| 30 October 2004 | Saturday | 15 Ramazan 1425 |
Joint electorate idea
Plots and patronage
Reports that the US wants Pakistan to help woo "good Taliban" indicate hopeful development. Speaking at the Johns Hopkins University in the US, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, America's ambassador to Afghanistan, said reconciliation with the Taliban would be "the first agenda item" with Mr Hamid Karzai, who has just been elected president.
Coming from a man who has helped shape America's Afghan policy, the statement seems to indicate a new realization in the Bush administration that force alone cannot restore peace to Afghanistan.
Islamabad needs to take such feelers from Washington seriously because the military operations against the Taliban and their supporters have not produced spectacular results. Wana, especially, is a mess, and the kidnapping of the two Chinese engineers and the murder of one of them earlier this month show that the militants' network is still functional, even if partially dislocated.
The big issue here is identifying the "good Taliban". The trouble in the Pakistan-Afghan border region and inside Afghanistan is a complex phenomenon. There are, of course, the die hard supporters of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They are unlikely to compromise.
To them, the American attack on Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 has overthrown an "Islamic government". For that reason they are not going to forgive those who in their view helped America in this enterprise.
There are also freebooters and mercenaries who had joined the Taliban because they were the winners in the civil war. The latter category also includes those brigands who are now profiting from the anarchy in Afghanistan and terrorizing the population by loot and plunder.
But there are also in existence those who can be called moderate Taliban. In this category fall madressah products who had joined the Taliban in good faith but were disillusioned by their excesses. In the wake of the fall of the Taliban government, they have had time to think.
They believe that madressahs should conform to their traditional role - producing imams for the community - and not be turned into centres of militancy. In Mr Khalilzad's words such elements "need to be accommodated". This is a difficult but not an altogether impossible task.
The recent presidential election in Afghanistan points the way towards reconciliation. Indeed, compromise, reconciliation and consensus are possible only by pushing the democratic process forward.
Pakistan has helped Afghanistan in the just-ended electoral process, and for that Mr Karzai has thanked Islamabad. There are also non-Taliban elements who too need to be won over to the larger cause of Afghanistan's stability and peace.
Warlords like Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan who have refused to cooperate with the Karzai government are no Taliban supporters. They are self-centred autocrats who have been a major source of anarchy.
They need to be accommodated in the new system, howsoever repugnant the practices of some of them may have been. Their lack of cooperation with Kabul stemmed from their refusal to accept the decisions of the Bonn conference and the Loya Jirga. But now that Mr Karzai has been elected president, the warlords should be made to see the wisdom behind cooperating with the elected government.
Coming back to the Taliban, one must note that a religious movement - whatever its merit - cannot be abolished by decree or destroyed by force. Only time, patience and large-heartedness can create a new leadership which will see the mistakes of the past and try to create new cadres free from the stigma of obscurantism, extremism and blind militancy.
Joint electorate idea
The proposal by the Chief Election Commissioner to adopt the joint electorate system for holding local government polls due in 2005 makes eminent sense. The previous round of local body elections were held in 2000-01 under the separate electorate system.
However, following a decision by the government to do away with that system, the 2002 general elections were held on a joint electorate basis. It would only be fair now to extend this principle to all levels of the electoral process.
The move has the support of the country's minorities who say that the separate electorate system had done more to marginalize them from mainstream society than any other step in the past.
By introducing separate electorates, the government succeeded in creating a deep crevice between Muslims and non-Muslims. Mercifully this arrangement has now been undone at the level of the general elections although the government has continued to maintain the distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim by registering them on separate electoral lists.
Local government elections are the backbone of any democratic system and it is with these elected representatives that the public has the maximum interaction. By introducing a joint electorate system at this level, there will be a political integration between the majority and the minority communities at the local level.
Such an interaction will help the minority communities as most of the problems they face in their daily lives occur at this level. Under the previous arrangement, problems faced by members of minorities often went by default for lack of contact between them and their representatives in the national or provincial assemblies.
Considering the fact that these members represented constituencies that covered a huge area, the chances of remaining in touch with their electorates were small. Adopting the joint electorate system at all levels should have a democratizing effect all round.
Plots and patronage
According to a list presented in the Senate during question hour on Wednesday, a total of 549 plots were allotted by various prime ministers between 1971 and 1999 to hundreds of beneficiaries.
This number is for the federal capital alone and does not include the long period of military rule under General Zia or the period after 1999 when General Musharraf took over. The plots were allotted under the prime minister's so-called discretionary quota.
The logic behind this quota is that the chief executive can use such land allotments to help the poor and the needy, or those affected by natural calamities. Hence, to exercise such discretion in helping a widow or an orphan or a family affected by prolonged drought or an earthquake would make sense but to allot land to individuals who are already quite well off and influential makes a mockery of the idea of compassion.
According to details given in the list, eight plots were allotted to the head of the ISI alone while five were given to five four-star generals. The bulk of the beneficiaries include retired armed forces officers, former and sitting members of parliament and retired and serving bureaucrats.
It seems just another case of the rich and powerful sharing the spoils with their own. The plots were obviously not given out of any compassion but rather under the unwritten rules of patronage and power that underline politics in this country.
Land is a scarce resource, even in a place like Islamabad, and the state should distribute it among those who don't have it and not to those who already have plenty of this asset.
It is quite ironic that such a thing should happen in a country which is in dire need of drastic land reform, where the government needs to play an interventionist pro-poor role and allot land to the underprivileged rather than gift it to a favoured few.