What will their promises be?

IN getting ready for the next election, whether it is held on schedule in 2007 or sooner, the parties intending to contest will have to figure out what they will claim to stand for and promise to deliver if they win. It has been customary for several of them to publish “manifestos” in which they state their intentions.

Most of these statements are couched in general terms, offering the prospect of a good life for all. In the case of the pragmatic parties there is little to distinguish one manifesto from another. They are not taken seriously, and those who compose them do not expect the general public to read them.

Ideological parties have an easier task in putting together a programme. Islam is regarded as a comprehensive ideology in that it offers doctrine, law, injunctions, and advice on economic and social concerns, and some guidance can be inferred from its texts even about the design of government. Thus, the Islamic parties in Pakistan need not say a whole lot more than that they will enforce the shariah. If pressed for specifics, they can add that they will implement Islamic social justice and endeavour to provide all citizens access to the basic amenities of life.

In much of the non-Muslim world the age of ideology is over, and in quite a few places it had never arrived. Fascism is pretty much extinct, socialism is in retreat, and where it is still operational to any significant extent, it is mingling with capitalism and pragmatism. People in many societies do not feel that they have to have an ideology to guide public policy.

Attitudes in Pakistan have been more complex. It has been fashionable here to claim that ours is an ideological state, and Islam has been named as its ideology. This characteristic has been written into the country’s Constitution and laws. Yet, with the partial exception of Ziaul Haq, the ruling elites in Pakistan have never taken this undertaking seriously, and they have done little to implement it. One may then say that the state’s designation of Islam as its ideology is at best a vague aspiration and, in actual fact, it is largely ceremonial.

For many politicians the temptation to profess this aspiration is nevertheless irresistible: it costs them nothing; it involves no risk-taking or exertion. At a press conference the other day (April 25), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said there could be no alliance between his party (PML-Q) and the PPP, either for sharing power now or after the next election, because his was an ideological party. Its supporters would not approve of a connection with the PPP; nor would the PPP supporters approve of their party’s alliance with PML-Q. He did not specify what his party’s ideology was. He may have assumed that it was understood to be Islam.

In that case the parties in the MMA would be his party’s “natural allies,” as he asserted several times following the 2002 election. But the MMA is now unalterably opposed to Chaudhry Sahib’s patron, General Pervez Musharraf, and he is wholly disapproving of its specific stances and general outlook. There is evidently something wrong here unless Shujaat Husain wants to say that his party’s version of Islam is substantially different from that of the MMA. Following General Musharraf, he may say that his version is “enlightened” and “moderate,” whereas that of the MMA is “extremist.”

In actual practice, however, ideology for the PML (both N and Q) has all along meant nothing other than the “two nation theory” and, in its pursuance, the system of separate electorates. The party has been reluctant to come to terms with the fact that this theory was formulated as a justification for dividing India and establishing Pakistan, but that after the partition, with its work done, it should have been sent into retirement. It has no function in post-independence Pakistan where Muslims constitute 97 per cent of the population.

Parties wishing to go beyond ideological professions will have to address the major issues facing the country. Some of them are quite well known: poverty, unemployment, inflation, access to education and health care, scarcity of water; political and bureaucratic corruption; breakdown of law and order, sectarian violence, terrorism; the future of Kashmir and relations with India, among others. Then there are systemic issues such as provincial autonomy, devolution of governmental authority, deregulation and privatization, revenue sharing. One may be sure that all parties will acknowledge these issues, and promise to resolve them.

If party programmes are to be meaningful, they must come down from generalities to specifics. Their authors will have to tell the people how, for instance, they will reduce unemployment. They must go beyond calling upon the government to provide jobs. Governments in Pakistan are already overstaffed and they are under pressure to “downsize.” Some new jobs may be created in the public sector when large development projects (dams, roads, etc.) are undertaken. But more enduring ways of reducing unemployment and poverty will open up only as private investment increases and industrialization expands. Parties should have to say what steps they will take to encourage savings, investment, and industrial expansion.

It should be incumbent upon them to tell us how they will eradicate corruption. It will not do for Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto only to admit that “mistakes” were made while they were in power. Even if they will not confess to grabbing what did not rightfully belong to them, they ought to give the people their solemn word that, if returned to power a third time, they will abstain from all kinds of unlawful gratification, and that they will not tolerate it on the part of their colleagues.

Let them, and all other candidates for high public office, promise to decline the authority to give away government land (“plots”) to persons of their choosing, discontinue the allocation of development funds to legislators, give up discretionary funds that recent practice has been placing at their disposal in huge amounts, forego the authority to appoint persons to government posts, and require all appointments to be made by designated authorities in accordance with established rules.

Everybody claims to favour provincial autonomy. But other than a few “nationalist” groups in Sindh and Balochistan, no political party has come out with a specific listing of powers and functions to be left with the centre. If the advocacy of provincial autonomy is to be meaningful, its terms must be made known.

All parties will denounce extremism, sectarian violence, and terrorism. But they will have a hard time spelling out measures to eradicate them, partly because they may think it inexpedient to identify them. They may make the routine assertion that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. But they should also have the moral courage and integrity, that Islam requires of them, to tell their Muslim audiences to quit attacking Christian churches and villages and falsely accusing persons, whom they do not like, of blasphemy. Some of them may not even want to dissociate themselves from the Taliban and Al Qaeda groups.

Those contesting the election will advocate an “independent” foreign policy. They will also promise to eliminate the country’s dependence on foreign aid. But they should also say how they will close its mounting budget and trade deficits. Will they, for instance, reduce the military establishment? What else will they cut? Pakistan will remain a client state so long as it is heavily dependent on American economic and political assistance and on funding from the American-controlled international lending institutions.

The MMA is opposed to Pakistan’s linkage with America. But it should then explain how it proposes to eliminate Pakistan’s need for American economic and military assistance. The PPP and PML-Q will not adopt a hard anti-American posture. They will claim that cooperation with the United States can be based on a mutuality of interests and recognition of each other’s sovereign equality. PML-N will also want to maintain a cooperative relationship with the United States, but it is likely to be ambivalent on this issue during the next election campaign.

Candidates and their parties will probably want to overlook the fact that Pakistan cannot have an exclusive relationship with the United States, that the latter wants to befriend both Pakistan and India, and that given the factors of relative size and stage of development, its ties with India may become more extensive than those with Pakistan.

They know the ground realities relating to Kashmir, to wit, that India will not heed the UN resolutions of 1948-49, that it intends to keep the part of the state which is currently under its control, and that Pakistan does not have the means of taking that part away from it. They may hope that India will relent to some degree at some point, but they are probably aware that there is little likelihood of its doing so. Will they say all of this to the voters, and then say also that the “peace process” should in any case go on?

And, how far would they want this process to go? Exchanges of tourists, sportsmen, poets, artists, intellectuals and scholars, and various other professionals will do, or would they want more than that? “Soft borders,” free trade, free movement of capital and personnel between the two countries (Indian banks, industrial plant, stores in Pakistani cities)? Beyond these one might even think of “joint defence” and corresponding institutions, something like a counterpart of the European Union in the subcontinent. Indian policy-makers will probably want all of this. But do we also want that tight an embrace? The discerning voter will want to know where the political parties soliciting his support want to go in refashioning the country’s relationship with India.

The easygoing politician’s preference for ambiguity and the temptation to avoid specificity must be overcome if the next election is to be a more productive exercise in democracy than the ones we have recently had.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

A turning point for local govt

THE three-year term of the local governments expires in August. Very likely, they will keep functioning after that because even the preparatory work for new elections like the delimitation of wards afresh and the updating of electoral rolls has not yet started.

The law governing elections to the local government — an ordinance uniformly promulgated in the year 2000 by the governors of the four provinces on the instructions of the chief executive of Pakistan — contains a provision which is as unusual as the origin of the ordinance itself. Its section 20 says: “A local government notwithstanding the expiry of its term of office shall continue to hold office until its successor assumes office.”

This provision is unusual because all laws generally lay a limit to an extended term. The National Assembly of Pakistan, for instance, under the Constitution stands dissolved at the expiration of its term of five years. It can extend its term but not for more than a year and that too only when a proclamation of emergency is in force.

It is thus legally possible for all or any of the present local councils and nazims to remain in office indefinitely. That may not be the intention but we seem to be heading towards an extension of some months if not for a year. It does not appear possible for the election commission to complete the process, hold the polls and then install the councils in office all over the country in next three months.

A more definite pointer towards the impending extension is the controversy that has surrounded the local government system since its introduction in 2001. In fact, the local governments have not worked, or were not allowed to work by the provincial governments, as visualized by General Musharraf and enacted into a uniform law for all the four provinces because Musharraf’s vision was divorced from reality and the National Reconstruction Bureau NRB suffered from paranoia.

To cap it all, the provincial governments were hostile to the very concept of the devolution plan for it curtailed their jurisdiction and patronage and the people, too, were puzzled by their old familiar institutions suddenly making way for a system they didn’t understand.

The objections raised and the changes now proposed to the new power structure are so numerous and drastic that the current chief of the NRB who considers himself a custodian of the system, though he had little to do with its making, alleges that the parliamentarians and bureaucrats alike, if they had their way, would bring back the decadent colonial system. The same, perhaps, could be said about the people at large.

Before the electoral process begins, the first contentious argument to settle is whether caretaker administrators should replace the nazims. All the four chief ministers insist upon it, the NRB opposes it and the law does not provide for it. A peeved Daniyal Aziz is finally giving in. Amending the law is a trivial matter, annoying the chief ministers who have ultimately to deliver the desired results can have serious consequences.

In the prolonged argument between the NRB and the provinces, many considerations weighed with both sides, some were openly expressed but the substance of it all was lost or, more likely, bypassed purposely.

The law empowers the chief election commissioner to conduct local government elections. This is a departure from past practice when every province had its own election authority. The intention of the chief executive then (now the president) in making this departure, quite obviously, was to keep the councils and the nazims under his direct watch.

With that end in view, the provincial governments have also been constitutionally barred from amending the local government ordinance without the permission of the president. The hold of the centre both on elections and the working of the local government was intended to be complete till political expediency weighed in.

Since elections are to be conducted by the chief election commissioner and cognizance of connected offences is also to be taken up by the returning officers appointed by him, it is entirely his responsibility to ensure that they are fair and free. It should be thus left to his judgment whether relieving the nazims is necessary and who the administrators replacing them should be.

The report of the election commission on the first local government elections held in 2001 claims that the chief executive assigned the conduct of elections to the chief election commissioner to make them “smooth and transparent”. That may not have conformed to public perception, nor was the response of the voters overwhelming as the report claims (the turnout in Karachi was less than 32 per cent and, surprisingly, the highest — 54 per cent — was in the desert region of Sindh).

Despite this background, the supervision of polls and the preceding processes are expected to be more impartial and effective if the administrators are appointed by the CEC. The risk of gerrymandering, harassment of the rival candidates and tampering with the ballot would be greater if, as is being reported, the chief ministers were given the freedom to appoint any official as administrator. It is a common knowledge that more officials do the bidding of their superiors rather than resist, and many would do more than just one’s bidding to win the chief minister’s indulgence and get a better job.

The first and necessary step for fair local polls, thus, would be to let the chief election commissioner choose the administrators and the returning officers. All officials on election duty should be placed under their control for three months before the polls.

Being himself a judge, the CEC’s first choice in the selection of administrators and returning officers will, quite naturally, fall on the judges. But he should not ignore executive officers and other citizens who are known for doing what is right for all manner of people in all situations.

The selection of the caretaker administrators and the authority given to them would send the first clear signal about the fairness, or otherwise, of elections. If the administrators, and returning officers too, were to be appointed by the politicians in power they will have to abide by the directives emanating from the forces operating in the open or lurking in the shadows.

If the burden of conducting polls falls on judicial officers, which is likely, they should be persuaded to follow the example set by their counterparts in Alexandria, Egypt. There the judicial officers, all of them, have entered into a compact to resist any lure of bribe or threat of injury in supervising elections. They agree to supervise only if a guarantee of independence is given by the government.

Even in the context of our own consistently woeful history of elections (with the exception of 1970) the officials who stood up fared no worse in their careers than those who yielded, but they are remembered better.

Here are a few quick suggestions for changes to the system if the councils, the district nazims in particular, fumbling in their first term are not to collapse in the second.

First, the spheres of activity of the provincial and district governments should be clearly defined.

Second, the district governments should perform only civic and developmental functions.

Third, the district nazim should be directly elected and law and order should not be his responsibility.

Fourth, the establishment dealing with the subjects assigned to the nazims should be answerable to them alone.

Fifth, the relationship of authority between a district coordination officer and his nazim should be placed on the same footing as that of the provincial secretary with his minister.

Lastly an awkward question: If the new system is as democratic and progressive as is made out to be by its authors, why have the capital (Islamabad) and cantonments been condemned to live in the dark colonial age?

The Bandung spirit, 50 years on

PRESIDENT Musharraf concluded his recent tour of Asian countries by visiting Indonesia, where bilateral cordiality was superseded by the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference held at Bandung in April 1955.

The first Bandung conference, described as the assembly of “new emerging forces” and consisting of heads of state and government from 29 newly independent countries of Asia and Africa, spelt out the hopes and ideals of the Third World. They also proclaimed their resolve not to take sides as the superpowers leading the First and Second Worlds locked horns in the cold war.

Surveying the scene in Indonesia, where representatives of 106 Asian and African countries assembled in a glittering assembly for the 50th anniversary of the Bandung conference, one could not but make comparisons of the present position of the developing countries with the high hopes and aspirations aroused 50 years ago.

The 1955 conference took place at a time when the process of decolonization was going on. Many countries had won their independence, and five of them, namely Burma, (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia and Pakistan met in Colombo in early 1954 and decided to organize a conference of newly independent countries. They followed up the Colombo meeting with another one at Bogor, in Indonesia, later in 1954, and as a result of their efforts, the First Asian African Conference was held at Bandung, in eastern Java, Indonesia, in 1955.

The timing of the moot was significant. The French, who were inclined to resist the liberation movement in their colonies were defeated in a major battle in Vietnam, at Dienbien Phu in 1954. That punctured the myth of western invincibility.

Nationalist leaders in many newly-independent countries, such as Nasser in Egypt, Soekarno in Indonesia, Nkrumah in Ghana and Nehru in India were backing liberation struggles in Asia and Africa, and using the forum of the UN with great effectiveness to target vestiges of imperialism. There was a certain euphoria in the developing world that was beginning to seek economic self-reliance, after having won political independence.

Even ideologically, the quest for a more just international order was beginning to figure in the cold war rivalry, with the communists, led by the Soviet Union, claiming to champion the rights of the poor, and the exploited peoples still under colonial rule. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (also known as Panch Sheel) had been agreed to by China and India at a meeting between their prime ministers, Zhou Enlai and Jawaharlal Nehru in India in June, 1954, and were further reinforced when Burma also adhered to them.

With the effects of the cold war rivalry in evidence all over the globe, and the spectre of nuclear war emerging on the horizon, the assembly of the leaders of the Third World felt an obligation, even a sense of mission, to save the world from such a catastrophe. The countries, assembled at Bandung in 1955 set about adopting a set of principles that would guide them in their external relationships in order to safeguard peace and facilitate progress. With the “Panch Sheel” so fresh in the memories of world leaders, it appeared likely that it would become the basis of the alliance of the emerging political forces of Asia and Africa.

There were a few countries, among the participants at 1955 conference, which had developed an alliance relationship with western powers, for their security. These included Turkey, Pakistan and Thailand, which could sense the reservations about their inclusion in the Bandung group, that was intrinsically opposed to western “imperialist” countries. Pakistan launched diplomatic efforts at Bandung to win backing to a wider set of principles that would cover their adherence to security pacts, since the provision existed for individual or collective self-defence in the Charter of the UN.

The Pakistan delegation was able to establish rapport with Premier Zhou Enlai of China, a country that was isolated at that time, and gave him a solemn assurance that Pakistan would never be a party to any kind of hostile action against China. The Chinese leader welcomed this assurance and agreed to the five principles of “Panch Sheel” being expanded to the 10 Bandung principles that recognized the right to individual or collective self-defence, and also included provision for the peaceful settlement of disputes, derived from the UN Charter.

The success of the Pakistan delegation at Bandung was facilitated as Prime Minister Nehru of India was seeking to play a dominant role in the conference, which gave rise to reaction among many delegations. Indeed, the personality that made the greatest impact on the conference was that of Premier Zhou Enlai who truly made an impressive entry into international diplomacy. The rapport established by the Pakistan delegation led by Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra laid the foundation of a relationship of trust and confidence, despite Pakistan’s membership in western pacts. A year later, the prime ministers of China and Pakistan exchanged visits.

The Bandung conference helped lay the foundations of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which was formally established at Belgrade in 1961. However, the criterion of its membership excluded both Pakistan and China, which had formal links with the US and the Soviet Union respectively. However, facing hegemonic pressures from both the superpowers, China’s international diplomacy concentrated on strengthening Afro-Asian unity, and Premier Zhou Enlai undertook several tours of Asia and Africa, to promote the objectives of the second Afro-Asian summit that was due to be held at Algiers in 1965.

The western powers, that felt specially threatened by the movement for Afro-Asian solidarity struck back on the eve of the second summit by helping to organize a coup against Ahmed Ben Bella, the popular Algerian leader, by the Algerian armed forces led by Houari Boumedienne. The momentum gained by the Bandung principles was largely dissipated, as conflicts broke out in many parts of the two continents including in South Asia in 1965 and Palestine in 1967.

The goals of independence and self-reliance identified at Bandung in 1955 continued to generate liberation movements in the remaining colonies, as well as demands for a “New International Economic Order” (NIEO), as the newly independent countries realized that the global economic order was neither fair, nor equitable. The first quarter century of the UN witnessed many moves to remedy the situation, notably through the establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964, in which the developing countries were included in the Group of 77, that sought a fundamental restructuring of the economic order.

Though NAM had been founded in 1961, its rhetoric tended to be anti-western and Soviet-leaning countries, such as India, and Cuba enjoyed disproportionate influence. Furthermore, most NAM members were not really non-aligned, and took pro-US or pro-Soviet positions on major issues. For instance, at the non-aligned foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi, in 1981, the pro-Soviet members tried to defend the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the pro-West members had to make special efforts to counter this move.

The end of cold war in 1989 was followed two years later by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the world became unipolar, and since then the gap between the developed and developing countries has widened. The roots of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are to be found in political and economic injustice, with two thirds of mankind living in poverty.

The Bandung spirit of 1955 was concerned largely with political liberation, and with promoting principles of justice and fair play at a time when the two superpowers were contending for world domination. Since 9/11, the world’s sole superpower has been inclined to use force to achieve its objectives instead of implementing the ideals it claims to stand for through established institutions.

The second Bandung conference hosted by Indonesia has adopted a new theme “Strengthening the Bandung spirit: new Asian-African strategic partnership (NAASP). This time, the impoverished masses in the developing world are to draw inspiration from the Bandung spirit to achieve solidarity, promote economic cooperation, and closer ties to cope with the threats and problems facing the world. Bandung 2005 included both China and Japan, the two largest economies of Asia, but with divergent political and strategic visions Significantly, the Bandung meeting facilitated a meeting between their leaders to end acrimonious exchanges over the interpretation of history.

In covering the proceedings of the second Bandung conference, some analysts wonder if we are not scattering our energies by having too many forums, to take up problems of poverty and development. NAM has lost relevance in a unipolar world, though it is seeking to address economic inequality issues. The UN has the group of specialized agencies reporting to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Bandung-II decided to convert the group into a standing organization, with a summit every four years.

One could say in conclusion that given the role of Bandung in bringing developing countries together 50 years ago, its revival could be useful mainly in promoting unity among them. The developed countries have dominated the economic management of the globe by exploiting differences among the developing countries. The role of a revived Bandung grouping should be to ensure unity and consultation among the developing countries.