Will they meet the test?

THE circumstances of Nawaz Sharif’s return mark a radical shift in the country’s political situation. In one sense the possibilities of an early transition to democratisation have increased. In another sense the task of saving Pakistan for democracy may have become harder. Success in guiding the ship of state through the narrow straits ahead will depend on qualities of statesmanship two persons — Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — can display.

Nawaz Sharif has returned home — in triumph — only 10 weeks after he had been publicly humiliated and bundled off to Saudi Arabia. What exactly made the regime eat its words to the effect that the prime minister General Musharraf had overthrown in 1999 could not be allowed to return before the expiry of the period specified in the Islamabad-Riyadh deal, and certainly not before the general election?

The regime’s growing insecurity, accentuated further by the PML-Q’s insipid performance and Benazir Bhutto’s attempts to close the breach with the civil society could have been a strong factor. A stronger factor could have been Saudi Arabia’s decision to play a decisive role in extricating Pakistan from the post-Nov 3 mess. In September Saudi Arabia sent its intelligence chief to push Nawaz Sharif into a Jeddah-bound plane. Last week the king took matters in his own hands and made sure that Nawaz Sharif (and brother Shahbaz Sharif) could land in Pakistan before the date of filing nominations for the general election expired and that his security needs were not left to chance or Islamabad’s incompetent factotums.

This is not the time to remind the regime of its rhetoric about its rejection of foreign intervention in Pakistan’s affairs, although intervention is intervention, whether it comes from the east or the west. What is relevant at the moment is whether the ‘enlightened moderation of liberals’ is to be replaced with ‘accommodation with conservative dogmatists’. It is possible that Saudi Arabia was unhappy with the former slogan and capitalised on a chance for its replacement with the latter. If this is indeed the case, not only the strategy of the fight against militants may undergo a change, the state may again begin to veer towards a theocratic order.

That aside, Nawaz Sharif’s homecoming is a thoroughly-needed shot in the opposition’s flagging arm. The PML-N will rise, literally from ashes, to formidable strength. If the party remains firm on its pro-democracy pledges, opposition to the regime will become unbeatable. In that sense the prospects of beginning the trek to normal, civilised, democratic rule may have improved.

By the same token consternation in the ruling camp should increase. The tajdars of Punjab, the regime’s principal source of strength, have greater reason to fear for their political future now than they had when Benazir Bhutto descended on a far away Karachi. They cannot ignore the fact that while Benazir Bhutto had only one reluctant friend (Musharraf) and the whole establishment was against her; Nawaz Sharif has no problem with the establishment except for one person.

Unless they can be herded back into the PML-N fold the tottering knights of the Q League will be under pressure to seek safety in much greater rigging of the polls than they might have hitherto contemplated. That will make the battle for democracy harder.

The hazards on the path to democratisation could multiply manifold if the regime succeeded in splitting the opposition, especially if it could get PML-N and PPP pitted against one another. The factors that underline the urgency of these two parties’ acting together are many and pretty obvious. In the short run, the question of joining or boycotting the farce proposed in the name of election is still valid, the filing of nomination papers notwithstanding.

The arguments for boycotting the general election if all actions taken on Nov 3 are not taken back are irrefutable. Freedom of canvassing, freedom to held rallies, freedom of expression for the media -- all these are essential to the holding of democratically acceptable elections. Without an independent judiciary the Election Commission itself cannot be properly constituted. The judges seconded to the commission in the present situation are unlikely to win public confidence. Besides, an independent judiciary is needed to resolve post-polling disputes. These problems become severer if one takes into account the fact that the constitution requirement of having an independent caretaker regime has not been met.

However, an effective boycott of the election will be impossible without a complete unity among the opposition parties and that will be possible only if PML-N and PPP decide to work together. An understanding between them alone will stay the waverers from joining the electoral charade and close the escape route for opportunists who may be looking for any excuse to renege on their democratic-looking pledges.

But, if for any reason whatsoever either PPP or PML-N finds it impossible to stay away from the election, the two parties will better serve the country as well as themselves by developing an understanding on the best arrangement for achieving the vitally needed regime change. This understanding will enable them to attract all other political parties and groups to form an all-party front against autocracy.

However, it is time that politicians, especially in the opposition, started taking a longer view of Pakistan’s crisis, of the requisites of a return to representative rule. The country’s multiple ailments will not disappear with a change at the top alone. Harder than that will be the task of persuading the military to vacate the large space in the civilian domain it has encroached upon.

A reordering of the economy so as to offer some relief to the hard pressed poor and the crafting of a sober response to the religions militants also are tasks neither Benazir Bhutto nor Nawaz Sharif can achieve singly or in tandem with the general. It may not be possible to guarantee success in these areas even if the two leaders team up but the possibility of success will be the greatest in that event. And in any case the people should be prepared for a long haul as none of the objectives of transition to democracy will be realised quickly.

There should be no doubt about the terrible consequences of the opposition parties’ failure to work with unity, especially over the next few weeks. Pakistan will be condemned to another spell of authoritarian rule, the threat from militants will become more serious, the region will remain destabilised, the people will suffer for lack of an executive capable of managing the economy in the interest of the people and a judiciary capable of protecting the rights of the people, and the nation’s hopes of a turnaround aroused by civil society initiatives will be dashed to the ground.

The foremost question thus is: Will Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif rise to the decision?

Commonwealth’s coup de grace

ON Nov 22, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) on Pakistan took a decision in its meeting in Kampala that was not at all unexpected. This was a follow-up to its extraordinary session in London of Nov 12 when the Group had met to consider the situation arising from the proclamation of emergency in the country in the light of the Commonwealth Principles. Pakistan had been given a final deadline of ten days.

In the earlier meeting the CMAG had concluded that the imposition of emergency and its implications constituted a serious and persistent violation of the norms of democracy and good governance, as agreed by Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) at the Harare in 1991 and subsequent Commonwealth summits.

The decision to suspend Pakistan’s membership came from the foreign ministers of eight countries represented on CMAG and not from the heads of government. The Group could have remitted this matter to the heads as they had already arrived in Kampala to attend the Commonwealth summit from Nov 23 to 25. But it decided to act on its own.

Had the CMAG not decided to act on its own, it would have lost all credibility. Besides the CMAG is fully capable empowered under its mandate to suspend countries failing to meet the criteria of the Harare Principles without making a prior reference to the heads of government. By the same token, when full democracy is restored in Pakistan, CMAG will be free to lift Pakistan’s suspension without requiring the approval of all member governments.

The Commonwealth today consists of 53 sovereign and independent countries which are committed to promoting and practicing democracy, human rights, the rule of law, independence of the judiciary, just and honest governance, social justice and economic development for peace and prosperity for their people. This grouping of erstwhile British colonies still enjoys popular appeal and nearly half a dozen countries are lined up to seek entry into the Commonwealth at the first available opportunity.

The Kampala decision, however, means little in terms of its impact on Pakistan’s bilateral relations with the Commonwealth countries. Although it risks not being invited to the 2009 CHOGM in Trinidad and Tobago and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010, there is nothing important that Pakistan would really miss following its suspension from the councils of the association. Being a member of the Commonwealth, even though excluded from its meetings, helps Pakistan in many ways.

Pakistani citizens in the UK have a right to vote in the local and national elections, and Pakistani organisations are able to maintain links with hundreds of professional associations and NGOs in other Commonwealth countries and attend their events.

Pakistan’s flag continues to fly at all Commonwealth events and the country is officially linked up with more than 32 small states and small island developing states where it does not have resident diplomatic, consular or trade missions.

The Commonwealth had been accused of double standards by its African members for being too strict on Zimbabwe but too soft on Pakistan. Had the Commonwealth given Pakistan another deadline for restoring the constitution and separating the offices of the army chief and the president, it would have lost credibility and also respect for its monitoring mechanism on member countries’ compliance with the Harare Principles.

Even then, the Concluding Statement of CMAG went to great lengths to soften the impact of the suspension by mentioning a number of positive steps that Pakistan is taking to restore full democracy.

Terming the Commonwealth decision as ‘unreasonable and unjustified’, the foreign office exhibited a remarkable degree of patience that befitted its diplomatic stature. It did not accuse the Commonwealth of interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan, nor did it threaten to quit the organisation. A knee-jerk response would not have served Pakistan’s national interest.

There was very little the caretaker government could do to defend its position in the Commonwealth. What is there to be said when the entire supreme judiciary of a country has been prevented from doing its work, thousands of political party workers, human rights activists, lawyers and journalists have been detained and private media broadcasts and the press are restricted under the proclamation of emergency.

Pakistan is the only country in the association of 53 members where its head of state is also the operational head (not the ceremonial commander-in-chief) of the army. It is also the only country in the Commonwealth which has been given too many long deadlines for restoring full democracy beyond what the Commonwealth mandate requires, which is a maximum of two years for countries where the primary law and the institutions of democracy already existed.

In acknowledgement of the progress made by Pakistan since the Oct 2002 elections, CMAG had earlier lifted Pakistan’s suspension in May 2004, even though a number of countries felt that the CMAG was taking a decision that was premature and which the Commonwealth could be required to reverse one day.

In Nov 2005, the CMAG had concluded that “the holding by the same person of the offices of head of state and chief of army staff is incompatible with the basic principles of democracy and the spirit of the Harare Commonwealth Principles.”

The CMAG had also noted that “until the two offices are separated, the process of democratisation in Pakistan will not be irreversible.”

The promulgation of emergency in Pakistan on Nov 3 was a vindication of the position taken by the CMAG. By a single signature, President Musharraf reversed all the gains that he had himself carefully directed towards empowering the media and strengthening the judiciary and the rule of law.

Although the Musharraf government has been proudly projecting the parliament’s completion of its full term in many decades as a major achievement, it needs to understand that completing tenures is not a fundamental requirement of democracy.

What is paramount is that a country should uphold the sanctity of its constitution, a free media and civil society and an independent and no-frills judiciary which does not need to take oaths of allegiance to a military chief.

Free and transparent elections are an important element of democracy but elections alone cannot make up for the absence of other essential features of democracy.

One hopes that before it formally invites the Commonwealth to observe the Jan 2008 general elections, the caretaker government will first invite a CMAG ministerial mission to Islamabad to see for itself the arrangements put in place to lift the emergency that led to the suspension of the constitution and denial of fundamental freedoms and liberties.

The writer is chief executive of the UIK-based Commonwealth Consulting and Risk Analysis Lt. He was special adviser for political affairs in the Commonwealth Secretariat in 2000-2006.

Conferences of the birds

IT was an advance party by the looks of it. Instead of several thousand there were only a few hundred in the fold, zipping along in the classic vee formation headed by an old hand with many a migration under its wing. Most were holding their own but, as is the case every year with every flock, a few stragglers were struggling with the furious pace set by the leader. Young ones, probably, breathless and wide-eyed newcomers to the great southern dash down the Indus Flyway.

Some had formed a mini group of their own, a small band of like-minded underachievers. All were quacking away, which seemed a waste of energy to me on an incredibly gruelling journey of 6,000-plus kilometres. Must be a reason for it though. Maybe it boosts morale or could it be that the cries of a many-headed coxswain somehow keeps the group in sync and pointed true south, or north as the case may be. Who knows, I don’t know mallard-ese, not fluently anyway.

Two had been left behind further afield, clearly out of their depth and gasping for survival, or so it seemed on what was an astoundingly fine Sunday morning in Karachi. Dogs frolicking, ducks flying overhead, head not bursting, omelette awaiting — what could be better? Every winter I applaud these two or three birds bringing up the rear, full of the will to win but wanting in execution. Somehow I can relate. For some of us life is like that.

Uncouth in the main and no expert on wildlife I call them all ducks, though it’s said that a good week can produce by the thousands not only mallards but teals, pintails, white-headed ducks and Siberian cranes, the latter’s numbers now almost decimated. Which brings me to the point, finally. How many more years will we have the singular honour of witnessing, first-hand, these truly glorious sights that add lustre and meaning to life winter after winter? And then in reverse motion each spring.

Not too many the way things are going. When the visits stop, a part of all of us will die. Life as some of us know it will be no more.

The number of migratory birds that land in Pakistan every year is far greater than those that make it out in one piece. Killing a waterfowl to feed your family is one thing, mowing birds down for sport quite another. What’s more, many hunters today (not that gore-filled ‘recreational’ activities were ever justifiable) are so callous or so poor of aim that they shoot sitting ducks, once the hunting equivalent of ‘not cricket’. But such niceties are lost on the debauched and other sub-species of the wealthy but barely literate.

Year after year, the government issues special permits to Arab royals who want to gun or otherwise hunt down the houbara bustard, an internationally protected species, just for the fun of it and the virility its meat supposedly imparts to the eater. After wiping out the houbara in their own lands, they need new turf on which to expend their bloodlust. We assist them in every way in this slaughter of the innocents, apparently to foster goodwill amongst our ‘brotherly’ countries. Is a helpless little bird all that Pakistan has to offer by way of incentive?

I’ve often thought — well, at least once anyway — that ‘past practice’ is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Subscription to the idea should not be blind, for its merit depends on the desirability of what has transpired. In any case, and in keeping with past practice, houbara-hunting permits have again been issued to Arab dignitaries for this season’s killing spree. Some twenty to thirty thousand houbara bustards are expected to travel to Pakistan this winter and only ten to twenty thousand will survive, a kill rate of between 30 and 50 per cent. This slaughter is not sustainable.

The 31 permits issued by the government are supposed to be ‘person-specific’ but everyone and his uncle in every royal entourage will take pot shots at these birds. The ‘bag limit’ is 200 per permit, a total of 6,200 bustards, but thousands more will be slaughtered. Then there are the local poachers, who concentrate on trapping young birds that are sold to the Arabs as live bait with which to train their falcons. All those houbaras will end up dead as well.

We are poisoning our lakes and rivers, encroaching on wetlands, destroying the marine ecosystem and chopping down the few trees we have left. The rapacious ‘development’ lobby that came to dominate policy under the designer-suited cabal is interested only in short-term profit, and the country and planet be damned. The marine turtles are endangered? Privatise the land around their sanctuary in Sandspit. The garbage generated by increased human activity should attract more feral dogs who will gladly make a meal of turtle egg. The lights from the bungalows and weekend pads of the indecently rich will disorient the hatchlings and make them head inland instead of out to sea. Then you can crush them under the wheels of the Beamer, or possibly the Merc. Fun for the entire family.

imalik@dawn.com