| 03 October 2004 | Sunday | 17 Shaban 1425 |
Greater say for PM & cabinet
The first debate
Their cry for the wrong battle
Legislative assemblies make laws, but they are also entitled to see that the existing laws are being properly executed. This happens even where the legislative and executive powers are separated. Thus, within four years of the Republic's establishment the American House of Representatives appointed a committee to investigate General St Clair's (and his army's) defeat in battles with American Indians in 1792.
It authorized this committee to call for "such persons, papers, and records as may be necessary to assist their inquiries." Ever since then, Congress has routinely investigated the executive's functioning, and the Supreme Court has held that its authority in this regard is implicit in its general authority to legislate.
The legislature in parliamentary systems undertakes a general review of the working of each government department when it debates and approves its requested appropriations in the annual budget. But its members exercise this function of oversight on a day-to-day basis by asking questions.
The working day in the British House of Commons (except Friday) starts with the "question hour." Members submit the questions they propose to ask from the floor a few days ahead of time. Aided by computers, the clerks of the house randomly select the ones that will be allowed on a given day. These are passed on to the ministers concerned so that they may be prepared to answer them. When an answer is given, the original questioner and other members may ask supplementary questions (without prior notice), and the minister is expected to have anticipated them and come prepared to answer them. Questions are addressed to government departments by rotation so that each of them provides answers for about an hour each month. The prime minister answers questions for about a half hour every Wednesday.
Questions cover the whole range of the government's operations. They may relate to the war in Iraq or to the delay in the delivery of a pension cheque to a member's constituent. I find that a few months ago, a whole bunch of questions in the House of Commons related to the government's plans for enabling school children outside London to visit the houses of parliament and learn how they work.
The methods of legislative surveillance of the administration in Pakistan are essentially the same. A time is set aside each working day in our Senate, the National Assembly, and the provincial assemblies during which members pose questions, of which they have already given notice to the speaker and, thus, to the minister concerned. But like much of the rest of the assembly's business, the question hour is not taken seriously.
Much too often the minister is not present to answer the questions relating to his department. In some such instances, another minister may take on the questions, but he is not really prepared to deal with them and, more particularly, with the supplementary questions that may follow.
A couple of weeks ago (September 17), as the question hour began in the National Assembly, many of the concerned ministers were absent, and Dr Sher Afgan, minister for parliamentary affairs (whatever these may be), had to apologize to the speaker for their absence.
The absence of members from the house has become a perennial problem. On September 20, the government moved to amend an existing law to enable the ISI to appoint the officers it needed through its own channels without involving the Federal Public Service Commission. The opposition, having denounced the ISI and the government's proposal to further enhance its powers, walked out of the Senate. Treating its departure as a "good riddance," the treasury asked the chairman to put the matter to vote. But this could not be done, for it transpired that the pro-government senators present in the house were not numerous enough to constitute a quorum.
Apparently, the absentees do not feel that they are doing something unbecoming. Irked by the situation in the Senate to which I have just referred, Dr Sher Afgan wrote a letter to each senator on the treasury benches, scolding him/her for "causing a break-up of quorum" in the house. They ganged up on him on September 23, denounced his "humiliating letter" and the "uncalled for reprimand" it contained, and demanded his "unconditional apology" which, after some futile attempts to defend himself, he tendered.
The treasury senators' show of self-righteous indignation notwithstanding, their habitual absence from the house, while it is in session, is indeed reprehensible. The Senate, the National Assembly, and the provincial assemblies in Pakistan suffer from their respective members' insufficient commitment to their mission. Day after day their meetings are adjourned for lack of quorum and the institution's work does not get done.
It is not clear why the senators in the above case became indignant. It is a normal function of party "whips" to make sure that their party members are present in the legislature to support its position on the issue under consideration. The senators may have lost their cool because Sher Afgan is not the ruling party's whip. He may have thought that, being the minister for parliamentary affairs, he was within his rights to scold his colleagues for their indifference to duty. But obviously, they did not share his view.
A couple of other ways of probing the government's functioning may be mentioned in passing, but it should be noted also that in our Pakistani practice the resort to them is often frivolous and improper. There is, for instance, the "adjournment motion." A member stands up and, upon catching the speaker's eye, says: "I move that this house do now adjourn to discuss a specific matter of urgent public importance," and then he goes on to state what that matter is. The speaker may, or may not, allow his motion, depending upon whether, in his judgement, the matter is specific and urgent enough to warrant the setting aside of the day's scheduled agenda to take it up. More often than not, he will find that these requirements are not met.
An amusing case in point comes to mind. Once during our first parliamentary regime, an MNA offered an adjournment motion to discuss an allegedly precipitous deterioration in law and order in Karachi evidenced by the fact that the house of a federal minister had been burglarized a few days earlier, with cash and jewellery taken and the robbers still at large. The speaker disallowed the motion, saying that hundreds of houses in the country were broken into every night, and the theft at a minister's house was therefore no big deal. It did not merit the Assembly's urgent attention.
Frequent misuse of another device may be mentioned. A member intervenes in the proceedings on the ground that one of the assembly's rules or procedures for the orderly conduct of business is being violated. This device is called a "point of order." In our legislatures, points of order are raised even when no violation of the rules is involved. A few recent cases may be mentioned.
On September 23, 2004, Senator Aslam Buledi called upon the government to make "urgent arrangements" for the supply of drinking water in Gwadar; Senator Akbar Khwaja wanted to know the justification for the appointment of 595 persons in the Capital Development Authority's establishment; Dr Saeed asked why Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was not speaking for Pakistan at the UN General Assembly's meetings in New York and, by implication, why General Musharraf was there. It is easy to see that none of these matters had anything to do with the rules or procedures for the conduct of business. None of them made for a legitimate point of order.
A member may raise a "point of privilege" when he is prevented from exercising his rights or performing his normal functions, or when he is denied access to the amenities to which he is entitled. This device is also open to misuse.
Another amusing incident, illustrative of misapplication, may be recalled. A couple of weeks ago, a treasury senator, Salim Jan Mazari, complained that one of his own party's MNAs (Ms Kashmala Tariq) had breached his privilege when she told a newsman that only Mazaris, Legharis, and bazaris had been taken as ministers. She had paired his tribe (Mazaris) with the bazaris (meaning merchants in Farsi, but in Urdu usage also denoting persons who run houses of ill repute). The pairing may conceivably have slighted Mr Salim Jan's tribe, but clearly it did not detract from his rights or role as a legislator.
Assemblies may be in session and, yet, do little work. An "unprecedented rumpus" and exchange of harsh words in the Senate on September 21 forced the chairman to adjourn the house after only one of some 50 items on the agenda had been debated. "Pandemonium," "rumpus," "uproar," acrimonious, even abusive, exchanges have become routine in our assemblies. All of these happened in the Sindh assembly on September 18, forcing the speaker to adjourn the house within 45 minutes of its having convened and before any business could be transacted.
I have never quite understood why it has become common among opposition members in our assemblies to walk out of the chamber. They do so, professedly, as a gesture of protest against, and as an expression of dissociation with, the proceedings. Their protest and dissociation would surely be a whole lot more eloquent, and effective in influencing public opinion, if they remained in the house and marshalled arguments against the government's plans and policies. But that would require serious thinking and hard work, which it seems they would rather avoid. It is so much easier to walk out and retire to the cafeteria. But then why keep blabbering away about the supremacy of parliament if they are not willing to do their part in making it work in a reasonably decent fashion and enabling it to deserve, and command, respect?
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US. Email: anwarsyed@cox.net
Greater say for PM & cabinet
"I have got my job to do and he has his job to do, it is as simple as that," was Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown's reply to pressmen when asked about his working relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair. Can anyone here visualize our finance ministers of the last decade, Yasin Wattoo and Ishaq Dar, describe their relationship with their prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in the same simple terms?
This relationship in the current setting has been likened by President Musharraf to a train in which the prime minister is the engine who pulls the carriages, i.e. the ministers, in whatever direction he wants or nowhere at all. It was no different in the times of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
A minister in Britain draws his authority from the laws and tradition. Here in Pakistan, it is delegated to him by the prime minister or, in the new evolving system, by the president or by both. In turn, he considers himself answerable to either or both of them but not to the cabinet or the parliament.
At this most critical moment in its history, Pakistan has a divided executive authority at the top between the prime minister and the president; the ministers that are too numerous to form a cohesive cabinet; a parliament which meets only to sing praises or to hurl threats; the provincial governments that have locked horns with the local councils; and a bureaucracy that is shaken to the roots by internal pressures and external surveillance.
The picture in the provinces is no different. It is, thus, no surprise that whether it is dealing with a crisis such as in South Waziristan or a fateful decision as on the scope and course of negotiations with India, the cabinet or the parliament or the provinces have little say and play no part.
The hope remains that the trouble in Waziristan will soon subside once the tribes and the government come to assess the heavy price both are paying for transgressing the limits of their respective authority which are set more by tradition than by laws. The fear, however, is that mutual trust and respect will take much longer to return. It will be a misfortune if the army were to replace the political agent and his militia to maintain order in the tribal area even after the foreign fighters have departed. The military operation should not altogether sideline the already weakened political agent and the provincial government. The administration of the tribal areas from Islamabad has been only on paper and so it should remain.
The course of negotiations with India could be as long as has been the duration of the conflict - that is half a century. The guiding principles for the "composite dialogue" have been laid down by General Musharraf as president of the country and the chief of its army. He must now secure the endorsement of the cabinet and the parliament for his declared intention of normalizing relations with India in all fields and to seek a solution to the Kashmir dispute, as long as it takes, to the satisfaction of both India and Pakistan and, of course, the people of Kashmir.
Such an endorsement has its urgency because while he has given up the "hackneyed position" (he should have chosen a better phrase) some ministers and legislators, even among those supporting him, keep repeating that Pakistan will never compromise on the Kashmiris' right of self-determination. This statement still has its emotional appeal and some try their best to exploit it. But the people at large are now convinced that since we cannot conquer Kashmir, another way to settle the dispute has to be found. Half a century of tension and insurgency has brought only privation and death to the Kashmiris and given Pakistan the image of a terrorist state while the goal of freedom has been receding farther.
The purpose in dilating at some length on Waziristan and Kashmir is to emphasize that the policy on these two issues should now come from the cabinet and the prime minister who has to defend it in parliament. The president, however, may continue to handle both issues because he has earned the trust of America and all the other countries which matter in conducting the war on terror, and that of the Indian leadership in negotiating the terms of a new constructive relationship.
Yet another justification for this arrangement is that the number of ministers is too large to share secrets regarding the new deals struck with India and America. This argument is reinforced by the conflicting political affiliations of the ministers (imagine the one-time adherents of Benazir's PPP and Altaf's MQM sitting round one secret table) and their doubtful calibre - even General Musharraf has conceded in a press interview that merit was hardly a criterion in their selection, and the prime minister has put them all on a three-month probation.
Barring the war on terror and a settlement on Kashmir, the president must leave the remaining functions to the prime minister and his cabinet, the civil services and the provincial governments. The sole purpose of state activity, in all its dimensions, is to lift the people out of the web of poverty, ignorance and disease and to save them from repression and discrimination of every kind from whatever quarter it might come. Putting it in the World Bank's cold cliche of "good governance" has robbed it of the human touch and personal responsibility. Macro-economic indicators and currency reserves are bandied around while unemployment and poverty keep growing. The senior generals are being praised for their performance while the utilities and services they manage continue to deteriorate. Others pass on the buck.
The president was being ingenuous when he told this newspaper in New York last Sunday that the kidnappings, extortions and murders (add gang warfare for good measure) in Karachi should worry no one. There is nothing to worry about, he has been quoted as saying. Mr President, let the prime minister, the chief minister and the nazim of Karachi, who has now been made responsible for law and order, worry about it. There is a lot to worry about. It was never so bad and it is getting worse by the hour.
The first debate
The first encounter between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry Thursday night generated both heat and some illumination about the two candidates' positions on critical questions of foreign policy.
Despite rules designed to curtail direct exchanges, there were, under Jim Lehrer's skillful moderation, pointed and serious arguments about Iraq, the threats from Iran and North Korea, US alliances, and the meaning of the war on terrorism. Both the president and his challenger spoke forcefully and, occasionally, with passion: Bush dismissed Kerry's arguments as "absurd" and "ludicrous," while Kerry repeatedly accused the president of exercising bad judgement and not telling the truth to the country.
The centre of the debate was Iraq though the candidates differed more on past actions than on future plans. Bush stoutly defended his decision to go to war and its results; Kerry forcefully criticized that decision and the war's management and offered himself as a more competent commander in chief. But Kerry had a more complicated position to defend, and it showed at times. He called the war a mistake and a diversion, but later said that American soldiers were not dying for a mistake.
He implied that money being spent in Iraq could be better spent on prescription drugs for seniors, but insisted, "I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning."'
Bush was skilful and relentless in underlining these "mixed messages," and in arguing that a president who sent them could not effectively lead US forces or recruit allies. "So what's the message going to be? Please join us in Iraq for a grand diversion?" he demanded at one point. Kerry seemed not to have an answer to this challenge; his argument that "the real war on terrorism (is) in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden" seemed to us unconvincing alongside Bush's repeated insistence that success in Iraq and on other fronts is equally vital to U.S. security.
After all, not so long ago Kerry said he, too, believed that Saddam Hussein represented a grave threat that the United States could not afford to ignore.
Yet Bush's clarity in defining goals was not matched with candour about conditions on the ground in Iraq. Kerry pointed to the president's failure to adequately deploy and supply troops, to plan for the postwar period, and to correct his mistakes. "It's one thing to be certain - but you can be certain and be wrong," he said of Bush. The Democrat was effective in pointing out how nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea had increased while the administration pursued Saddam Hussein. Yet neither Kerry nor Bush appeared to offer a strategy for dealing with those two states that departed from the mostly failed diplomacy extending back to the Clinton administration.
In the end the candidates drew sharply distinct portraits of themselves and each other. Bush stressed his own resoluteness, which Kerry suggested included a dangerous tendency to be divorced from reality. Kerry stressed his commitment to alliances and patient leadership, which Bush suggested could mean weakness. Both performed credibly enough to keep voters tuned in for the next debate. -The Washington Post.
Their cry for the wrong battle
There is often a tendency in small minds to confuse the means with the ends and blur the distinction between the two. This tendency has permeated the politics of this country to the extent that we tend to lose sight of our goals and objectives and become entangled in pedantic controversies which focus exclusively on the mechanics of the situation.
The ongoing pointless debate over the wardrobe of the head of state is a perfect example of this. We are confronted with far more urgent crises than the president's wardrobe. These remain unresolved and have made life a living nightmare for virtually everyone.
These include a critical water shortage, the implementation of highly controversial mega-projects against the will of the people, lack of provincial autonomy, a crippled economy that is propped up by the mirage of a foreign reserve balance, more a consequence of the 9/11 tragedy, and a heavy infusion of foreign aid rather than sound economic planning. Also, there is the threat of international terrorism the consequences of which have put our national sovereignty in jeopardy, the unresolved Kashmir issue and the precarious nuclear balance in the subcontinent which can flare up any time with far more dire consequences than the president's choice of clothes.
Other chronic issues persist, like poverty, lack of development, lack of opportunity, unemployment, spiralling inflation and a serious law and order problem which has rendered insecure the lives, property and dignity of hapless citizens.
Any one of these crucial issues has a far greater direct impact on the lives of ordinary citizens than the attire the president chooses to be adorned with. When the average labourer or hari wakes up each morning, nothing could be farther from his mind than questions about which clothes the president might wear that day. The poor man barely cares whether there is democracy or military rule in the country since for him the consequences of both are identical.
He can afford neither the time nor the effort to contemplate issues of constitutional law, jurisprudence or political philosophy when he is not even sure whether he will be able to make it through the day alive and with dignity and earn enough to provide at least two reasonable meals for his family and meet their other urgent needs. The struggle for survival which he continuously wages amounts to a hand-to-mouth, moment-to-moment existence which does not allow him the opportunity to evolve a taste for such luxuries as philosophical contemplation.
Desolate children begging at virtually every street corner have become a familiar, unfortunate scene in the cities. If that is not enough, children standing by the roadside in the Thar desert of Sindh with sun-baked faces and parched lips, begging not for money but for a sip of clean drinking water, must melt the hearts of even the most jaded among us. An unimaginably large portion of our population does not have access to clean drinking water, let alone water for cultivating crops.
People are living in sub-human, demeaning conditions deprived of the most basic amenities of life such as clothing, medicines, electricity and education. How will their problems be solved merely by the president discarding his military uniform?
The bleeding heart democrats had an opportunity to bring about meaningful and constructive change in the lives of these people between 1988 and 1999, when "democracy" prevailed, but instead, they saw it fit to feather their own nests rather than serve the people. It is, therefore, no surprise that all voices against General Musharraf's dual role as president and chief of army staff come mainly from drawing rooms rather than from the masses in the streets.
The opposition has chosen to fight the wrong battle. Had it chosen to launch a movement against President Musharraf on account of his failure to deliver on his agenda, they would not only have occupied the moral and political higher ground, but their call would have touched the hearts and minds of all people across the country. The fact that they have, instead, chosen to capitalize on the uniform issue indicates that this is only a power struggle rather than a struggle based on principles or public interest. It is an effort on their part to dislodge General Musharraf from power only to grab the spoils for themselves, with no visible agenda for the ordinary citizens in sight. As such, the citizens see no obvious advantage in getting involved in this struggle.
Besides, the members of the opposition who now wish to de-robe the president are no paragons of democracy themselves. When it suits their narrow selfish political interests, they never hesitate to publicly demand that the army "play its role" by dismissing democratically elected governments of their opponents. By supporting the 17th amendment, the maulanas played an instrumental role in giving constitutional legitimacy to army rule in Pakistan. They have benefited from the patronage of successive military governments.
The People's Party and the PML (N) have wielded power twice for five years each between 1988 and 1999. In each tenure, they made a mockery of democracy and democratic institutions. Not only this but the People's Party, while publicly opposing General Musharraf, is trying desperately to work out a modus vivendi with him to get a share of power. If General Musharraf were to accede to their demands then he would become acceptable to them regardless of what he wears.
The brand of democracy practised and promoted by those who now claim to be its torch bearers was characterized by the sale of national and provincial assembly party tickets and Senate seats to the highest bidders regardless of their muddied reputations and tainted pasts, mass rigging of the polls, horse-trading of record-breaking dimensions and the elevation into government of incompetent, corrupt people who are unworthy of holding even the post of union council nazim. They have all indulged in fisticuffs and hooliganism on the floor of the assemblies, corruption, nepotism and political victimization of epic proportions, a shameful physical assault on the Supreme Court building (carried out by members of parliament), reducing provincial governments to powerless puppets and demeaning the provincial assemblies to the status of sideshows of a sideshow.
The National Assembly and Senate, during these 11 years of civilian rule, produced not a single piece of legislation aimed at improving the lot of the common man, though it churned out a number of amendments and acts aimed at securing the tenure of incumbent administrations. These acts and amendments were blitzed through parliament with such head-spinning speed that all pretensions and claims of democratic process and parliamentary procedure were undeniably exposed as flimsy facades.
Elected assemblies were dissolved thrice by the president during this civilian period not so much on issues of principle and law but because of the petty wrangling and power tussles between the president and the prime minister of the day. If this is democracy, then the people of Pakistan could be forgiven for feeling that the country could do with a much-deserved break from democracy.
The mountain of issues that confront the nation on a macro as well as micro level are not linked to the president's attire. Nor are their solutions. These are political, economic and social issues that require well thought-out and appropriate solutions. For this there is no dress requirement. Napoleon Bonaparte was an army man and he led France to glory. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk too wore a uniform but he led Turkey to stability, progress and enlightenment.
On the other hand, civilian dictators in Pakistan have caused more harm not only to the country but also to democracy and democratic institutions than the generals ever could or did.
There is a saying in Sindhi that what is the point of wearing gold earrings that cut the ears? In the same vein, one might ask what good is a "democracy" that causes ruin and decay and further compounds and complicates existing problems through sheer incompetence, neglect, corruption and mishandling? This does not mean that military dictatorship is justifiable. It goes without saying that democracy, with its alluring promise of responsible representative government, freedom and liberty, is far more appealing and morally superior to any other form of government. But we must not forget that democracy itself is not an end but a means to an end, the end being the resolution of the problems and issues facing the country and its people.
The need of the hour is not something that sounds nice or looks good on paper. It is immediate and effective solutions regardless of where they come from. In view of our experiences with democracy in the recent past, can anyone seriously claim that, given yet another chance, Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif can lead us out of this quagmire to the promised land?
Military rule is not acceptable under any circumstances, but it is indicative of the desperate state of the people that today their anguished cry is not for or against President Musharraf's choice of clothes. It is for relief from the mounting burdens and problems that are becoming unbearable. But no one cares about them. The suffering of Pakistan's unfortunate millions has never left a lasting impression on any ruler in the past. If someone - anyone - steps up and delivers even partial relief to the people, they will not pause to consider whether the fashion aesthetics of the deliverer coincide with the political sensibilities of their so-called leaders. They will welcome him no matter what he might choose to wear.