Will he or won’t he go?

COMMENTATORS have discussed the opposition politicians’ campaign to force General Musharraf’s exit from his office and its possible outcomes. They have been considering whether this campaign will succeed and, if it does, what would success mean and entail.

Let us begin with the possibility that the opposition will not achieve its goal. For one thing, it is not united. The larger component within the MMA, the JUI, led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, does not want to say how far it will go in opposing Musharraf. While a bargain between the general and the maulana is not beyond the realm of possibility, a “deal” between him and Ms Benazir Bhutto has been talk of the town for quite some time. She has been telling American officials to urge him to take her in as a partner in ruling Pakistan. He may not be sure whether her terms are right and the deal would work for him.

In any case, her eagerness to be in his camp weakens very considerably the opposition’s drive. It seems to me that she will jump on to the opposition’s “bandwagon” (or truck) only if and when it becomes clear for all to see that the general’s campaign for a second term is lost.

Until a few weeks ago, the opposition appeared to be rather listless. But since the government’s clumsy handling of the Chief Justice (March 9 and after), its rallies have been attracting large crowds. But it is to be noted that these rallies have been scheduled in conjunction with Justice Chaudhry’s travel plans.

It may then be that the crowds gather to greet the Chief Justice and not so much to applaud Qazi Hussain Ahmad and his associates. They may be shouting anti-Musharraf slogans because they think he has insulted the judiciary. These rallies may not fare as well if the government is wise enough to withdraw the presidential reference against the Chief Justice and, as a result, he returns to his office and functions in the Supreme Court.

The lawyers say they will still carry on their campaign for General Musharraf’s ouster and the restoration of democracy. But it is not unlikely that in the event of Justice Chaudhry’s reinstatement both they and the opposition parties will lose some of their present momentum.

What happens if the opposition’s movement loses steam as the next election approaches? The present assemblies will be asked to elect a president. If General Musharraf has made a deal with the PML-Q to the effect that he will let it rig the election, the party leaders will most probably get him elected.

What will follow? Some observers, including this writer, have been of the view that he and the government he puts together after the election will not be effective. Apathy and disaffection, which have already produced chaos (meaning lawlessness and defiance of the government’s writ) will become more widespread and intense. Musharraf may be aware of this likely outcome, but he may still follow the above course of action, thinking that the “storm” will pass, and that any alternative to his rule will make things worse.

Let us now consider the possibility that he looks for ways of retaining his office without having to rely on the PML-Q and an election rigged to its advantage, It is in this context that the matter of an understanding or a deal with the PPP, and possibly with the JUI, becomes relevant. The real difficulty here does not relate to the court cases pending against Ms Bhutto and her husband. No protest of any consequence will develop if these cases are shelved or withdrawn.

The far more serious question for the general relates to the dimensions of the PPP’s success in the forthcoming election. No one can be sure that it will win a majority of seats in the National Assembly so as to be able to form the next government, or even a large enough plurality to form and lead a coalition government.

The general will have to deal with the political forces that emerge from the election. If the PPP does well enough to form an internally cohesive government or a coalition in which its partners are firmly allied with it, Ms Bhutto will be in a position to ask the president to remain within the bounds the Constitution has prescribed for him and leave the greater part of governance to the prime minister and her/his cabinet. If he accepts this condition, he will no longer be the country’s actual ruler and all his exertions in this regard would have been in vain.

On the other hand, if the PPP’s electoral performance has been modest, the coalition it forms is tenuous and its allies susceptible to seduction from outside, Ms Bhutto can hope to do no more than fill Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s shoes (with her daintier feet). She will be free of the harassment she has endured in the past, and she will have an official residence, a fleet of cars, and other perquisites, but she will not have much of ruling authority. Nor can she expect to maintain her present political standing with the organs of civil society and the people at large. This bargain may not be worth the paper it is written on.

The general’s supporters, such as the editor of a Lahore newspaper (June 16, 2007), contend that his continuance in office for a second term is an imperative of the national interest. It would be good if he gave up his army post, held fair and free elections, and did not make questionable deals with PML-Q or any other party.

But in their reckoning his continuance in power would be good for Pakistan even if he did not do any of these things. They think that any combination of politicians that gets to replace him will mess up the country’s affairs. It will not restrain the extremists or maintain law and order, and it will disrupt the economic growth achieved under the present government.

They believe that the restoration of democracy is not as vital a national interest as the continuance of General Musharraf’s progressive policies, and that democracy can wait until the time for its return is more propitious, that is, until political parties in the country have become more capable of operating a democratic political system.

Spokesmen of the United States government support this line of reasoning, but they cannot endorse it quite as unabashedly. They vacillate between opposites. They do not approve of military rule but they must work with General Musharraf, because they think he is their best available agent for suppressing Muslim extremists and militants in the area.

They would feel better if he gave up his army post, but they would let him decide whether and when to do it. They want elections in Pakistan to be free and fair, and they want the general to be elected by the new assemblies for a second term, but if the present assemblies do elect him, and if thereafter the election is rigged to an extent, they will still work with him.

They do not support the case of the general’s supporters. The assertion is not valid that the present regime is doing well, and that the politicians, if they take power, will destroy its accomplishments. That it has failed to control the extremists is evident from the fact that the Taliban have installed themselves as rulers not only in places in our tribal regions but also in parts of settled districts of NWFP, namely, Tank, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khan, not to speak of neighbourhoods in Islamabad, the nation’s capital.

The state of law and order is poor throughout the country. There is blatant violation of the law at all levels. Far too many people ignore or oppose the government’s writ. The insurrection in Balochistan, which has been going on for more than two years, shows no sign of abating. Nor does the government have anything to show for itself in Waziristan. It is hard to see how a government made up of elected politicians could make these situations any worse. They may in fact bring about some improvement.

It is also being said that the winners in the next election will be too fragmented and divided to work together as a team, that we will in effect have no real government, and that chaos will result. Let there be chaos, one may say, for out of chaos order will eventually emerge as it has in other places and times. But consider also that we have chaos right now: the present government is ineffective in that hardly anyone pays attention to its directives.

Second, it is quite likely that considerations of self-preservation will motivate the incoming politicians to join hands to forge a government that works. Recall that Mohammad Khan Junejo put together a reasonably stable and effective government following a “partyless” election, in which everyone had contested, at least formally, as an independent candidate.

Equally disingenuous is the suggestion that the restoration of democracy should wait until political institutions in the country have become mature and competent. This is a counsel of despair, meaning that we need not ever have democracy.

It cannot be over-emphasised that democracy becomes embedded in a political culture only if the people concerned have had the opportunity to practise it for an extended period of time, a period of trial and error, during which they learn from experienced. But the military in this country does not let the people have this learning experience.

Moreover, every time it seizes the government, it goes out of its way to debilitate political parties, legislatures, and organs of civil society, if it has not outlawed politics altogether. A way must be found to send the military back to the barracks and keep it there if political institutions in Pakistan are ever to gain maturity and develop adequacy.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US
Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

Barking up the wrong tree

THE leaders of government and of opposition, and the lawyers on both sides, oblivious of the law and reality, are busy pursuing their own fantasies. The people are left to face the rigours of the real world and worry about the uncertainties looming ahead.

One-fourth of the population, the one-dollar-a-day hoi polloi, has no reason to expect that when the current ferment subsides, its lot would be any better. The people have been through this cycle of hope and despair more than once.

General Musharraf and his chief political collaborator, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, keep insisting there is no crisis. They should sit up and take note that even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now says there is one and that there is violence too. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, though as yet unable or unwilling to return to Pakistan, let alone go to the hustings, have already started haggling over who will be prime minister first. But neither of them can become one under the Constitution as it now stands.

The night-long cavalcades with Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry at their head being cheered by roadside crowds and lawyers have indeed created a stir. But all this is bound to end in a whimper unless they storm the Bastille-like symbols of Pakistan’s despotic power. But they won’t, for neither our politicians nor our lawyers are revolutionaries.

The huddling of political leaders in London’s Mayfair to cut deals and lawyers riding across the country are akin to the adventures of a bored and sleepy Alice in the Wonderland of the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar and the Dormouse who wakes up to realise that all along she had been sleeping on her sister's lap.

The Mayfair deals and joyous marches are the stuff of dreamland. It is time that the politicians and lawyers woke up to the reality of life which is that hope for democracy and constitutional order rests only in the courts and at the ballot box.

Though the electoral process has already been set in motion and polls are less than six months away, the government and the opposition are still playing on words trying to outwit each other, or indulging in banter or invective.

No party has announced its manifesto or alignment with another party. Who will lead the PPP and PML-N if Benazir and Nawaz Sharif are not permitted to come back to campaign is a question crucial to their poll prospects but one that remains undecided.

But the prize for a bloomer in these fateful moments must go to Tariq Azeem, the deputy information minister soon to be a full one, who has discovered that Musharraf can be elected by the assemblies not just once but four times — that is for life. He is more starry-eyed than Benazir who sees herself as prime minister in 2008 and handing over to Nawaz Sharif in 2013.

Whatever the worth of their statements, assessed against the law or common sense, they constitute an intolerable insult to public opinion. The choice is to be made by the people and they can spring surprises. This time round they surely will.

Benazir Bhutto in a newspaper article published last week has alleged that Musharraf while pretending to be a bulwark against terrorism is in fact stoking the fires of extremism by making deals with religious parties (who collectively have never polled more than 11 per cent of the votes) only to marginalise her secular and moderate PPP and Nawaz’s Muslim League. Gen Musharraf has indeed used the religious parties, and they have used him in the power game, but Benazir’s contention that the PPP and PML-N were moderate and secular is untenable.

Both parties can be described as moderate but they are run like family fiefdoms. That is why their leaders are on the run or in jail, and the godfathers of extremism occupy centre-stage in Pakistan’s politics.

The pledge that Benazir and Nawaz must now make, if deals or polls bring them back to power, is to follow the rules of law and fairness and administer through institutions and not friends and sycophants.

Politics requires commitment to a cause and public service. Benazir and Nawaz Sharif sacrificed this principle at the altar of personal power by courting extremists just as Musharraf is now doing.

The ideologues of extremism occupied key positions in public affairs in their times as they do now. Moderate their parties may have been but secular certainly they were not.

The Muslim League assuredly did not like to be known as such. The PPP’s secularism too has been skin-deep. We tend to forget that the foundation of sectarian conflict in the country was laid by Z.A. Bhutto by legislating on the faith of the people on which Ziaul Haq later raised a penal structure which in the course of time has made Pakistan a world metaphor for terrorism.

Neither the PPP nor the PML in their 11 years in power (1988-99) did anything to undo the policies and laws of Ziaul Haq that encouraged extremism. Nor has Musharraf in his seven and a half years. All three have reinforced what Zia did.

Pakistan escaped becoming a full-blooded theocracy only because Nawaz Sharif could not muster enough votes in the Senate for his 15th amendment, the Sharia bill. And if Musharraf were truly enlightened he would not have let his minister for religion, Ejazul Haq, justify suicide bombing sending waves round world capitals.

Musharraf’s uniform and Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s disqualification are passionate but passing issues. After all, Musharraf is not the first general to rule Pakistan nor is Mr Chaudhry the first judge to face the charge of conduct unbecoming of a judge. The politicians and lawyers are barking up the wrong tree. They have to realign their alliances and direct their effort towards saving Pakistan from becoming a world pariah for its bigotry, repressive laws and brutal punishments.

Our misfortune has been that all the three rulers of the post-Zia years — Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf — by their policies and conduct, have reflected not the decency at the heart of Pakistani society but the crudity of its fanatical fringe. In this regard, Nawaz Sharif has been the worst culprit.

Raised in Ziaul Haq’s tradition and surrounded by his sons, “opening batsman” and, to extend the cricketing metaphor, many googly bowlers and by his own cronies, “Miansaab” considered himself as the master of all he surveyed. He played cricket in Lahore every weekend but hardly ever went to the other three provincial capitals. He appointed and removed principal civil officers at will.

He came to grief when he extended the same rule to the armed forces. Now that he has been cast out of the political fray, he should hand the party leadership over to Shahbaz Sharif who as Punjab’s chief minister had earned for himself the reputation of being a stern but just administrator without laying claim to charisma or divinity. The family, the party and the country would be better for it.