Merger of PML factions

NEWS came on September 18 that five factions of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) had merged and become one entity. According to initial reports, each faction stood dissolved, having disbanded its councils, committees, and officers. A proposal to offer the headship of the reconstituted party to General Pervez Musharraf had been set aside in order not to involve him in the rough and tumble of politics. Instead, the faction leaders and the other notables present at the meeting named Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as their leader. They called the merger a “historic event.”

It has been revealed also that the merger has had the backing of General Musharraf. It appears the faction leaders and their lieutenants had been conferring for several hours without coming to a meeting of the minds until they heard from the general.

Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain said each faction would dissolve its organization after consulting its workers and that offices in the re-constituted party would be distributed “judiciously.” Actually, the faction leaders had acted on their own volition without prior authorization of, or even consultation with, their workers and office-bearers at various levels. This confirms the widespread impression that they regard their respective organizations as their personal fiefdoms.

This modus operandi is not going well with the “rank and file” of the largest faction, namely, PML-Q. They have reportedly “rejected” the dissolution of their general council, central working committee and other offices, saying that the action had been “unconstitutional and illegal.” They did not like the prospect of persons like Ejazul Haq and Mian Manzoor Wattoo holding leading positions in their party.

It is then not entirely clear whether the merger is a done deed. Majeed Malik, who is apparently reluctant to go along with the decision, had been vice-president of PML(Q), but what would he be in PML? Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, the media minister, has been mentioned as the likely secretary-general. It would surely be seen as a demotion if Majeed Malik was relegated to a minor post such as that of information secretary or membership of the central working committee. Similar concerns will haunt office- bearers in the party at the provincial and district levels. One cannot then rule out the possibility that some of these disenchanted politicians will walk away to form new factions. That has been the main reason for factional splits in the past. Why did Musharraf want this merger? Mr Jamali said the general was not offered the headship of the party in order not to involve him in politics. That could not have been the real reason. He is precluded from heading a political party because he is still a serving army officer, and one may be certain that army regulations do not allow him to become, formally and overtly, an active politician.

But such a role may open up when he retires from the army. It is possible that he is planning ahead. It would certainly look and sound good if there were only one PML, and he the head of it, when the time became propitious for him to make the transition. It would not do to be merely another faction leader along with the likes of Manzoor Wattoo and Ejazul Haq. If we dismiss this explanation as far-fetched and implausible, how do we account for his interest in uniting the PML factions? Is he just being a nice guy, a conciliator? Conceivable, but not likely.

The merger is not a “historic event,” but one may wonder if it is in any way a significant development. As an observer has pointed out in another newspaper, four of the factions have only one representative each in the National Assembly, and all of them are already supportive of Mr Jamali’s government. In other words, the move does not enhance the present government’s standing in the house. Would it have an improving effect on the party’s chances in the next election? It will have no effect either way if we assume that these elections will also be rigged. But let us not hasten to make that assumption.

The fact that none of the four factions won more than one NA seat last time does not say much for their prospect. None of them is much more than a one-man show. Hamid Nasir Chattha is a fine gentleman and a respected politician, but the same cannot be said of Mr Ejazul Haq and Mr Manzoor Wattoo. Pir Pagara’s credentials as a politician are problematic, and any prediction as to his alignments when the next election comes along would be hazardous. Chattha’s presence in the reconstituted PML will probably have a wholesome effect. Ejazul Haq broke away from PML (Q), and formed his own faction in a manner the propriety of which was generally considered to be dubious at the time. It is remarkable also that he lost the election in Rawalpindi, his home base. Wattoo’s following is essentially local. Neither of them is likely to be much of an asset to the reconstituted PML.

Yet these gentlemen will expect returns for their act of “self-denial” (willingness to dissolve their own organizations). They may want ministerial offices for themselves and other jobs for their cronies. Such demands, if and when made, should be turned down partly because their “sacrifice” does nothing for the government’s strength, and partly because it already has far too many ministers.

If PML is to grow into a viable institution, it must go beyond the ritual of writing up a manifesto, establish genuine programmatic priorities, and tell its audiences what it will do if it is returned to power. This is asking for a great deal, for PML has had little experience in this regard. Its parent, the All India Muslim League, had adopted an ideological stance known as Muslim nationalism and its corollary, the two-nation theory. PML, out of sheer lethargy, has retained the same ideology even though it has had no function in post-independence Pakistan. It has claimed from time to time that it stands for an Islamic welfare state, but that claim has remained more a talking point than a serious concern.

PML used to be, for the most part, an assemblage of landed aristocrats, many of them feudal lords, with a sprinkling of wealthy merchants and successful professionals, dedicated to the maintenance of the social and economic status quo. It is likely that the party now includes a larger component of urban interests and classes than before. But its outlook is still essentially conservative, with a gradualist approach to social change. Its preferred methodology is that of “muddling through,” which means learning to live with issues instead of settling them. No wonder then that few, if any, of the major issues that have engaged the nation during the last fifty years — ideological as well as mundane — have been put to rest.

Preference for gradualism and the disposition to muddle through are not uniquely characteristic of PML. Neither in terms of substantive policy nor in those of technique and procedure is Benazir Bhutto’s PPP significantly different. Most of the other parties are the same way. They will do what the spirit moves them to do within the limits of available resources. They will not go out and mobilize additional resources of will and material means to bring ideologically desirable goals within reach. Ideological zeal is no longer the guiding force in politics anywhere, except in certain Islamic groups and movements whom much of the rest of the world now distrusts and fears.

Some of the issues facing Pakistan have become intractable, because they have been linked with larger and sensitive concerns. That we should, or should not, build a dam or a canal is normally a technical issue which engineers and economists should be able to unravel so as to enable lay politicians to reach a sensible decision. But even issues of this type have come to partake of the passion generated by the rhetoric of regionalism, provincial autonomy and devolution of power to local bodies.

But positions must nevertheless be taken on issues that continue to agitate the public domain. A party’s future will depend on how it proposes to settle them. It must take on at least some, even if it cannot address all, of them at the same time. PML should, for instance, formulate a viable policy with regard to the country’s relations with India, including the Kashmir dispute, harmonizing the desirable with the possible, and prepare public opinion in its favour. Similar re-thinking and re-formulation of policy towards the United States and Afghanistan is necessary.

In addition to sensitive issues, there are needs that are not controversial. PML should prepare not general statements of good intentions but specific plans of improvement in the areas of health, education, water supply, roads, agricultural production, regulation of urban land use, inducement to investment, control of corruption, and enhancement of competence in the public services, among other things.

We must assume that PML is not merely a crowd of self-seeking opportunists, and that it has its share of decent men and women ready and willing to work for the public interest. Recall that about half of its members in the West Pakistan assembly rejected Iskander Mirza’s call for them to defect to the Republican Party in 1956. Many of them disowned Ayub Khan’s Convention Muslim League, preferring to remain in the opposition as Council Muslim League. Persons dedicated to the national interest will surely be found among supporters of the present government. The nation waits to see them assert the public good above all else.

While announcing the merger, Mr Jamali said the Nawaz Sharif faction would also be invited to stand under this new umbrella at the appropriate time. The merger would become a great deal more meaningful if and when this other faction came in. But one gathers from a recent statement of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain that its members would be welcome if they were willing to abandon Mr Sharif. This condition is likely to hold while General Musharraf controls the space under the “umbrella” Mr Jamali holds.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, USA.

E-mail: ssyed@cox.net

Shady deals or fair elections?

THE politics of the country is inexorably heading towards street agitation or an authoritarian clampdown — more likely the latter. In either case it will be accompanied, it seems, by a cacophony of noises rather than violence. Either way, the important question remains the same: will it mark an improvement on the current inane debates, jarring thumps and shouts in the parliament and a daily plethora of contradictory statements — intimidatory or blackmailing — in the newspapers?

The answer is perhaps it will. An instant gain would be the saving of some millions a day on parliamentary sessions held only to exchange invective with no thought given to public welfare. Here is a passing look at the fair served to the people by the media after nine months of the government-Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal negotiations.

The alliance (MMA) has rejected the agreed constitutional package without even going through it, says Chaudhry Shujaat. The MMA leaders retort they were assured that by the time the agreed amendments are passed by the parliament, the president would guarantee that he would relinquish his military command before the end of 2004. “We know of no LFO”, says Maulana Fazlur Rahman, though all political activity and hopes had revolved around it for ten months. The government negotiators are mere mimes, says Javed Hashmi. To PPP’s Makhdum Amin Fahim the deadlock is grim and a president in uniform is not acceptable even for a moment.

The government’s constitutional proposals are a deception and a huge insult to the people, say some lawyers. The judges too are reported to have rejected the suggestion for cutting their extended term from three years to one. And the last word comes from the president: the outcome of the negotiations on the Legal Framework Order would make little difference,

“I will never take off the uniform.”

It is however left, as all along the proceedings, to Chaudhry Shujaat (the thinker) and Sheikh Rashid (the spokesman) to tantalize and to raise a bugbear. The Chaudhry says the negotiations with the religious parties will continue despite their rejection of the proposals and the sheikh chose New York to hint at Musharraf heading the unified Muslim League. The implications of what the two stalwarts of the regime have said are worrisome. One is that the present sterile, nerve-wracking phase will lengthen; and, secondly, the military might become a permanent part of the country’s political structure. This apprehension is strengthened by Musharraf’s simultaneous declaration not to quit the army command and his description of the armed forces as the strongest pillar of the state.

All these events and utterances viewed alongside the repeated assertions of the president and the prime minister that the parliament will complete its full five-year term hold out bleak prospects of four more unproductive and turbulent years ahead. The political manoeuvrers and intrigue however will remain within limits for no party or individual who has bagged a seat in the National Assembly or the Senate or in the four provincial assemblies would let the crisis swamp them. Most among them know that they may never make to the assemblies again once the better organized and more representative political forces, driven out or pushed against the wall, enter the electoral field again.

This anxiety also shows itself in the MMA’s decision not to hold any more talks with the government and yet to seek clarifications from the prime minister. That may not happen till Mr Jamali returns from his American trip. Then there will be counter-clarifications. The express wish of the government and the suppressed desire of the opposite side that the negotiations, however desultory, should not break off, thus, may come true. Musharraf’s warning in his address to the fellow countrymen at New York that if LFO goes, so will the assemblies, makes the choice grimmer for all political elements whether on his side or opposed to him and should make them think harder and longer.

The agitation on the streets may not persuade the president to abandon his system as the boycott of the parliament and personal slights haven’t. The people at large are weary of the constitutional stalemate but the rumblings of discontent are unlikely to explode into violence. The discontent is not against an individual or a party in power or trying to capture it but against the elite as a whole — political, religious, military, bureaucratic, business, NGOs and all the rest. It will be unwise of the politicians to incite people to violence. It hasn’t led them to power in the past, nor will it now.

The government experts for a year now have been promising economic resurgence but only poverty and unemployment are surging. Stale indices and large foreign currency reserves have not helped the people, investment will. But leave investors aside, in the conditions of uncertainty and intolerance created by the elite even the sportsmen and tourists fear coming to Pakistan.

The world may have come to a fork in the road as Kofi Annan says but Pakistan is swerving toward the edge of a precipice. Whether the LFO is whittled down to the satisfaction of the religious parties or the president acts unilaterally to cobble a “national government”, as is being suggested by some quarters, an environment of stability and confidence conducive to economic progress will not be created. The constitutional laws and procedures of the country have been distorted enough by military coups, presidential interventions and judicial doctrines of necessity to be distorted further by involving all elements and institutions of public life in shady political deals.

The LFO may be illegal but the elections of October 2002 were wholly unrepresentative which is much worse. A group of parties which represent an extreme fringe of the national spectrum and no more than one-tenth of the adult population (the enrolled voters) cannot be allowed to legalize it to their own advantage. The whole caboodle raised on that narrow and flawed electoral process must be pulled down.

The only viable solution to the crisis is to call elections afresh which should also be in the nature of a referendum on the role and powers of each individual and institution at the apex of the system. By now Gen Musharraf, his commanders and agencies, his new-found political allies and old cronies and his election commission must have realized that unless elections are open to all adult citizens (barring criminals) through common rolls without conditions and conducted fairly, the aftermath will be worse than before. Progress, stability and much talked-about moderation will remain ever so elusive.

At the New York international conference on terrorism Gen Musharraf held the despair caused by the world community’s inability to resolve the political and social conflicts justly as the main source of terrorism. For good measure he should have added that in Pakistan terrorism has dug its roots in the wreckage of incompetence, greed and prejudices of its ruling elite and the shattered hopes of its people.

He had the personal inclination and a grand opportunity to reverse the trend but instead he chose to appease the theologians and win adherents for his pet party deserting their own. The heap of wrecked hopes thus is becoming larger and roots of terror sinking deeper.

The present seems to be Musharraf’s last chance to choose the straight path to fair elections or get lost in a maze of deals. All parties to Pakistan’s public life must also recognize that the dangers are far too many and serious for them to continue indulging in a politics of revenge and retribution, blackmail and bigotry.

Americans do not seem to know their enemy

THE New York Times editorial blitz: ‘Pakistan, a troubled ally’, appeared on September 21 — a couple of hours before it interviewed President Musharraf. We have no cavil with the pro-Indian credentials of The New York Times, but its editors might have reined in their eagerness by just a few hours to hear the case of the other side before rushing to print all the “news that is fit to print”.

The thrust of The Times case is “Pakistan has never adequately sealed the Afghan border.... and made it possible for key Qaeda fugitives to escape. And now allows Pakistani recruits to join a reviving Taliban”. It takes President Musharraf to task that “he (promised) expels foreign fundamentalists. His actions fell short of his words”.

Need The Times be reminded that the US, with 180,000 troops in Iraq has not been able to apprehend Saddam Hussein or that they had Mulla Omar within a hair’s breadth and failed to get him. Most of Iraq is flat desert and the mountains to the north in Kurdistan are nowhere as hostile as those that bestride the Pakistan-Afghan border. Whereas the fugitive Saddam might find little sympathy from the Kurds, especially with a bonanza of 25 million dollars on his head, or for that matter from the Shia marsh Arabs of the south, the situation in the Pukhtun borderlands could not be more different.

In these bad lands of our rugged frontier if Osama bin Laden or Mulla Omar were to run in a freer and fairer election than Bush’s own, they would win hands down. The Times knows well that the Durand Line for the most part is undemarcated and to “seal” the hundreds of illegal cross points would require Pakistan to raise another army to safeguard its western border. Need The Times also be reminded that the Pukhtun areas contain some of the most fiercely independent people on earth. The British and the Russians will bear witness to this fact. And the Americans too will have an opportunity to discover this first hand in the days to come.

What the Americans or for that matter the Europeans don’t seem to understand is that their war in Afghanistan and Iraq is no longer against the Al Qaeda “remnants” or the tail of the Taliban coiled up in the Afghan mountains or Saddam’s elusive fugitives. Those who think in these terms do not know the enemy. And if you don’t know your enemy, you are taking pot-shots at shadows. America’s enemy today in Afghanistan and Iraq is none other than fierce nationalism, which embraces all sections of the people. Nationalism is the 20th century’s victor in the war against colonialism which has classically meant a white power subjugating yellow, brown or black nations.

Granted that this definition is unfair, for the world mostly does not acknowledge the domination of Syria in Lebanon, of Russia in Chechnya or of India in Kashmir as colonialism. Apart from the historical connotations of colonialism, in the case in point this is overlaid with the valid perception in the Muslim world that American politics is vitally influenced by its own Jewry and Israel, which in turn has made the problem of Palestine almost insoluble.

The grand scheme of Osama bin Laden to bog down America in the sweltering desert marshes and hostile mountain wilderness has turned into a reality, placing the Americans in the same crucible as were the Soviets in the 1980s. To sustain an American combat soldier in combat zone overseas is said to cost over a hundred thousand dollars per annum. The opponent fights virtually for free. America counts its body bags. The other side counts its martyrs.

In this storm which gathers strength with the passage of time, is it reasonable to expect Pakistan to turn the clock back at America’s behest? If America expects Pakistan to be its agent in bringing about a sea change in the Islamic world, it is sadly mistaken. No artificial force can redirect the winds of change. Even, if Osama bin Laden, Mulla Omar and Saddam Hussein were to be decapitated tomorrow, would this secure safety for America?

Safety for America lies in pacifying the Islamic world — to give it the justice which is its due. It is also important to stop treating Pakistan as if a grant of three billion dollars gives it the right to be a judge of our doings. No Asiatic country has done more for America than Pakistan. We opened the door to China for the Americans. We helped bring down Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’. We provided bases and intelligence for America’s invasion of Afghanistan at the risk of provoking civil commotion in our own country. These services, past and present, have been offered for peanuts: remember Turkey was offered a package of $ 15 billion to provide bases for the invasion of Iraq.

Public opinion in Pakistan demands a new concord with the US not linked to a cash nexus if we are to remain its ally in its anti-terrorism war in our part of the world. The people of Pakistan want that:

* Israel be pushed into its 1967 frontiers barring such concessions that the Palestinians may agree. Only the US can do this. Pakistan might try to persuade the Arab opinion not to insist on the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland in Israel within 1967 borders.

* The US should transfer sovereignty to Iraq before March 2004 after holding an election under UN and OIC auspices and resuscitate the old Iraqi army under a professional leadership not part of the Saddam power structure and quit.

A prolonged UN rule will also be doomed to disaster. For obvious reasons, the Iraqi people will not accept anything short of self-government and sovereignty.

* The US should accept that native Palestinians, Kashmiris and Chechens fighting in their respective countries are not terrorists but freedom fighters. (Jewish terrorism against the British of the 1940s is now conveniently forgotten). However, outsiders in these troubled zones should be regarded as intruders. A people must fight for its own freedom.

* Assist Pakistan in making the LoC in Kashmir a line of peace. Promote a ceasefire and military cooperation between India and Pakistan to reduce illegal cross-border movement and stop baiting Pakistan if some get through notwithstanding honest efforts to the contrary.

* Stop interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan excepting where clear human rights violations can be cited. The US has no business to interfere in the internal politics of our country. It must respect international norms in this respect.

* In recent days, the US has re-fuelled the arms race in South Asia by permitting Israel to sell Phalcon AWACS and the ‘Arrow’ anti-ballistic missiles to India.

It is essential in the interest of Muslim-West amity that Pakistan is encouraged to be a moderate, stable, progressive and enlightened Muslim state. Indeed, this was the vision of Pakistan’s founder. The lobby that prefers to see Pakistan pursuing anti-Quaid vision is strong. These groups gather momentum from the US biases against the Muslim world narrated above.

There are marked differences between the gray clouds of Pakistani religious conservatism and the black clouds of Talibanism backed by Osama bin Ladenism. Anti-Americanism conjoins the two.

It is in the American/western interest not to tip the scales in Pakistan and to appreciate its sensibilities. The worst case scenario would be a Taliban ruler state with a nuclear-tipped missile arsenal.

The writer is a member of the National Assembly. E-mail: murbr@isb.paknet.com.pk

The daily flip-flop on Iraq

THE Bush administration is not at risk of damaging its credibility in Iraq; it’s in danger of destroying it. The latest developments on U.S. troop deployments and still-undiscovered Iraqi weapons of mass destruction suggest that the administration either is in total disarray or it actively seeks to mislead the public.

For months, Secretary of Defence Donald H. Rumsfeld stoutly denied that more troops were needed in Iraq, even with U.S. soldiers being killed each day. In a trip to Iraq in early September, he brushed off the idea of more U.S. troop deployments and said of security woes: “It’s a problem that, ultimately, the Iraqi people will deal with, with the help of coalition troops.” Electric service was so good, he added, that at night Baghdad looked “like Chicago.” But power supplies across Iraq remain fitful.

Now that President Bush has failed to win a promise of new international forces, especially soldiers from India or Pakistan, Iraq continues to deteriorate. Indeed, Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate on Wednesday that the U.S. may need to activate more National Guard and reserve forces if 15,000 to 20,000 foreign troops can’t be mustered soon. Making matters worse, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is pulling back more United Nations personnel from Iraq because of security concerns.

If the administration has been indifferent to the difficulties the regular military deployments have caused, much less the hardship of National Guard and reserve families, it’s been dumbfounding on Iraq’s deadly weapons. Bush officials have urged patience in uncovering them and looked to a forthcoming report from David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group and a former U.N. inspector.— Los Angeles Times