Making a farce of politics

MOST if not almost all politicians everywhere have a habit of making selfish and untruthful statements. Ours probably excel many others because of our lesser experience of properly elected and representative politicians and the absence of a system that is truly answerable.

Thus we witness daily proud, dishonest, meaningless or pointless remarks that no one seriously questions or seeks to explain. This makes a greater farce of our politics than it deserves even in its straitened circumstances. On January 4, we suddenly heard in the evening that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief, Mr Altaf Hussain, had decided to renounce the leadership of his party. This came as a bolt from the blue, although it must have been greeted as welcome by MQM’s opponents and other cynics who in any case want many of the leaders of the existing parties to give up.

It was reported that Mr Hussian had expressed his inability to continue to lead his party because of his health and he lashed out at those of his party leaders who, he said, had adopted a feudal mentality and were trying to change the course and philosophy of the movement.

A senior reporter says when he heard the announcement, he had said that the MQM chief would take back his announcement in a couple of hours. This is what actually happened. Mr Hussain in an emotionally charged speech later, reportedly in response to protests from his workers, withdrew his resignation. He criticised those party leaders who were “seen being driven around in flashy, rented cars while ordinary activists followed rigorous discipline and worked tirelessly for the party” (Dawn report).

The offending leaders were not named — nor the state of Altaf Sahib’s health — and no one bothered to ask who they were. Suspicion will rest on many of the prominent MQM men. On Tuesday it was reported in one newspaper that Mr Hussain was upset at some people deputed to lead the MQM in Punjab, where its presence has not been welcomed by its ally in the centre and in Sindh, the PML-Q led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

The MQM has been in trouble before with the government, but in recent days this was the first time that its boss appeared to be worried about some of his own colleagues. Why this is so and who are the people irritating Mr Hussain needs to be examined and also explained by the MQM itself; he had perhaps once made a similar threat to resign at a meeting in Hyderabad.

This is one recent incident. Let’s now have a look at what happened concerning the Prime Minister, Mr Shaukat Aziz. The deputy minister of information, Mr Tariq Azeem, declared a few days ago that Mr Aziz would again be prime minister after the next elections, which would be held in 2008. This was a wholly presumptive statement that believed in a post-election scenario that might not be easy to imagine at this time. Mr Aziz’s possibility of being elected is itself doubtful. Who inspired the statement is not known, but the next day Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and perhaps also the Federal Information Minister, Mr Mohammad Ali Durrani, Mr Tariq Azeem’s boss, denied that any decision had been made as to the next prime minister.

This must have been most embarrassing for Mr Aziz, and if the statement and its denial were made without his information, then he was honour-bound to resign or Mr Tariq Azeem should have resigned, but both and indeed most men in government are probably now so used to such happenings that they just don’t bother.

Actually, the public also didn’t really bother about either the first disclosure about Mr Aziz’s reappointment or its subsequent denial; they don’t seem specially worried about who should be the next premier, and this also is a matter that should be of some concern to the prime minister.

The one amused person at all this must be Gen Pervez Musharraf (also perhaps at the MQM chief’s resignation drama). What was the game behind the statement relating to his prime ministership and its subsequent denial is also something that should be examined and explained. The president openly brags in his autobiography that he had formed the PML-Q, but he has not indicated whether Mr Aziz again being reappointed prime minister has his blessing.

Mr Aziz has also been prominent in another embarrassing incident whose nature he probably doesn’t even understand at all. In Karachi, at a press conference, he made the unusual statement, in reply to a question about missing individuals, believed kidnapped by intelligence agencies, that their relatives should file FIRs about their disappearance to follow protocol. He indicated that those missing might have gone underground. Such nonsense emanating from the prime minister of the country, even if one knows that he is practically in no position to tackle the problem, is unacceptable.

The Supreme Court has been seized of the matter and it should also be somewhat upset at what the prime minister has said. A complainant whose husband is still missing has even questioned the government’s claim before the Supreme Court that 25 of a total of 41 missing persons have been traced and freed (had they gone underground?). Why are the prime minister and the government totally ignoring a matter that relates to the human and civic rights of Pakistanis and the rule of law? Such callousness is outrageous and the lying that is going on should be considered unacceptable by every conscious citizen.

Then take the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal which, as a collection of religious parties, should be against being dishonest or untruthful. But we all want to know what’s really going on between Maulana Fazlur Rahman and his JUI and Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the JI and who is being honest about launching a movement and resigning from the assemblies. A meeting of the MMA supreme council that was supposed to be held to finally decide on the resignation issue was postponed because of Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s absence from the country, and a new date will be announced later.

The resignation issue seems to have vanished anyway. Qazi Hussain Ahmad said a few days ago that he wanted to resign from the leadership of the MMA. Perhaps he will also get an emotional demand from members, like the MQM leader, to abandon the idea of resigning. So this is another political field where things are not what they seem to be.

Of course, the People’s Party of Ms Benazir Bhutto and the PML-N of Mr Nawaz Sharif are also making noises that may be sincere but do not sound like that at all. The ‘charter of democracy’ that they had signed may well have gone a bit into the background by now, and Ms Bhutto is believed by some commentators to be looking at some accommodation with Gen Musharraf that does not make her totally abandon her principles.

Politics is not a simple game, but in our case it has become even more complicated than usual because the principal figures are not straight and do not believe in the principles that they or their parties enunciate. Perhaps all principles except getting somehow into power have gone away with the years. The distortions created by repeated spells of martial law have destroyed political and democratic values, and now most political parties are left with little option except to see where they can figure in the military’s designs.

How the big general says things that need to be explained or clarified is itself a subject, but needs space. A writer in an English-language daily ended his column every week with a piece of what he called Bushism. Now, in a good move, he has started a Mushism tailpiece. Perhaps we need to have something like that about other prominent political leaders also. This may induce some silence among our ministers and politicians who speak almost every day and speak a lot that is not believed and can be avoided.

The information ministers have now established the fact that they hold office only to say silly things daily in support of their government and against the opposition, although the bosses of the ministers concerned may actually be negotiating with some elements of the latter. And what can one say about information ministers like the Durranis when even our foreign office spokesperson brings out archaic, redundant and stale statements when confronted with anything a little new from India or Afghanistan — for instance, the reply about ‘Kashmir first’ given in response to the Indian premier’s vision of a treaty of peace and friendship between Pakistan and India?

Affordable energy for development

POWER outages are back again and are bound to grow worse as the summer months approach. This new wave of energy crunch was not unforeseen and a way out of the crisis has often been discussed but with no results. The problem lies in our stubborn refusal to implement reliable and affordable solutions to energy problems.

The oil price shocks of 1973 and 1979 should have led us to make changes in our energy policy that is rooted in an era when oil was selling under $2 a barrel. But neither these shocks nor subsequent events served as an eye-opener. Oil is now trading at around $60 per barrel. Given the current uncertain situation in the Middle East, this figure could well be heading all the way up to $100 per barrel.

Two fault-lines in our energy policy are casting their long shadow over the country’s sustainable development. The old mindset of cheap imported fuel has remained the centre-piece of our energy policy and has taken Pakistan’s dependence on imports to new heights where 80 per cent of the country’s energy needs are met through imports. With the limited earning capacity of the economy, partly attributable to the unaffordable energy policy, it also widens current account deficits.

The second fault-line pertains to the increasing difficulties of accessing the rich regional energy markets of Central Asia. In 1995-96, Pakistan could have benefited from the support of all major powers for an energy and transportation corridor from Central Asia. The first project of this corridor that materialised was the railway link between Khushka in Turkmenistan through Herat and Dalbandin to Gwadar. This was also supported by local chieftains along the way including Ismail Khan, the powerful governor of Herat who is now an important functionary in the Karzai government. There were few problems in the way of the completion of the project that was guaranteed by a European bank with triple-A ratings.

Now the security environment in Afghanistan has worsened while Balochistan is experiencing violence. This fault-line threatens to block our access to regional energy markets and durable pipeline supplies.

Even though there is enough evidence from around the world that coal-based power is beneficial to our economy as it would provide cheaper energy for industry and agriculture, our stubborn refusal to use it remains a big stumbling block to having affordable energy for development.

Since we do not use coal-based power in any significant manner, there is no clear and reliable data here. Let us look at data from the US to remove confusion and reach a fair conclusion.

The states of Minnesota and North Dakota have abundant coal reserves. With control over their resources, the two states use their coal to generate the bulk of their power supply. In Minnesota, over 65 per cent of the electricity consumed comes from coal, while as much as 93 per cent of the power produced in North Dakota is coal-based.

Because coal-based power does not cost much, the people in these two states pay about 30 per cent less for electricity than do consumers in California which relies heavily on non-coal-based and more expensive sources of power generation.

In the energy mix in the US, 56 per cent of power is produced from coal which also contributes to lowering overall energy costs for consumers that would otherwise become unaffordable.

But Pakistan, which sits atop the world’s fourth largest coal reserves, uses this form of mineral fuel to generate only one per cent of its power. This raises considerably the cost of doing business as the industry is not in a position to enjoy the benefits of cheap energy costs. Conversely, businesses in other countries, whose economies benefit from coal-based power like India (65 per cent), China (70 per cent) and Australia (60 per cent), make the most of this advantage.

A 30 per cent reduction in the cost of power production would make a big difference in the competitiveness of Pakistani products in foreign markets. Our unaffordable energy policies bear a major share of the blame for reducing the competitiveness of our businesses and making life difficult for residential consumers.

But, after years of technical and marketing efforts, when a pioneering project of 5,200MW of power generation from Thar coal finally started, it quickly fell victim to the vindictive politics of the government in 1997. American investors were forced to abandon the project and leave the country. But for such whimsical governance, Pakistan would today be generating over 10,000MWs of coal-based power and also develop the capacity of adding 1,500MW annually to meet its growing needs.

So we have been stuck for long with an unaffordable energy paradigm. While Pakistan’s oil consumption has jumped to seven times its domestic production, its gas reserves are being severely depleted. Its abundant indigenous coal reserves are lying neglected. A section of the people still come out with antiquated arguments against coal-based energy which have long since been discredited by changes in technology and the economics of energy.

While we remain stuck in the past, future developments in coal-based energy are leaving us behind. The coal-based-liquid fuel (CTL) is already being used elsewhere for meeting transportation needs. South Africa, meets 30 per cent of its transportation fuel needs from coal. China is building plants to produce 60,000 barrels of coal fuel each day. And the US Air Force recently tried out its B-52 bomber with a 50/50 blend of coal fuel and the traditional jet propulsion fuel.

The only energy portfolio affordable for Pakistan is one that makes coal the centrepiece of its power generation. In practical terms, it means coal must generate 50 per cent or more of Pakistan’s power. This would reduce the overall cost of energy and make Pakistan’s economy competitive in world markets. Otherwise our products will find it increasingly difficult to compete with comparable Asian economies whose production systems enjoy the benefits of cheap coal-based power constituting over 50 per cent of their energy portfolio compared to one per cent in the case of Pakistan.

At the moment, unaffordable energy in Pakistan is producing unaffordable products which cannot compete in world markets. It is also turning electricity into a luxury for its citizens rather than a basic necessity. Simply put, coal-based power and affordable energy go hand-in-hand. If we don’t like one, we won’t get the other.

The writer is former head of the Board of Investment and federal secretary. Email: smshah@alum.mit.edu

American attacks

THE US airstrikes which reportedly killed large numbers of people in southern Somalia on Sunday and Monday — whether they are jihadi militants or civilians is not yet known — were the first overt military action Washington has taken in the country since 1994, the year after bloody clashes between UN forces and warlords and the grim Black Hawk Down battle which left 18 US servicemen dead.

What happened to militant Islamism in the intervening 13 years is instructive. Somalia provided all the right conditions in which it could thrive: a traditional Islamic nation, a failed state, complete freedom in which to develop, a plethora of Muslim associations under which it could hide. And yet the jihadis have failed repeatedly to take hold. As the respected analysts of the International Crisis Group concluded, this is not because of foreign counterterrorism, but because of Somali resistance.

Pentagon officials said the targets were Al Qaeda members who organised the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Top of the hit list was a Sudanese explosives expert called Abu Taha al-Sudani, thought to be the head of Al Qaeda operations in east Africa. But the issue here is not Washington’s right to strike back at its sworn enemies, but how many innocents are wiped out in the process. One of the instruments used was extremely blunt, an AC130 gunship which strafed a village near the Kenyan border. The tactic is well proven in Afghanistan and Iraq: kill everything that moves within given coordinates and then see who you have got afterwards. It’s the military equivalent of drift-net fishing.

Unlike when you are fishing, you can’t throw the minnows back into the sea afterwards, and the battle for Somalia is all about the minnows. However much verbal backing the attack may have got from the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) or from the Ethiopian army that helped them return to Mogadishu, both are still struggling for credibility among Somalis. Each needs the other. Without the Ethiopians, the government is left to depend on the shifting allegiances of warlords. Both the domestic rulers and their foreign soldiers are living on borrowed time.

The government has yet to prove it can govern, and the Ethiopian army has yet to fulfil its promise to withdraw. The longer the troops stay, the greater the risk that the TFG will lose credibility. The jihadis who survived the attacks could now have everything to fight for, not least control of the Union of Islamic Courts, the regime the Ethiopians deposed.

Just days before the US attacks, the consensus was that there was a limited window of opportunity in which to stabilise Somalia. John Sawers, the British negotiator at the International Contact Group, which is trying to organise an African peacekeeping force, said that, without an effective government in Mogadishu, an ungoverned country provided a “great opportunity” for Al Qaeda to use Somalia as a base.

— The Guardian, London