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| April 08, 2007 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 2007 |
Need to wind up NAB
A flawed project
Unforeseen consequences of judicial reference
WHAT a difference a few weeks can make. For the first time, the military-led regime of General Musharraf, which has survived more than its share of dithering and faux pas, has been shaken to the core and is in disarray. The general’s domestic reputation, already seriously dented, has been dealt a severe blow by the events of the past month, making him even more dependent on his dwindling external support. No wonder the regime is showing real signs of panic and desperation.
RUMOURS are rife about a possible rapprochement between the government and what since Ziaul Haq’s days has been the army’s bete noir, the PPP. A mending of fences between the two has been in the air for quite some time, and even though nothing definite has emerged, observers seem to attach importance to the winding up by the National Accountability Bureau of the Special Operations Wing dealing with the corruption cases against Ms Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari. Also, the other day, the government-controlled PTV showed scenes of the rituals marking the execution of Mr Bhutto in April 1979. Ms Bhutto visited Washington recently in keeping with all Pakistani opposition leaders’ belief that a prior nod from the US was necessary before one could make a bid for power. Whether the visit has yielded any result is something that the PPP chairperson alone can say. However, according to the American press, the Bush administration doubts that a Benazir in power can tackle the challenges facing Pakistan, especially because the military will continue to dominate the scene anyway. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of all this has been to strengthen speculation that the military-led government, confronted with the Talibanisation wave that has now reached Islamabad itself, is looking for a deal with opposition parties at a time when the election is due later this year.
There is no doubt that a rapprochement with the PPP will widen the base of popular support for the military-led government and put it in a better position to tackle the extremist parties and groups because, unlike the ruling PML — a ragtag coalition of different parties, factions and splinter groups revolving round real power wielders — the PPP has roots among the masses in all the provinces. However, the issue must be looked at from the point of view of the people of Pakistan rather than that of the army and how it can retain its hold on power. The basic question is the credibility and transparency of the forthcoming election. Already, the decision to have Gen Pervez Musharraf re-elected as president has created serious doubts and misgivings and strengthened the feeling that what the country may be witnessing towards the end of the year will be anything but a genuine election that will bring the true representatives of the people to power.
The army’s periodic interventions in politics have done enormous harm to the country. Democratic systems and institutions have not developed, and this has stood in the way of political evolution and integration. The constituent units have not learnt to live together as equal partners in the federation and to sort out their differences in a spirit of mutual understanding and give and take. The result is the kind of situation we see today in Balochistan, where some nationalist elements have taken to extra-constitutional methods to vent their grievances. One also sees perpetual mistrust among the provinces over the sharing of the Indus waters and the federal pool of divisible resources. Only an uninterrupted and free play of democratic forces and regular and genuinely free elections can give stability to Pakistan and make it part of the world’s democratic community. The coming election will have meaning for the people only if President Musharraf gives up one of the two power-wielding offices he occupies now and ensures a truly transparent electoral exercise supervised by a caretaker set-up and an independent election commission that must command the confidence of all political parties.
THE decision to shut down the special NAB cell that was investigating corruption cases against top PPP leaders has more to do with political exigency than President Musharraf’s supposed disappointment with its performance. This in itself is reason enough to disband NAB altogether. Like its predecessor, the infamous Ehtesab Bureau set up by Nawaz Sharif in his second term as prime minister, NAB has long been accused of intimidating and victimising politicians at the behest of the government. While the corruption cases it has pursued may well be grounded in fact, the bureau’s approach to accountability since its creation in 1999 has been anything but even-handed. It is widely believed that NAB’s powers have been abused by the government not only to intimidate its opponents but also to keep its supporters in line. In the latter category, temporary immunity from accountability has served as both carrot and stick, a reward for loyalty doubling as a sword of Damocles — the implicit threat being that failure to toe the line could lead to the withdrawal of preferential treatment and reopening of old files. The NAB offensive against opposition politicians has meanwhile been coloured by vindictiveness and partisanship, forcing at least one leader into more or less permanent exile. This failure to nab the corrupt irrespective of political affiliation has thoroughly discredited the bureau.
Corruption cases can be pursued through normal legal channels without the all-powerful NAB acting as overseer. This does not, however, mean that NAB’s powers should necessarily be concentrated in the hands of the Federal Investigation Agency, an organisation that has done little to inspire confidence since it came into being in 1975 through an act of parliament. There is no need to revert to what has been tried and proven to be a failure. It is time to start afresh and one option is the creation of anti-corruption tribunals, constituted as and when required on a case-by-case basis and then disbanded. Made up of respected judges, these tribunals may be more effective in delivering justice than a bureau engaged full-time in framing cases against errant or ‘difficult’ politicians. The focus then may shift from persecution to prosecution.
NOT without reason, the proposed elevated expressway project is finding few backers in Karachi other than the city government and its consultants. Architects, civil engineers, environmentalists and concerned citizens have raised serious doubts about the feasibility of the project, calling it an inefficient and expensive response to the city’s burgeoning traffic problems. If the project proceeds according to plan, the 24-kilometre expressway will run directly above Sharea Faisal and M.T. Khan Road and is expected to cost roughly Rs60 billion. The proposal is flawed in more ways than one. Since existing roads will serve as the access and exit points, the expressway will do little besides taking vehicles more quickly to the next traffic block. If anything, the roads leading to and from the expressway will become even more congested than they are at present. Major construction work above a busy artery like Sharea Faisal is also bound to cause traffic chaos for at least three years, the current time frame for the mega project. If an elevated expressway is at all required in Karachi, alternative routes must be explored. A better option would be to focus on a mass transit system, the first step in which should be the full revival of the Circular Railway.
Businesses and homes along the proposed route will have to live with the noise and air pollution generated by an elevated road running right outside their windows. People’s right to an untrammelled view as well as access to direct sunlight and air will be infringed on by the expressway, which may also cause property prices to drop. Hundreds of trees will have to be cut. Then there is the more subtle question of aesthetics and identity. Karachi has suffered enough disfigurement as a consequence of haphazard planning and the need now is to preserve what is left of the city’s ambience and character.
General Musharraf’s second attempted coup in the country bears a striking resemblance to Mr Nawaz Sharif’s unsuccessful attempt to replace him with a more pliable general. Musharraf’s current attempt is proving to be as abortive and counterproductive as Nawaz Sharif’s.
However, the similarity ends there. The resistance to Gen Musharraf’s second coup attempt, directed against the judiciary, has not come from the khaki-clad Corps 10 stationed in Rawalpindi, but from hundreds of lawyers (and from a number of sitting judges who have chosen to resign) all over the country, who rose to defend the head of the judiciary. They rose to defend the autonomy and independence of the institution, without which their profession becomes dysfunctional.
Although the judiciary had been under attack in the past, it was for the first time that its head refused to succumb despite being held incommunicado for hours in the general’s camp office and kept in virtual detention at home.
The indecorous and abrupt manner in which the Chief Justice was removed from his office and the dignified and valiant way in which he fought back has endeared him to the public and inspired the lawyers and others to turn out in large numbers in his support. The myth that people would not dare to take to the streets against this military regime is finally on the verge of being shattered.
The exercise in character assassination launched against the Chief Justice by leaking the contents of the charges against him, both before and after filing the reference with the Supreme Judicial Council, has added fuel to the flames of public outrage. Even if true or plausible, the nature of the charges, which have been made public pale into insignificance before a number of more serious charges that can be levelled against any number of the regime’s most ardent supporters.
While this may not be considered as a valid legal argument for defending an individual, it does point to the need for dealing with such charges in a systematic way rather than on a selective and anecdotal basis. The charges centre around the issues of nepotism and the misuse of public property and facilities associated with a pervasive VIP culture that is known to be widespread in the country and that reached its zenith during the present regime’s tenure.
These issues can be satisfactorily handled only in a transparent and democratic political environment, which is at present conspicuous by its total absence. But to single out a particular functionary of the state, especially with a view to overawing the judiciary in an election year which is marked by the president’s unconcealed ambition to stay in power in full military regalia, smacks highly of disingenuousness.
Enraged by the spontaneous reaction against Musharraf’s making the Chief Justice ‘non-functional’ in an arbitrary manner, the government launched a frontal assault on the media, especially the electronic media whose cameras could hardly turn a blind eye to the government’s high-handedness in the matter. The government and its spokesmen, particularly the ministers of law and information, remained in an inveterate state of denial and the authorities decided to shoot the messenger instead of heeding the message.
The apologies offered to the offended media outlet, after the law-enforcement authorities were caught on camera attacking the Geo office in Islamabad, were patently insincere and lacking in credibility. The thin veneer of press and media freedom — often claimed as a hallmark of the present regime — was ripped off once the government’s stakes became high.
The lawyers’ revolt and the media’s bold resistance to state pressure to conceal facts have a wider message for society and call attention to the real issue that the present regime has evaded for so long. Simply stated, the issue is that of the supremacy of civilian over military power.
Unfortunately, a large section of civil society has shied away from it for fear of losing official and donor patronage and because of its fear of religious extremism gaining strength. The present crisis is a wake-up call for them also. The unity displayed by the legal profession is highlighted by the fact that the government could not persuade any distinguished lawyer to join its prosecution team.
Under the present regime, while the writ of the state is weakening in the country the grip of the military on the state has increased steadily. Among its more obvious manifestations is the steady induction of serving or retired military personnel to consolidate its hold and ensure its permanence.
The most glaring example of this policy is the use of the Federal Public Service Commission — the institution that oversees the recruitment of civil servants — to induct army generals as chairman and an increasing proportion of its members. The process of militarisation of the civil services was institutionalised during Gen Zia’s regime in 1980, when 10 per cent posts were reserved for retired or released military personnel in BPS 17 and 18, creating the legal cover for inducting regular members of the bureaucracy from the armed forces. The present regime has taken this process to unprecedented heights.
There is hardly any autonomous institution which does not have a fair share of military personnel in high positions. The autonomy of the universities, which was already eroded by the formation of a highly centralised and insensitive Higher Education Commission, has been undermined by the appointment of several retired generals as academic heads of a number of public sector universities and the formation of the military’s own universities.
In addition, the military is involved in an increasingly wide range of economic activities from cereals to fertilisers to stud farms to real estate. These allegations have been repeatedly aired in the press and substantiated by researches of analysts documenting the military’s political and economic predation and the protection of its vested interests.
All this has led to its current alienation from the masses and has happened because the military in Pakistan, unlike in other democracies, has not been subject to civilian oversight, including that of the parliament and the judiciary.
Perhaps, the real reason for the reference against the Chief Justice was his increasing judicial activism which could well have taken up the many allegations against the military in future.
The government is no longer as gung-ho as it was in the first few days after the dramatic developments of March 9. It is now giving the impression that it had made some honest tactical mistakes. However, no scapegoats, except the 14 Punjab policemen ordered to attack the Geo premises, have yet been found. It is remarkable that no ministerial heads have rolled or any resignations offered. It seems that the government is still in denial about the larger issues which are at the centre of the ongoing struggle between the military-led establishment and a widening circle of its civilian opponents.
It may well be that the regime itself has stumbled on an unintended way to end the political stalemate it created on assuming power in October 1999. Should the government’s reference against the Chief Justice prove inadmissible or be rejected by the Supreme Judicial Council, it would be advisable for the government to step down, unless it insists on the folly of dragging the country into a bitter civil strife. The Chief Justice would be the opposition’s obvious choice for becoming acting president and holding free and fair elections.
Even in the event that the charges against the Chief Justice are upheld and the government decides to replace the Chief Justice, it is improbable that the government’s Machiavellian plans to manipulate the 2007 elections will have smooth sailing, after the arousing of the political consciousness of the people on the issues raised during the last few weeks. However, this would require a much more organised, determined and combined effort on the part of the various groups wedded to the idea of the withdrawal of the military from politics.
It would also depend on the political alignment of the millions of people who have suffered in the past few years because of the government’s inept economic and social policies which have benefited only a limited section of the population and have severely hurt the weaker sections of the population through increase in inflation and unemployment, inadequate poverty reduction and denial of basic human rights.
The writer is a visiting professor of economics at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Email: sm_naseem@hotmail.com