PAKISTAN has integrated the army into its political life. Can we disentangle it? Recently people have been blaming Ayub Khan and Justice Munir because we do not wish to face the truth and blame ourselves.

It began as a joint endeavour between Ghulam Mohammad, Justice Munir and Nawab Gurmani. Ayub Khan had to be included to ensure success. The object was to prevent Bengal from ruling Pakistan. To this end, Ayub Khan had to take over the government which he did in 1958.

This was the only way to deny East Pakistan an eminent role in government. The people now being accused regarded themselves as patriotic (West) Pakistanis. Previously military rule was simply an extension of Punjab.

This has partially changed because Nawaz Sharif decided to have a COAS who he thought would be easy to remove. Unfortunately the army didn’t like the idea of a change of COAS on an annual basis. The failure to remove the COAS annoyed many people. Having got the opportunity, there is now a chorus that military government is bad. Of course it is.

For historical reasons the British Indian Army was substantially recruited from certain areas of Punjab. The Pakistan Army naturally reflected this. Over the years they have developed a vested interest in controlling the government: not in the way Dr Ayesha Siddiqa has claimed but through a refusal to discuss the defence budget and by providing added perquisites for military personnel in the form of real estate, etc which have been growing over time.

There has been a marked change in the way this has happened. During Ayub Khan’s takeover there was some military involvement in the civil administration but it was very limited.

During Ziaul Haq’s time it increased but not dramatically. Musharraf has practically filled every available vacancy outside the secretariat with military officers. He claims that they have been selected on merit (whatever that means).

It raises an obvious question. Do the really bright people in any family enter the armed forces? One of our aberrations is that the Federal Public Service Commission has been headed by generals and admirals for many years. People joining the military are recruited more for their physical capabilities than their mental attributes.

The Public Service Commission is supposed to judge mental and professional competence. What does an admiral or general or an air marshal bring to this forum?

The previous general who headed the FPSC did take on the government. He was right. That is why he and the whole Commission were removed. It was about the promotion of a couple of police officers by Punjab. It was a political decision. We must remember that the way power is exercised in this country is through the police whenever anything high-handed or illegal is to be done. Amenable policemen also tend to be corrupt. Why not?

No government from 1958 onwards has bothered about good governance: that the higher civil service, or whatever you care to call it, has to be capable of advising without fear or favour. This has become increasingly irrelevant. Sycophancy has triumphed over the years. Both business management and military are essentially command and obey structures and tend to be sycophantic.

As for the present government’s claim of good governance, by placing ads in the papers that Transparency International has improved Pakistan’s rating, it is generally related to foreign contractors or other foreigners doing business in Pakistan. Corruption at the top may have declined but has not disappeared. Elsewhere it is business as usual.

There is little or no transparency in government action at any level. In local government, corruption has increased. This is not uncommon. They tried to correct it in the US by introducing the concept of city or county manager, at least in California. All officials reported to him, including the police. We already had the deputy commissioner in place but he has now been totally subordinated to the nazim. The police are supposed to report directly to the nazim.

To expect nazims to be objective and fairminded is being too optimistic. Politicians at that level are very closely involved with their supporters. To completely hand over the administration to them without any local check or balance has increased corruption, seriously endangered good governance and compromised local justice.

The recent problem of the declaration of emergency arose from the chief justice episode, because Musharraf has surrounded himself with secondsycophants referred to in the American press as oily yes-men. This is normal for people in power. He was advised to show, or possibly himself decided to show, military muscle and there was no one to advise him about it without fear or favour.

The CJ was aware of what was coming and quite possibly contacted his supporters in the bar who said they would organise a demonstration which was likely to be supported by political parties. One wonders whether it is common practice in the world for CJs to lead political rallies. Even if it was politically inspired it was brave of him to take on the generals.

The government was also not uninformed and decided to meet agitation with force. Such things don’t happen on the spur of the moment. What the government forgot was that it had freed the media and the press. Neither of these institutions had ever before been free to run down the government and make strong statements against the executive. When Nawaz Sharif’s gang of toughs decided to attack the Supreme Court, there were no private television channels to broadcast the event nor did the press feel strong enough to criticise it.

The two options available to the government were to declare an emergency on March 7 and close down everything or to adopt a totally lowapproach in making a reference against the CJ. Any competent civil servant would have advised about the two alternatives and probably suggested a low-key approach.

The net result of this power play was that the Supreme Court did not look at the reference but only to the attendant circumstances which could easily be classified as mala fide. The bench proceeded to do so and threw out the reference.

There was annoyance at the behaviour of the government in roughing up the CJ and the lawyers on March 9, also some playing to the gallery and possibly some lingering thoughts about the independence of the judiciary. The latter is a good slogan. The CJ was resurrected and decided to make life miserable for the executive.

Rahul Singh’s article in Dawn describes Indira Gandhi’s declaration of emergency as being precipitated by the Supreme Court in India. This implies, quite correctly, that there is a parallel in Pakistan today.

The developments are socially desirable inasmuch as the educated are claiming that they want an independent judiciary, a free press, etc, an end to military rule, and free and fair elections which haven’t occurred in Pakistan since 1970. These are good slogans — unfortunately they are not accompanied by serious thought as to how these can be achieved.

WHILE speaking at a seminar, a senior government official conceded that the environment as a sector has no political constituency in Pakistan. This is a disturbing reality. This gentleman was right in many ways.

Our political history has demonstrated that whenever elections are held, the public has never raised environment-related issues nor have the political parties come forward with a programme that gives priority to environmental issues. Subsequently, when governments are formed nobody aspires to the ministry of environment. It is the least coveted portfolio for political contenders.

The most in demand — and quite understandably so given the finances involved — are education, revenue, finance, communication, health, housing and other ministries. Basic understanding of the environment is also low in the country, as even today large segments of the population are unable to comprehend the sector holistically. The economic managers of the country tend to advocate and highlight economic growth without taking into account the colossal damage done to the environment and natural resources by the thoughtless policies which underpin our economy.

Unequipped to cope with the real challenges facing the common man, political parties do not care. The fact is that economic growth and the growing population are putting unprecedented stress on the physical environment in Pakistan. These stresses are in turn creating unprecedented challenges for the people.

On the eve of the general elections the political parties have started announcing their manifestos. The Pakistan People’s Party has given ample coverage to the environment, which is quite refreshing. Perhaps this is the first time in the history of the country that the environment has figured in the manifesto of a mainstream political party. The PPP promises to follow environment-friendly policies if voted into office. It says it stands for a cleaner, healthier environment for our children. It also supports the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Following suit the PML-Q, the second party to release a manifesto, states that it is committed to a greener and cleaner Pakistan. All major projects undertaken in the future, it says, would be subject to an environmental feasibility study. While it is encouraging that parties are beginning to focus on the environment, the same cannot be said of the implementation of these programmes.

The World Bank in its recent study tells us that the urgency of addressing Pakistan’s environmental problems has probably never been greater. According to the study, environmental degradation costs the country at least six per cent of its GDP. This is estimated to be about Rs365bn per year and these costs fall disproportionately on the poor.

The economic challenges faced by the country have their genesis in environmental problems. Pakistan has witnessed significant progress since the preparation of a national conservation strategy (NCS) in 1992. This facilitated the creation of institutions and the adoption of policy measures. The NCS was highly instrumental in creating awareness of the environment and conservation and putting in place an institutional framework.

On the other hand, it could not influence macroeconomic and sectoral policies. The mid-term review suggests that NCS phase II should operate adequately as a sustainable development strategy. The national environmental policy was also adopted in 2005. It is important that the environment should form part of the discourse on public policy and private responsibility. The country has ratified all the important international conventions and accepted the obligations under them.

The crisis, which is fundamentally ecological in nature, is managed with traditional approaches. It is high time the ministry of sustainable development was set up to manage the linkages between environmental change and human well-being. The water and agriculture ministries alone will not be able to cope with water shortages, just as the health ministry cannot handle an increase in infectious diseases entirely by itself.

The need of the hour is a new powerful ministry to coordinate the responses to climate change, water stress and other ecosystem crises. The ministry could also be tasked with devising the national strategy for sustainable development (NSSD).

There is a school of thought that believes that climate change is not an issue for developing countries like Pakistan. But as we live on the same planet, any impact on one region is certain to have repercussions in others. Today environmental issues fast assume economic and political dimensions. Hence a proactive approach to the environment would be more productive.

The author is a freelance contributor on environment and development.

napanhwar@gmail.com

SOUTH Asians have many reasons to rue their condition. Prominent among them is a persistent failure to establish democratic electoral mechanisms. Several countries in the region are facing difficulties in holding free, fair and democratic elections, and nowhere has the task become as problematic as in Pakistan.

This became apparent as experts from the region recently debated the requisites of an ‘inclusive electoral process’ at the invitation of a South Asian human rights network. The experts were invited to share their experiences of holding elections and their reform plans with delegates from the region. The objective was to determine the essential features of an electoral process that would meet the highest possible standards and the result would reflect the pluralist society that each South Asian country is.

What made a Pakistani disconsolate, though the deliberations were both stimulating and fruitful, was the realisation that while different South Asian states were facing different sets of problems, Pakistan seemed to have gathered on its plate all of them and something extra.

Several Indian states are now in the grip of election fever, none more than Gujarat where a chief minister who has been universally condemned for the 2002 pogrom is threatening India’s entire effort at establishing a secular democracy. Nothing causes the democrats there more anguish than the gnawing feeling that the more Narendra Modi’s criminal record is exposed the better his chances of return to power seem to become. And this despite the existence of the most powerful of the national election authorities in the region, one that is known for speedily responding to challenges and holding its own against the executive. Unavoidable is the question: what good is an electoral process if it cannot offer the people safety and security against a communalist predator?

Pakistan’s fledgling democrats may be facing a similar problem: how to devise an electoral framework that cannot be exploited by anti-democratic elements to make a mockery of democratic institutions.

Nepal claims to have mobilised people’s power to establish a democratic order twice in less than two decades. Last year the people won their right to a new constitution to be framed by a democratically elected constituent assembly. The promised election has already been delayed by many months. Meanwhile extra-democratic attempts, some of them extra-legal too, are being made to ensure what General Ziaul Haq would have described as ‘positive results’. Does this amount to pre-poll rigging?

Only a decade has passed since Bangladesh took the lead in providing in the constitution for an independent caretaker regime for holding a general election. The initiative was hailed in all neighbouring countries. Most of all in Pakistan where elections have been more suspect than elsewhere. But the result desired has not been achieved, thanks to the well-known South Asian genius for bending constitutional provisions to suit partisan interests. The present caretakers have been unable to hold elections within the stipulated period. These are now promised in 2008.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh regime is trying to use legal instruments to root out political corruption, something all military rulers in Pakistan have done and failed. More promising perhaps are attempts to develop a foolproof poll system. Which merely shows that independent caretakers, if such angels can at all be found, are not enough to guarantee fair elections if the electoral system remains flawed. Unfortunately the Pakistan regime appears determined not to learn this lesson till some more time has been lost in debilitating misadventures.

The history of Pakistan shows that soon after independence the party in power developed such a dread of reference to the people that it moved farther and farther away from the minimum standards of free and fair elections. Worse, none of its successors has made any meaningful effort to break with the unholy tradition. As a result, no general election can be claimed to have been fair. The one or two elections that are popularly believed to have been relatively fair deserve the distinction because of a general impression that official manipulation was on a lower scale than usual.

Further, attempts at electoral reform have been largely limited to ensuring orderly polling or, latterly, to basing results on a correct count of the ballots cast. Important though these aspects of a general election are they do not meet the most decisive requirements of fair and democratic elections. The main defects and deficiencies of Pakistan’s electoral system can be summarised as under:

* The franchise is still not wholly democratic. The Ahmedis continue to be denied, contrary to law, the benefit of the joint electorate system that was revived, after 17 years of deviation, in 2002. In respect of other communities too the logic of a single voters’ list is not fully respected.

* The fruits of the electoral system are not available in full measure to the people living in Fata and the Northern Areas.

* The government continues to resist the demand for an independent and efficient Election Commission. The mode of the Chief Election Commissioner’s appointment, the system of forming the Election Commission only after an election has been notified and the initial part of the electoral process completed, the commission’s lack of comprehension of democratic imperatives, and its failure to protect the democratic rights of the more vulnerable elements — women, the poorest sections, homeless nomads, the riverbank population, the prison population and non-resident Pakistanis — all imply institutional obstacles to fair election.

* Failure to eliminate exploitation of belief for electoral advantage and denial of the right to vote and contest election to women, both offences listed in the penal code, seriously undermine the sanctity and credibility of elections.

* The objective of registering all eligible voters remains unrealised.

* The government sees nothing wrong in the escalating costs of contesting elections which is increasingly limiting the field to people of doubtful credentials.

* A huge majority of the underprivileged is excluded from electoral contest, thereby making progress towards a pluralist democracy impossible. Even suggestions that some of the candidates’ financial burden should be assumed by the Election Commission have gone unheeded.

* Successive regimes have sought to suppress the fundamental issue that democratic elections are impossible under a regime that can manipulate the Constitution and the law for personal or factional gain.

Unless the above-mentioned impediments to fair elections, some of which are institutional in character, are removed the crisis of legitimacy will not be over.

One of the painful conclusions from the South Asian experts’ deliberations is the reluctance of states such as Pakistan to learn from positive initiatives within the region. For instance, the Bangladesh Election Commission claims to have found a way to eliminate personation or chances of anyone voting more than once by preparing biometric records of each one of the country’s 90 million voters. If this system works the problems caused by defects in voter lists, non-availability of polling agents and lack of identification papers (NIC, etc) may disappear.

The Indian Election Commission asserts that its electronic voting machines guarantee a fair count, and that no complaint of manipulating results has been heard for 11 years. Has Pakistan studied this process?

The only explanation for Pakistan’s keenness to persist with a flawed electoral system and a moribund Election Commission could be its permanent establishment’s contempt for the people’s sovereign rights.