country. What was unusual about Qadir was that he was a Pushtun who was also part of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance. Qadir’s death raises disturbing questions about the ability of the Karzai government to maintain law and order even in the capital, let alone in the hinterland dominated by powerful warlords. The murder also draws attention to the importance of maintaining a fine balance between the various ethnic groups in the country, who remain suspicious of each other’s motives following long years of civil war. The killing of Qadir has led to calls from the Pushtuns, who are the largest ethnic group in the country, for greater representation in the government. Although Hamid Karzai is a Pushtun, there is a widespread feeling in eastern Afghanistan that the composition of the cabinet is heavily tilted in favour of the Tajiks and other smaller ethnic groups.
It is difficult to pinpoint who was behind Qadir’s killing. The Taliban were strongly opposed to him because of his staunch defence of the US-led war against terror and because he was once a member of the hated Northern Alliance. His brother Abdul Haq was killed in October while trying to instigate a rebellion against the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. It was widely believed that Haq was being groomed by the US to head a post-Taliban dispensation in Kabul. Qadir also had a fair share of enemies in the Northern Alliance as he was an outspoken upholder of Pushtun rights even within the Alliance. Whatever the reason for his killing, it has come at a bad time for the new government in Kabul. Karzai must now move swiftly to assert his control and deal with the deteriorating law and order problem as well as defusing the growing tensions between various ethnic groups.
MERCIFULLY, a US navy engineer of Pakistani descent was saved from lynching in a Jaranwala village near Faisalabad when the police arrived just in time to stop an angry mob from killing him under orders of the village Pesh Imam. His crime: being an American citizen and daring to ask the preacher to desist from delivering a ‘political sermon’. After the Friday prayer, the furious preacher ordered the villagers to ‘kill the American’ because he had blasphemed Islam. Luckily, the family was able to inform the police well in time and saved his life from an angry mob that had already begun pelting stones on his in-laws’ house where he had taken shelter to protect himself from the fury of the mob. Later, the US embassy interceded with the government, which moved to arrest the preacher for inciting violence against a US citizen. A Pakistani citizen in a Chak Jhumra village, not too far from Jaranwala, was stoned to death following a similar edict of another village preacher that same fatal Friday.
Should the arrest of the Pesh Imam in question be the end of the matter? One hopes not; because, for every target of a blasphemy charge who escapes death by beating or stoning, there are several others who suffer terribly at the hands of mobs worked up to blind fury and hatred by some zealots. While there is a pressing need to restrain the preachers from issuing such edicts, it is also time the government moved to review the Blasphemy Act, which has been used time and again to persecute innocent individuals, and to settle personal scores.