If the government means what it says

PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf’s view that the Benazir-led PPP is a moderate party appears to be a welcome departure from his erstwhile view of the party. In an interview with the BBC, the president said he wanted the PPP and other liberal parties to take part in municipal elections so that extremists did not gain strength at the grass-roots level. Traditionally, the Pakistani people have demonstrated a commendable sense of political realism by voting for liberal parties with a national outlook. In the 2002 general election, however, the religious parties capitalized on the anti-American sentiment to increase their share of votes. Today, the MMA controls two of the four provinces and has a fairly good representation in the Senate and in the national and other the two provincial assemblies. However, the anti-American wave was not the only factor that contributed to the MMA’s success; the military government did everything possible to queer the pitch for the PPP and the PML-N. The party that finally secured the highest number of seats was the military-backed PML. Even after the elections, with an elected National Assembly in place, the government cobbled together a coalition of rag-tag parties to keep the PML-N and the PPP out. It also encouraged the Faisal group to break away from the party, in spite of being elected on the PPP ticket. The military’s political preferences were especially evident in Sindh, where the PPP, despite having a plurality in the provincial assembly, was kept out of the government.

One reason why the military kowtowed to the religious parties was its particular constitutional scheme. It could not have incorporated the Legal Framework Order in the Constitution without the help of the religious parties. As things stand today, in spite of the MMA’s confrontation with the government on the president’s uniform issue, the six-party alliance was instrumental in having the Seventeenth Amendment passed. The amendment in no way upset the generals’ apple cart; instead, it helped legalize all the arbitrary constitutional amendments crafted by the military. The same political witch-hunt was obvious in the way the accountability process was followed. Mr Faisal Saleh Hayat was made the interior minister in spite of having charges against him. With Mr Hayat safely abroad, the National Accountability Bureau is said to want to try him now, while the PML-N’s Javed Hashmi rots in prison.

This is history, but what about the near future? Must the local body polls be held on a non-party basis? We all know how Ziaul Haq’s decision to keep political parties out of national and municipal elections spawned parochial tendencies that harmed the cause of national integration. What then is the compulsion for repeating the same mistake? Keeping political parties out in any case proves counterproductive because people know who they are voting for and which party backs whom.

The government maybe be sincere in its desire to fight extremism, but this battle cannot be fought successfully by relying only on the state’s coercive apparatus. Extremism and religious militancy can be weakened and ultimately eliminated only by political means. In specific terms, this requires giving all political parties, personalities and elements full opportunity to take part in the political process. The government should know that this battle can be won only with the people’s cooperation, and this can be secured by giving the people their sovereign right to vote freely without being subjected to pressures or manipulations.

A flawed price formula

THE increase in petrol prices yet again, as announced by the Oil Companies Advisory Committee (Ocac) on Tuesday, will add to the financial burden brought to bear on common people. One does not have to be an economist to understand that a rise in petrol prices has a spiralling effect on the prices of a whole lot of other commodities and services — public transport and freight services being the first among these. According to Ocac, it has only an advisory role in the revision of petrol prices on a fortnightly basis. It is bound to follow the formula put together by the government so that the latter’s revenue receipts do not decline substantially. Taxes and levies imposed on petroleum products by the government are very much on the high side. These include central excise duty, petroleum development levy and sales tax, with the last one alone calculated at no less than 15 per cent. This is far too much in terms of the burden the government has passed on to the consumers and needs to be revised in view of the resultant rise in inflation.

Since 2001, when the formula governing the revision of petrol prices was adopted by the government, petrol prices have risen 42 times. When seen in comparison with pay rises that might have taken place in the same period, this is disproportionately high. Instead, the government has taken to drawing an unfair comparison with prevalent petrol prices in India, whose economy is growing at a higher rate than ours, and where inflation over the same period has not been running as high as here. Realistically speaking, a rise in petrol prices in an economy such as ours has to be seen with regard to the burden it places on common citizens. Unless a petrol price revision formula is informed by this basic reality, it will continue to add to the burden of people with limited income, creating widespread resentment against the government for its ill-advised policy on petrol price regulation.

Tightening camel racing law

THE UAE government’s decision to introduce a new law to eliminate loopholes in the existing ban on under-16 camel jockeys and those weighing less than 45 kg is a welcome development. One hopes that this time round the ban will be effectively enforced and the UAE government will not allow influential individuals to bend the rules and force children, sometimes as young as four years, to compete in the races. Pakistan, which is a popular recruiting ground for hundreds of would-be jockeys, stands to benefit especially from this decision as it will be enable it to crack down on local child smuggling rings who either kidnap the children or “buy” them from their poverty-stricken parents. In fact, a greater collaborative effort with the UAE government, especially in view of the new law, might help end this nefarious human trade once and for all. This, among other things, would mean improved passenger screening facilities at the UAE and Pakistan airports.

Camel racing has already inflicted much damage on the bodies and minds of our children, who at a tender age, are taken away from their families to live in a distant land and participate in a dangerous sport. The camels are spurred on by the cries of the frightened young riders who often fall off during the races, sustaining serious, sometimes fatal, injuries in the process. The recent cases of nine-year-old Sarfaraz, who twice broke his arm during the races, and eight-year-old Kaleem Husain, who died when he fell off his camel during a race, illustrate the point. Because of their illegal status, many injured jockeys are not even taken to hospitals. All live under stringent conditions and are deliberately underfed so that they do not exceed the desired racing weight. The intended clampdown may deprive many poor families of monetary benefits, but these have little value where the safety of our children is concerned.