THE week that President Musharraf has spent in Europe has not been a good week for the cause of democracy in Pakistan. His set-piece speeches were constructed around a very small number of key ideas and foremost amongst them was his belief that the people of Pakistan were not ready as yet for democracy as globally understood.

He walked on thin ice when he argued implicitly that his plan for a transition to a democratic order best suited to the current evolutionary status of Pakistan’s political culture could only be implemented after the removal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and more than 50 other judges of the higher courts.

Outside the ambit of his unchanging talking points were some disturbing moments such as the trivialisation and trashing by the president — one of the longest serving chiefs of army staff — of a large number of former military officers who had called for a change in status quo and the most unfortunate skirmish with the respected London correspondent of this newspaper.

Quite apart from the question of whether President Musharraf’s declared aim of repairing Pakistan’s image in the West was at all fulfilled by his words and posture, there is little doubt that the cumulative effect in Pakistan was one of despondency.

Far too many people have concluded that there is hardly any prospect of a free, fair and transparent election and that, regardless of their aspirations, Musharraf would simply implement his own plan of creating a troika comprising a powerful president, an unassertive and docile prime minister and the chief of army staff who incidentally has shown no inclination of being sucked into the power game. This perception has further dampened the already insipid election campaign.

It is campaign that Benazir Bhutto had tried to lift to a level where it would become an instrument of peaceful but substantive change. An indefatigable campaigner, she was widening the parameters of political discourse by systematically bringing up issues that Pakistan needed to address. Naturally, her first priority was the restoration of democracy.

But she was straining hard to go beyond mere constitutionalism by promising to use democracy to develop a different approach to terrorism, problems of provincial autonomy and a more equitable economic order. She gave her life while trying to connect with the masses, a tactic that would have made it difficult to get away with a rigged election. The present apathy is born out of a feeling that the democratisation in hand is more form than substance.

In the wake of the collapse of communist dictatorships and non-communist authoritarian regimes in various parts of the world, democracy reasserted itself as by far the most satisfactory form of government; it carries the lowest risks and is most conducive to social and economic development. A corollary to this reading of history is that democracy should be proactively promoted. Francis Fukuyama would probably concede that his end-of-history thesis was premature but he still argues that the world needs a new strategy for bolstering the legitimacy of democracy promotion and the defence of human rights.

He recommends that ‘governments must come together and draft a code of conduct for democratic interventions’ in a manner analogous to humanitarian interventions to protect threatened populations.

Surveys have shown that 71 per cent of West Europeans support democracy promotion, though the number in the United States is much lower. President Musharraf’s jibe that the West was unduly obsessed with democracy and human rights was directed at an audience that could not possibly ignore the pervasive belief that European governments have to weave observance of democratic norms as a criterion in their external relations.

Even Condoleezza Rice had to say that democracy was a good thing to be obsessed with. Pakistan’s own history bears testimony to the fact that authoritarian rule did not provide either sustainable economic development or security.

India has achieved both better than Pakistan under a democratic system which was chaotic when compared to the stable western democracies. It was able to do so because it trusted its people and allowed them to grow into a democracy systematically and continuously.

When John Morley became secretary of state for India in December 1905, he was faced with Curzon’s dictum that not a single Indian was fit to join his executive council.

Morley took a less pessimistic view and thought India could evolve towards representative institutions. The people of Pakistan went through the same arduous journey till 1947 under a leader who understood constitutionalism better than anyone else and who created a new nation with the power of the ballot.

It is unfair to tell them and the rest of the world today that they never made that journey.

There is despair in the country because of the pervasive apprehension that once again the people will be short-changed during the impending electoral exercise. It is not that the people are not ripe for democracy; it is the civil and military oligarchy that deliberately refuses to accept this reality. We do not have to invent the wheel again and spend another five decades rehearsing the Minto-Morley gradualism, the subterfuges of the Simon Commission, the Government of India Act of 1935 and worse still the great agitations that rocked the subcontinent between 1942 and 1947.

President Musharraf has been an absolute ruler longer than any American president can govern while surrounded by all the checks and balances of the Constitution under which he takes his oath of office.

He can now hold deep consultations with all the political parties after a fair, free and transparent election to work out the modalities which would take the country back to the nearest possible approximation of the 1973 Constitution.

He can either continue within those restored parameters or face more and more strident demands for him to step down altogether. The choice he makes may well determine Pakistan’s destiny. When all is said and told democracy is a worthwhile obsession.

THE US presidential elections are of global significance, as they are for Pakistan. A man (may be a woman this year) elected by 126,000,000 people controls the lives of over six billion in the world.

The five foremost contenders for the US presidency this year symbolise the magnificence of a “first” of some kind — Barack Obama, the first African-American with the additional “baggage” of a Muslim upbringing. Hillary Clinton, the first woman, Mike Huckabee the first ordained preacher, Mitt Romney the first Mormon and John McCain, at 71, the oldest ever first-time aspirant. Pakistan, however, has to be wary of US presidents who mark any kind of a first.

The last time there was a “first” or “firsts” was when Democrat John F. Kennedy won against the Republican incumbent vice-president Richard Nixon in 1960. Kennedy was the first ever Roman Catholic to be elected president, the first US president to have won the Pulitzer prize for distinction in print journalism, and the first to be born in the twentieth century. Nixon lost with the narrowest of margins and may have even won on a recount, which he did not ask for as he believed recounts were not worthy of America.

Kennedy, the new US president of the many “firsts”, was less supportive of Pakistan’s concerns with India than his Republican predecessor. The foreign policy assertions of the five frontline candidates, all marking a first, for the 2008 US elections, do not bode well for Pakistan.

During the 1962 India-China skirmish on the Himalayan border, Kennedy tried to push Ayub Khan into joining the fray on India’s side.

Fortunately for Pakistan, Kennedy did not push hard enough, and Ayub got off by doing the next best thing to gain Kennedy’s approval. In a statement he assured the world, meaning India, that Pakistan would not make any move in Kashmir, thereby relieving pressure on the Indian troops.

If Nixon was president in 1962 he would have probably said to Ayub Khan “you have seven days to move and be sitting in Srinagar”. Something similar was undoubtedly said to Indira Gandhi during the East Pakistan crisis by the Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, except that he gave her 14 days to be “sitting” in Dhaka.

The contenders for the US presidency in this year’s elections favour going after Al Qaeda even if it entails violating Pakistan’s sovereignty. This is ominous, and Pakistan can begin to brace itself for a belligerent post-election US foreign policy. George W. Bush took the trouble to get UN endorsements, through all means foul or fair, before his troops went into Afghanistan and Iraq. He is still there six years later and it does not look like George is in a hurry to leave. In fact, in a fit of despair, he may well invade Iran before he vacates the White House for the new president in January 2009.

The next president is not likely to be bothered with the niceties of UN endorsement. The aspirants for the top US job seem to feel the $10bn aid to Pakistan has given US forces the “right of passage” in Pakistan to go after Al Qaeda on “actionable” evidence of its presence.

Actionable evidence? Like the kind George had on Iraq’s nuclear “stockpile”? One feels for Colin Powell, an officer and a gentleman, who was misled into presenting these “evidences” and is now quietly nursing his assailed dignity.

There seems little doubt that the new president in 2009 will inherit Afghanistan, Iraq and possibly Iran from George, and will soon enough add Waziristan to the inheritance. Like the BJP spots a Ram temple under every church and mosque in India, the US will begin to spot Al Qaeda within the boundaries of every Muslim country.

The writer is a retired corporate executive.
husainsk@cyber.net.pk