Economic fallout of the war

LEADING US economists have spoken strongly against a unilateral US-led war on Iraq and warned President George Bush that it would have adverse economic consequences and increase the risk of future instability and terrorism.

The economists, including seven Nobel prize winners for economics, have voiced their concern over the immediate human tragedy and devastation of war. The war, said the statement issued by the Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, a New York based research group, could drive up interest rates and energy prices and unleash a major consumer retrenchment.

The Nobel Laureates, who include Kenneth Arrow, Lawrence Klein and Joseph Stiglitz, said “given the precarious state of our own economy, America requires the attention and focus of leadership and resources to address economic problems at home.” They also said the priority given to the military sector “would hurt the recovery of the ailing technology sector.”

And Prof. James Galbraith said the Bush administration was not playing it straight with the American public as to the potential economic consequences of the war.

The fear of a rise in interest rates is real after a long period of cutting interest rates in an effort to boost the sagging economy which has not been particularly responsive to such efforts by the Federal Reserve. Latest figures of the US economy are demoralising to the people who find unemployment at a high 5.8 per cent and the dollar at its lowest exchange rate against the euro in four years. While share prices are slipping in New York, gold prices are going up.

While the US may be able to afford a short war despite such economic trends and the possible gains from the post-war world, what will be the cost of the war for Pakistan and other developing countries in the region? And that depends on how long the war will last or how short will that be, and how disruptive or destructive will that be for the region.

President Bush himself wants a short and decisive war. So the US talks of bombing Baghdad ten times more than it did in 1990-91 while sparing the oil wells of Kirkuk and the Kurdish region in the north.

But can a war be fought totally according to the US script more so if it wants to spare heavy civilian casualties?

The world knows the proposed US strategy but not Saddam’s strategy to stand up and fight or evade and resist. A poll taken in California says that 71 per cent of the people polled fear conditions of life would be far worse after the war than what it was two months ago. The percentage of those who had such fears was only 41.

President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn, on a visit to Jordan, wants the war to be avoided, but if it happens it should be very quick to minimise the damage to the global economy. He says what is affecting the global economy is the unwillingness of the people to buy, and unwillingness to invest, and a sense of fear.

He says the impact of the war on the global economy depended on the duration of the war and how it would dent confidence, prompt firms to put investment plans on hold and make the consumers less inclined to spend.

He predicted that further oil price turbulence could slow down the global economy if the hostilities caused damage to Iraq’s oil industry installations. There will be concern about disruption of oil supplies, but then that depends on whether oil is destroyed or disrupted. There can be quick recovery after disruption, but in case of destruction of the facilities the recovery or reconstruction will take a long time.

World oil price has already reached 40 dollars a barrel and domestic price of oil has been raised steeply several times in recent fortnights. The government has said it would not reduce the heavy duties on oil and taxes. If it did so it would have to raise taxes elsewhere to balance the budget. And the IMF and World Bank would not allow lowering of the duties on oil so that the macro-economic balance is not disturbed.

Experts predict if the war is short the world price of oil may come down to 25 dollars a barrel. That is if the oil installations in the region are not destroyed.

Economists estimate that every increase in oil price by five dollars a barrel would reduce the growth of the US economy by half a per cent. In such a case with the US economy in the doldrums it would not be able to sustain a 40 dollars a barrel oil price for long. Hence the rush to war.

If the growth of the US economy would be hurt that much by the world oil price even when it produces half the oil it needs a steady oil price rise would hurt the economic growth of Pakistan a great deal, more so when most of our needs are met by imports.

However, the generous Saudi oil facility of a billion dollars a year is very helpful, more so at these critical times.

Pakistan received 891 million dollars from various countries led by the US for its cooperation in the war against terrorism, says Shaukat Aziz, Advisor to the Prime Minister on finance. That is the direct cash benefit. The indirect benefit, inclusive of debt relief, has been sizable. But all that is a patch compared to the 30 billion dollars offered by the US to let its troops enter northern Iraq from Turkey. Turkey sought far larger funds as it argues it lost over 40 billion dollars trade and economic losses following the 1990-91 Gulf war. So many Pakistanis think the country has been sold short by the leaders. And yet we keep on handing over Al Qaeda prisoners to the US including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed which has been greatly appreciated by America.

Higher oil prices are not only price we are paying before the war. Our exports are affected. The shipping rates have gone up, making Pakistani exports more costly. The war will bring high war risk insurance which will make both our exports and imports more costly.

While we are paying high price for a possible or imminent war, will we get a fair share of the returns from the post-war reconstruction in Iraq? The Chairman of the Export Promotion Tariq Ikram is too optimistic. He thinks the contacts we have established in Baghdad will pay full dividends after the war. He says Pakistan has a large share of the Iraqi market for batteries, wooden doors, construction materials, pharmaceuticals, textiles, wheat, stationery and surgical goods. Earlier he had hinted at the prospects of exporting a million tonnes of wheat to Iraq this year.

He says that once normality returned to Iraq Pakistan’s exports would flourish further. He thinks it would be business as usual in Baghdad, certainly in respect of exports from Pakistan. But the post-war situation in Iraq depends on a number of uncertain factors. It depends on who will head the economic sector in Baghdad then. Of course, the Americans will be in charge. Will they honour the agreements reached by the Saddam regime officials. Will those officials be there and free to act on merit in Baghdad?

The Americans have said they will favour in the post-war Iraq those who had sided with them in the war. So will Pakistan abstain in the voting in the UN Security Council on the war or vote with the Americans finally as the second resolution is put to vote?

The issue is not only the share of Pakistan in the future external trade of Iraq but also the share in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Will that be small or substantial?

Earlier we had spoken of our share in the economic reconstruction of Afghanistan where we supported the US fully and continue to do so. Yet we don’t seem to matter much in the reconstruction work, while we sell some cement or other construction materials to Afghanistan, and the Karzai regime is not well rooted.

Unlike Afghanistan Iraq has plenty of resources. The second largest producer of oil after Saudi Arabia with a 2.5 million to 2.8 million barrels of oil a day its capacity could rise to four million barrels a day after the oil wells and he refineries are rehabilitated. And after the reconstruction and expansion the capacity could rise to 7 million barrels over the years. So Iraq would not need prolonged external aid, although the aid would be essential in the earlier period.

Not only the US but also the World Bank and other donor agencies are ready to offer such assistance. But post-war political stability in Iraq is a major issue. The Americans have spoken of reforming the regimes in the neighbouring region as well. Will that lead to regional convulsions?

The region may not be affected economically by a short and well targeted war. But will the course of war follow the American strategic planning? Even if the economies of various regions are not too directly affected by the war the American economy would be hit. And America would reduce its imports from the rest of the world. It would want to save not only its industry but also its labour in a period of rising unemployment.

The world is becoming more and more dependent on the US importing its goods. During the last Gulf war South East Asia exported 3 per cent of its GDP to the US but now its exports are 5 per cent of its GDP. Any serious reduction in such imports would hurt the newly-industrial states of Asia very hard.

Anyway the US businessmen want the nagging uncertainty in respect of the war to come to an end and that the war, if it takes place, should be over quickly so that they could resume their normal business. They have increasing strains with European businessmen due to the political differences of their governments in respect of the war and they want such differences to come to end soon and have stable relations with Europe whose euro is appreciating against the US dollar.

If the US economy is hit hard by the war it can affect Pakistan’s exports to that country as well, particularly the textiles. Pakistan has been experiencing difficulties about its textile exports to the US since 9/11. And at a time when our exports are doing so well and have increased by almost 20 per cent in the current financial year compared to last year in the same period, we cannot afford a major setback in the US sector.

What is certain is we are living in a very very uncertain world and in a very turbulent region and the world economy is moving from one convulsion to another. So we have to make our economy really strong. Building up a foreign exchange reserve of 10 billion dollars is good.

Our increasing exports are welcome. But far more has to be done in the areas of investment so that our production goes up, exports increase and become diversified and employment rise. All that has to be done on an urgent basis as what we have to do now is far more imperative than what we have achieved.

Kashmir or economic ties?

MILITARY heads of state are known to be reticent. Whenever they say something it is more of a threat than rhetoric. President General Pervez Musharraf is an exception. He wants to be in the headlines every day and what he says gets lost in oratory, a politician’s trait.

In a recent interview to a pro-BJP TV channel in New Delhi, he has said that no Pakistani ruler could survive if he brushed aside the half-century-old Kashmir dispute and began mending relations with India in other areas such as trade. This is a rhetorical observation and not factually correct.

Had he said that no Pakistani ruler could give up Kashmir, he would have made a factual statement. But to say that the dispute comes in the way of trade or any other economic tie to take place is to express a point of view that has the khaki imprint.

Musharraf should know that before the 1965 war, India and Pakistan had regular trade. Goods trains crossed the border without evoking any attention. So much so that newspapers of one country were available in the other the same day. All the agreements and declarations signed between the two countries, whether at Tashkent in 1966 or at Lahore three years ago, the words used often in the preamble urged “the resumption of trade.”

What it conveys was the anxiety to go back to the export and import of goods without losing any time. Kashmir has been part of every pact. But it was realized then and should be realized even better today that if trade and transaction were linked with the settlement of Kashmir, the two countries would be waiting till the cows came home. Kashmir is a political question; trade is an economic one. The two cannot be mixed.

Could it be a difference of perception between military and civilian rulers? It is more than a coincidence that 1965 and 1971 wars broke out when the army ruled Pakistan. The trade thread was picked up later when Pakistan came under civilian rule with elected prime ministers. Tagging any tie with India to the condition that Kashmir should be settled first appears to be a military agenda. It has nothing to do with the reality that exists. It is not sound politics either.

This will be more or less obvious from the reports of talks the deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had with former Prime Minister Inder Gujral and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. At that time Islamabad had come to realize that the revival of trade and economic ties did not have to wait till the settlement over Kashmir.

Nawaz Sharif told Gujral in Maldives, where the summit between the two countries took place: “We cannot take Kashmir from you forcibly; nor can you give it to us peacefully. We have to find a way how to span the distance between the two countries.” Maybe, this approach of Nawaz Sharif led to his ousting through a military coup. This was confirmed by Vajpayee’s observation soon after Nawaz Sharif’s overthrow that “he went because of us.”

That Nawaz Sharif agreed to normalize trade and other ties while conducting talks on Kashmir may well have been the reason for the military coup. In other words, the military’s agenda was different from that of the elected government. When Musharraf says that no Pakistani ruler can survive if it mends relations with India on trade or other areas without settling the Kashmir issue, he is expressing the military mind, not that of the people.

It is obvious that the complicated problem of Kashmir will take time to solve. It has many ramifications touching New Delhi, Srinagar and Islamabad. Should normalization in the economic field be deferred till then? Both countries have suffered because of that in the last four decades. Must they suffer in the same manner for many more years till discussions on the Kashmir problem throws up a solution which may satisfy all the parties involved? New Delhi has conceded both at Simla and Lahore that “a final settlement” of Kashmir is still to take place. The word ‘dispute’ has not been used but must Islamabad insist on using such phraseology when what is required is a settlement?

Musharraf may call the terrorists operating from the Pakistan soil “freedom fighter” or “free lancers,” a new term coined by him. But they have aggravated the problem and given a bad name to the movement, indigenous at one time. They have cost the Kashmiris, more than Pakistan, the sympathy which they could evoke on the right to self-determination.

Still worse is the Islamization of Kashmir. A West Asian leader makes an interesting point: the Islamization of Kashmir has driven New Delhi to develop relations with Tel Aviv. His observation was that India, with 120 million Muslims, should not have been driven out of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference). New Delhi has, however, made indirect efforts to stay in touch with the OIC. Mirwaiz Farooq, the leader of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, had the government’s blessings whenever he attended the OIC meeting.

The Hurriyat on its part did not even appreciate New Delhi’s efforts. It was slow in discerning the growing distance between the Muslim-majority valley and the non-Muslim Jammu and Ladakh. The BJP-led government in New Delhi only highlighted their differences because the trifurcation of the state fitted into the agenda of the partys mentor, the RSS.

At times, the central government seems pushing the Hurriyat to the wall. True, its influence is confined to the valley and it admits this belatedly now. But if it is driven to desperation, it is likely to return to arms which could assume the early nineties proportion. With some Islamic fundamentalists within India wanting to throw the gauntlet in the name of religion, the Kashmir valley, helped by Islamabad, could become another Afghanistan.

There was a time when New Delhi was keen on talking to the Hurriyat. Rajesh Pilot, when he was minister of state for home, even approached some of its leaders while they were in jail. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, even after assuming power, said that the government would have to hold talks with the Hurriyat. He has suddenly gone quiet. The peace, if it ever comes, would be unproductive if the Hurriyat or some others, dubbed separatists, were left out.

So long as the bottom line that there is no secession of the valley from the country is made clear, New Delhi would do well to get the support of the “separatists” if possible. This may present Islamabad with a fait accompli. It has taken New Delhi five years to reach the stage when it can have productive talks with the hostile Nagas.

The Hurriyat would have liked such a process to take place. But it is too late for that now. Pakistans finger in the pie has only made things more intractable. Musharraf should still reconsider his stand not to have even trade relations with India until the Kashmir problem is solved. If he does that, it will prove his maturity as a ruler. It will also bridge the gulf between two distant neighbours. People-to-people contact is important for such an endeavour. Even Prime Minister Vajpayee has said in his musings from Andaman that it is a must. New Delhi should at least heed its prime minister.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Consensus on peace

IN the often mindless chatter on foreign television talk shows, the emphasis is often on the divisions that mark the Atlantic Alliance and the West. What is ignored is an emerging global consensus, which is both significant and singular.

Peace is now recognized by an overwhelming majority of the world’s people and their leaders as the option to be pursued. This is a major setback to America’s global diplomatic efforts for war on Iraq — a fact attested to by the rather inarticulate, illogical and exasperated responses by US secretaries of state and defence in the past few days.

But why the sudden alignment between Russia, France and Germany after isolated diplomatic manoeuvrings and knee-jerk reactions?

The underlying connotation is clear — a resounding rejection of the new unipolar world order headed by bungling statesmen of the ilk of Mr George Bush.

Two imperatives seem to be dictating the course of action: geopolitical concerns and the future leadership of the combined EU bloc. For an effective counterfoil to America’s increased global dominance (military) and for the EU to work as an effective economic and political unit, a counter bloc has to be created. The major players involved — France and Germany — want their strong economies to reap the greatest rewards from the European Union along with political leadership of the grouping.

The offsetting factor here is a parallel European bloc which is largely dependent on the economic support and goodwill of the US and whose components have Europe’s weakest economies — Italy, the UK and the former Eastern European states which were strongly snubbed by France over their support to the US on Iraq. The scenario is reminiscent of the balance of power politics which was the dominant European geopolitical structure prior to the two great wars.

Whatever may be the position of governments in individual European states, the masses are staunchly opposed to any war. A recent poll went further towards underlining Europe’s position, with 52 per cent considering the US a greater threat than, say, Iraq to world peace.

Moscow may no longer be a balancing counterpoise to the US, but it is a role that it has not entirely forgotten or relinquished. It cannot come out with an outright rejection of US policies because of its significant economic dependence on the US that is likely to continue. An additional factor is the current unstable political situation in certain areas domestically, where, being a participant in the war on terror, suits Russia’s internal political purposes.

The United Nations has often been a victim of US coercion, especially budgetary. The time for payback is ripe and for reclaiming international legitimacy as a supra-governmental institution. UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix’s comments have been as usual diplomatically balanced, but certainly slanted towards an endorsement of Iraq’s measures on compliance. Additionally, the denial by Secretary-General Kofi Annan of a post-occupation scenario is another setback to the US.

The case of Turkey is striking. The US dilemma here is acute: you live by democracy — publicise it and revere it — then at times you die by it. Barring any pressure from the army, it seems that the Turkish parliament will reiterate the position of not allowing the US to stage an attack from Turkish soil.

All through last week’s US briefings, as seen on television, the US position appeared rather comical and the case made out for war superficial. The interesting element was the slight back-peddling on Iraq, with greater emphasis on “war on terror” and the role of a united coalition in this and the situation in Afghanistan.

The Vatican is the only player without any political agenda. Its position is entirely based on humanistic principles and concerns. For the Pope to take a strong stand, despite his failing health, clearly illustrates the underlying moral foundation of world religions — a fact which might be taken note of by our own religious groupings.

This is especially a bold stance in the light of Italy’s current political position on this issue. The sad part is the limited impact it can create to avert war, since most states follow secular foreign policy objectives that clearly supersede any moral concerns.

Losing your identity

ONE of the things people worry about these days is losing their identity. There is something frightening about someone stealing your name and using it to charge everything from bedroom sets to Lexus convertibles.

This how it is done. You order a camera and give your credit card number to a clerk. Someone in the store steals the number and sells it to a gang of Russian thieves in Los Angeles. They, in turn, sell your name to a group of con men in Nigeria, but your identity doesn’t stay in Nigeria long. It is traded to a master of forgery in Marseilles who trades it to a gang in Buffalo.

Now your identity is in play.

The Buffalo gang works on the telephone. One of the members says he is you and orders a new motorcycle, a trip to Tahiti, theatre tickets to “La Boheme,” and gifts adding up to thousands of dollars.

He has a post office box in Ottawa in case someone is trying to track him.

When you get your bill, you call your credit card company.

The credit card contact says, “How do we know you’re you?”

You say, “It wasn’t me and you can’t charge me for all the things I didn’t order.”

The contact man says, “You are a victim of identity theft, one of the greatest crimes in plastic history. Why didn’t you tell us at the beginning that someone else was using your name?”

“That is a poor excuse. I didn’t know until I got my statement,” you reply.

“If we issue another card, you have to promise not to tell anyone what the number is.”

“How can I charge anything if I can’t give anyone my number?” you ask.

“You can, but if you use it there is a good chance you could lose your identity again. But not to worry. We will be on the lookout for the person using your card.”

“Well, at least I can get back the real me,” you say.

“Yes and no. Someone may steal the number on your new card and pretend he is the real you.”

“Suppose I get a card in the name of another person so I would have someone else’s identity?”

“The people in Buffalo would soon find out about it and you would be swimming with the fishes.” “This must be happening all the time. Isn’t there some way you can stop it?”

“People pretending they are other people is one of the oldest scams of the human race, but it has never been more profitable than it is right now. At least your family knows who you are.”

“I’m not so sure. The joker with my card charged a mink coat to my account, and when the bill arrived home my wife wouldn’t believe me that someone else bought the coat for his girlfriend.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Senate polls: secrecy breeds distortion

IDEALLY, the Senate of Pakistan should be a directly elected forum because it is only through such a mode of election that an upper house can become the corner-stone of an equitable federation.

A directly elected legislature with additional reserved seats for women, minorities and technocrats in which all four provinces have equal representation, and which has financial authority can alone provide the balance and equilibrium in the distribution of power.

The Federation of Pakistan has always been lop-sided because one province’s population is more than that of all the other three combined. Several attempts had to be made in the US over many years in the early part of the 20th century before the American Senate was also converted from an indirectly chosen forum to a directly elected house.

Until the ideal becomes possible, and while retaining an indirectly elected house, a basic, simple change in the procedure to elect Senators can make a transforming difference to the integrity of the electoral process and to the stature of the house as a whole.

As the new parliament of Pakistan belatedly completes its initial, formative phase with the oath-taking of members and the election of the chairman and the deputy chairman on March 12, notwithstanding the controversy over the LFO, it is relevant to review the manner in which this particular upper house has been constituted.

The fact that the Awami National Party has taken the extreme step of expelling three of its own members of the provincial assembly in the NWFP for having “betrayed the party” during the Senate elections is an example of the serious distortions that marked the pre-poll phase, such severe distortions being the precise reason why this writer also decided to retire from the election.

But the issue of distortions that adversely affected the elections goes far beyond an individual case. Virtually every political party, even including the member-parties of the ruling coalition at the centre known as the Grand National Alliance, has been affected by irregularities and malpractices. Neither the so-called religious parties, which are, in theory, supposed to be paragons of virtue compared to the non-religious parties, remained free of ethical pollution nor did those parties claiming to be the custodians of constitutionalism and democracy, which accuse the ruling coalition of various sins, remain untouched by aberrations in the pre-poll phase.

Allegations of kidnapping MPAs to secure their votes come side by side with charges of open vote-buying as also the unwillingness of some party MPAs to abide by their party leaders’ directives about which candidates to support.

Such pre-poll distortions have compounded the intrinsic paradox which is partially the result of the first-past-the-post system used to elect the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies. The party that polled the highest votes on October 10, 2002, i.e. about 25 per cent is represented in the Senate by only 11 members, or about 11 per cent.

Perhaps the root cause of the problem in the Senate polls is the secret mode of voting for candidates. Whereas there is an essential requirement for privacy and secrecy when a voter marks a ballot in a direct election in favour of a party or a candidate, the use of secret voting in the indirectly elected system by which Senators are chosen, creates the scope for both corruption and coercion.

There is a special irony of contrasts when it comes to the subjects on which votes are taken and the modes of voting. On issues concerning fundamental national interests, be they constitution-making or constitution-amending, be they matters of public policy with regard to legislation in any sphere or, for that matter, the election by the National Assembly of the leader of the house where voting is by audible, verifiable “ayes” or “nays” or the mode of “division”, with every member having to stand, and be seen and be counted — or be seated, as the case may be, when it comes to abstentions — in the case of electing members to the upper house, the method used is furtive and unverifiable.

In 2003, the Senate elections have also demonstrated a new crudity of intervention and manipulation by officials claiming to act on behalf of state institutions, which, in any case, have no mandate to interfere in political party affairs. The 1985 Senate elections held under martial law on a non-party basis and, therefore theoretically offering far greater scope for covert manipulation by non-political forces, remained free from the kind of blatant, up-front role played in 2003 by officers of an intelligence agency.

Yet the decline in norms of conduct is not confined to official agencies. One sad manifestation of the deterioration came on the very day that I was going to address a letter to the Returning Officer informing him of my decision of retirement from the election. On walking into my office from an early morning outside appointment, I found a lady waiting to see me. She claimed to have met me on an earlier occasion which I could not recall. She then proceeded to say that she had come on behalf of a woman MPA who had heard of my candidature for election to the Senate. When I acknowledged that I was still a candidate but was not aware of why her visit was taking place, she provided the not-so-subtle hint that her MPA friend may be favourably inclined to cast her vote for me if we could “discuss the matter further”.

After thanking her for her interest, I requested her to convey my advice to her MPA friend to the effect that she should fully abide by whatever decision her party made with regard to her vote and to remember that the votes by which she was elected and the vote that she was about to cast are sacred trusts. Immediately after this uninvited sermon from me, when I informed the visitor of my decision to retire from the election that very day and offered her a cup of tea, the lady had no time to spare for my hospitality though she had previously waited patiently for me for well-over an hour!

The most disquieting aspect of the episode was that, whereas in 1985, as an independent candidate successfully seeking support from other independent MPAs elected on a non-party basis (even though many MPAs were members of various factions of the Muslim League, and of the Jamaat-i-Islami, JUI, JUP, etc.) one had never been approached by an MPA, or a representative, soliciting payment in return for a vote. But then, time brings progress!

There is no bias intended in revealing the gender of both the person representing the MPA and the MPA herself. The gender is entirely incidental. Some male MPAs are as, if not more, willing to sell their votes. It is even more important to emphasize that the majority of MPAs preserved their values and practised discipline. This is specially relevant because there is a tendency to portray legislators as being fickle and unreliable. The weaknesses of some legislators have tainted the reputation of all those who are otherwise honourable persons, and have sullied the electoral process.

To offset this unseemly attempt, there was also the generous and unsolicited offer by three MPAs from two parties other than my own to give me their first preference votes without any consideration whatsoever, disregarding their parties’ directives. For reasons that need not be detailed here, I was not willing or able to accept their very kind offer. The point of citing this instance is to show that even while some persons were succumbing to various temptations and pressures, there were also others willing to vote entirely by conviction and without any compensation.

Another disturbing trend in these Senate elections was the whimsical and capricious role played by the leaderships of several political parties in the award of party tickets and in the decisions to extend support to particular candidates. Instead of practising the principles of internal party democracy and consultation to respect the views of party workers and leaders, many tickets were allocated on the personal preferences of party heads or of a small faction of the party favoured by the party leader.

There is also a need to conduct drastic reform of the method by which political parties allocate party tickets to candidates. Decisions should be based on the views of the respective constituency units, be that at district or provincial level so that their binding force cannot so easily be overruled by a sole party leader or by a small faction. A party leader should always have a margin to exercise individual discretionary preference, but such a margin should be minimal, and not, as at present, maximalist.

The revelatory aspect of the final chapter in the formative phase of the new parliament is that, despite the previous chapters having been decisively shaped by a party-based system that minimizes the role of independent candidates, elections to the Senate in 2003 featured the weird spectacle of MPAs being directed by their party leaders and by the covert interventionists to cast their votes for certain independent candidates who had no previous linkage with their respective parties!

In such circumstances, it is possible to make only an informal and approximate estimate of the extent to which these distortions affected the outcome. This writer’s assessment is that about one-fourth or one-fifth of the results were manoeuvred. To state this is not to demean the dignity of an elected forum: it is to underline that a 20 per cent scale of distortion is quite substantial and is unwelcome. With reforms, it is also easily avoidable.

An open, transparent, non-secret basis for electing members of the Senate through the existing indirect method will, at one stroke, eliminate the scope for the non-accountable use of bribery, intimidation and manipulation. It will give unprecedented credibility to the composition of the Senate and a moral strength that is direly needed for the parliament of Pakistan.

The writer is a former Senator and federal minister and senior vice-president of the Millat Party.