THOUGH the voice of the people of Pakistan remained stifled for eight long years, they have at last spoken with an unmistakable clarity. They have convincingly rejected the farce of controlled democracy created by Mr Pervez Musharraf.

The King’s party collapsed like a house of cards and was almost wiped off the political map as swiftly as it was created.

While the adverse effects of this era will continue to be felt for a long time, the process of healing the deep scars caused during this period must commence forthwith. The greatest damage caused to the country by Mr Musharraf was indisputably his second coup on Nov 3, 2007. By one stroke, the Constitution of the country was yet again suspended and independent judiciary destroyed. Subsequently an attempt was made to confer legal protection on this patently unconstitutional and illegal act through purported amendments to the Constitution of Pakistan.

It was convincingly demonstrated by Mr Justice (Retd) Rana Bhagwandas in his article (Dawn Feb 14 and 15, 2008) that the purported amendments to the Constitution made by Gen Musharraf could not acquire the status of permanent law. The only method to amend the Constitution is prescribed in the Constitution itself under Articles 238 and 239. There is no other way to make permanent amendments in the basic law.

There is yet another and no less powerful reason to argue that Gen Musharraf’s purported removal of judges was void ab initio. Under the Provisional Constitution Order No 1 of 2007, dated Nov 3, 2007, Gen Musharraf purportedly acquired power to amend the Constitution, that is, all those powers which the parliament otherwise possessed but nothing more than that. Thus, he could make all those amendments which the parliament could make. The question that needs to be addressed is whether the parliament itself possessed the power to remove or empower the executive to remove the judges of the superior court by issuing notifications of removal.

There is only one answer to this question and that is absolutely not. It has repeatedly been held by the Supreme Court that even parliament could not make amendments which would alter the salient features of the Constitution.

Therefore, there is no valid reason to argue that the purported removal of the judges is irreversible or can only be reversed by a two third majority in the parliament. The entire action of removal of judges could be nullified by issuing notifications rescinding earlier notifications of removal.

The only thing restraining the honourable judges of the superior courts from performing their constitutional functions was not their legal inability or any legal bar but brute state force employed by Mr Musharraf to perpetuate his unconstitutional actions. That restrain has been knocked down by the people of Pakistan on Feb 18, 2008.

Although the injustice of the removal of the judges was self evident, the credit of keeping the issue alive goes to the legal fraternity, Pakistan Muslim League-N and APDM. It was indeed heartening to see that Mian Nawaz Sharif made it a non negotiable issue. It is even more comforting to see that Mr Asif Ali Zardari, whose actions since Dec 27, 2007 indicate his evolving maturity and statesmanship, has agreed to the restoration of judges through parliament.

While the people of Pakistan have firmly expressed their support for the restoration of judges through the ballot, it still appears that there are certain reservations amongst some political forces on this vital issue. The founder of PPP Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged through a manipulated judicial verdict while his daughter’s second government was toppled by the President with the active assistance from the judiciary led by the then Chief Justice.

Much of her second term was consumed in conflict with the Supreme Court on the question of judicial appointments. Similarly the Supreme Court had restored the government of Mian Nawaz Sharif but took the opposite view in the case of Ms Benazir Bhutto. Likewise the Supreme Court facilitated the return of Mian Nawaz Sharif from exile while the National Reconciliation Ordinance, 2007, which facilitated Ms Bhutto’s return to the country, was immediately assailed before the apex court.

Thus, Ms Bhutto and PPP, though occasionally granted relief by the judiciary, have been on the receiving end most of the time. There is, therefore, some scepticism about the judiciary and this cannot be brushed aside lightly.

The PPP has been on the receiving end most of the time for the simple reason that it was against the establishment and the judiciary was the extended arm of the establishment. Mr Bhutto was judicially murdered precisely because the judiciary was not independent. Ms Benazir Bhutto herself conceded in her lifetime that she had misjudged Mr Justice Ajmal Mian and made a mistake by not appointing the senior most judge as the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Ms Bhutto was not a victim of judicial independence but of judicial tyranny by the then Chief Justice duly supported by the establishment represented by the then president Farooq Leghari. Didn’t this duo even try to swallow yet another prime minister through misuse of the power of contempt?

The judges of the superior courts were removed by Gen Musharraf on Nov 3, 2007, precisely because they were perceived as too independent. The entire country would benefit from an independent and vigilant judiciary. It is not just the ordinary litigants who would benefit from this. Even the democratic process would be immeasurably strengthened. The politicians must remember that the establishment has not been defeated in Pakistan. It has only made a tactical retreat and is lurking around waiting for the democratic forces to make mistakes.

There is every likelihood that if Mr Musharraf survives as President, he would sooner or later exercise power under Article 58-2(b) of the Constitution to dissolve the Assembly and dismiss the elected government. Under the present dispensation, such action would be subject to confirmation by the Supreme Court. If the independent minded judges are not restored to their office, there is little doubt about the outcome of the next dissolution case.

So the politicians have an even greater stake in having an independent judiciary than the ordinary litigants. In our country the average life span of a genuine politician in government is much shorter than in the opposition. This ratio is unlikely to change any time soon.

After the long and dark night of dictatorship, we are once again blessed with an opportunity to make a renewed effort to restore the democratic process. By casting their votes in favour of genuine political forces, the people of Pakistan have demonstrated their political maturity. Now it is for our politicians to nurture the democratic process carefully.

No democratic system can ever flourish without viable checks and balances. An independent judiciary is the most viable check on misuse of power by all power holders. There can be no independent judiciary without independent judges. Fortunately we are blessed with such extraordinary judges. It is time that we bring them back and resume our journey.

IN spite of the claims by the Musharraf regime that they had launched Pakistan’s economy on to a new trajectory of high growth, it has now begun to slow down. There are mounting pressures on the balance of payments, high inflation and severe shortages of energy and water. This clearly indicates that the brief spurt in GDP growth during the Musharraf period was unsustainable.

As the newly elected democratic government prepares to face the challenge of achieving sustained growth with rapid poverty reduction, it may be helpful to examine the roots of unstable GDP growth and endemic poverty in Pakistan.

The latest work of Nobel Prize winning economist, Douglass North, and his colleagues who have pioneered the New Institutional Economics may be relevant in addressing the challenge before the new government. North, et al have shown that in order for markets to function for sustained growth an underlying institutional structure in the polity and economy is necessary. These institutions provide equal access to all citizens on the basis of merit to compete in the economy and polity. The institutional structure embodies incentives for competition, hard work, efficiency and innovation through which GDP growth becomes sustainable.

In Pakistan unstable GDP growth and endemic poverty are located in an elite based structure of power which excludes the majority of the people from high quality education, health facilities, access to land and the high wage end of the labour market. Consequently most citizens of Pakistan are denied the opportunity of actualising their productive potential and thereby contributing to a growth process that is both sustainable and equitable. It is now widely recognised that inequality adversely affects both the sustainability of growth as well as its capacity for poverty reduction. Pakistan’s power structure and the inequality it engenders prevents most of the population from playing its full role in the economy. Those excluded are the poor, women, the illiterate, the inadequately educated, the semi-skilled and the unskilled. Therefore there is a constriction of the human potential through which entrepreneurship, investment, innovation and productivity growth can occur to sustain growth.

At the same time the poverty reduction capacity of growth is constrained by the institutional environment of the state and the economy: The poor face a structure of state power, markets and institutions, which discriminate against their access to resources, public services and government decision-making.

It can be argued that the failure to achieve sustained high growth in the past, as well as inequality, is located in the governance model itself. As I have suggested in my recent research work, within Pakistan’s governance model (originating in the Raj), power has been historically constituted by accessing state resources for arbitrary transfer as patronage to selected individuals. During the pre-independence period resource gratification within this governance model was conducted to win loyalty for the Raj.

After independence, whether in democratic or military regimes, state resources were granted within a structure of patronage to build individual domains of political power. Within this model an individual could become rich simply by entering into a patron-client relationship with the government for rent seeking. Therefore there was little incentive for enterprise, innovation, or savings, which drive growth in a modern economy. At the same time, since patronage could only be acquired by the few within this governance model, the majority were deprived of access to resources. Thus endemic poverty and the inability to sustain economic growth have become the hallmarks of Pakistan’s economy.

Let us now examine some of the structural constraints to equitable and sustainable growth emanating from Pakistan’s governance model indicated above. First, in many rural areas markets are asymmetric with respect to the rich and poor farmers respectively. My work for the UNDP, Pakistan National Human Development Report (NHDR) shows that the poor farmers pay a higher price on their inputs and get a lower price on their outputs compared to the large farmers. Consequently the poor peasants are losing as much as one third of their income due to such asymmetric markets.

The second structural factor is that the distribution of land ownership is highly unequal and there is widespread tenancy. The poor tenant suffers insecurity of tenure, loss of a large proportion of his income to the landlord and lacks access over credit. Consequently, the poor tenant has neither the incentive nor the ability to increase productivity. Thus the constriction of the productivity potential of the small farm sector constrains agriculture growth and generates inequality.

The third structural factor in endemic poverty is that in some landlord dominated areas where landlords control the local state apparatus as well as the credit market, the poor tenants are locked into a nexus of power and debt bondage to the landlord. The NHDR data shows that 51 per cent of the tenants get locked into debt dependence on the landlord, and out of these 57 per cent are obliged to work as wage labourers on the landlord’s farm without any wages while 14 per cent work for a wage below the market rate.

Thus, the structure of power and dependence systematically deprives the poor peasants of their actual and potential income. Consequently, poverty becomes endemic, inequality increases and agriculture growth is constrained. Fourth, a large proportion of the population lacks access to health, sanitation and safe drinking water. The NHDR survey data showed that due to inadequate diet and lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, 65 per cent of the poor in the sample survey were suffering from ill health. Disease emerged as a major factor that pushes people into poverty, due to high medical costs combined with income loss due to absence from work. This constitutes a major structural factor that accentuates poverty, inequality and constrains GDP growth by constraining the productivity of the poor.

The fifth structural factor in endemic poverty is that the poor live in localities, which are inadequately policed. In case of theft or violence against their person, lack of access over the judicial system, accentuates the insecurity and economic deprivation of the poor.

Our analysis suggests that achieving a sustained high GDP growth and overcoming poverty will require the new democratic government to address the structural and institutional factors that perpetuate poverty and constrain growth. The challenge before the new government is to lay the institutional foundations of a democratic polity and economy that provides all citizens, not just a few, the opportunity to actualise their creative and productive potential. It is only then that our civilisation, economy and state can blossom and grow.

The writer is Distinguished Professor, Beaconhouse National University, and Senior Fellow, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.

I CAME to Pakistan in 1980, but this is the first time that I have had the opportunity to study an election from start to finish. My! Every man and his dog, to use an English phrase, is a politician. Not only in regards to the elections, but in any and everything.

When I went to school in London, I was taught ‘team spirit’. That was how you did things; that was how everything would be accomplished.

I had my first political experience up in Chitral, running an NGO. From 1986, I was doing my own thing in the Kalash valleys, mainly trekking up and down the mountainsides with a rucksack filled with medicines on my back, with my dogs at my heels. I loved the valleys, their pristine beauty, the people and their innocent hospitable ways.

By 199l, I had realised that if the people were to have better medical facilities, hygienic drinking water, greater economic opportunity and so forth, they needed an NGO to work with them. So, the NGO was duly registered. Everyone had a project in mind. Everyone was the most suitable candidate for the post of supervisor. So whom should I negotiate with? Will it be family members (those of the family which had adopted me), old friends or anyone who was educated or the elders of the valleys? Or should I let the people of Chitral guide me? It did not take me long to realise that community spirit was an illusion except when threatened by outside forces. Each and everyone had their own agenda. And all my fanciful, almost naive ideas about innocence completely evaporated one springtime with a call from a certain donor in Islamabad.

“Maureen, please can you give me a proposal by Friday. (It was a Wednesday). We have seven lakhs left over in the kitty,” he said. I rapidly sorted through my proposals and sped off to Islamabad. I had cut down a particular rural proposal from Rs10 lakhs to seven lakhs, hoping I should indeed be able to accomplish the project adequately.

I had already alerted my driver to contact the friend in the valley, who had requested the project. Within hours of being in the valley, an opposing group surrounded me. They wanted a completely different project, which to their mind was of more importance. It was also considerably cheaper. But I was not to be swayed.

A few days later, I received another call from the same donor. “Maureen, I am sorry, but we have only three lakhs, not seven.”

It was not easy to return to the valley and explain to everyone that I only have enough money to implement the smaller of the two projects. Eventually, all parties were happy as everyone benefited, but it had shown me how factionalised they actually were.

As people slowly benefited from education, and became more aware of the outside world, the more factionalised they became. Then factionalism took another turn, when other NGOs started up. One wished to preserve the old jestakhans, while another wanted to demolish them and build new ones. For this NGO, using cement was not a problem.

By now I had also realised that money was often a deciding factor. It was the real lure. Whether a person was from an outlying area, born within the valleys, a Kalash, Muslim, Guja, did not matter. The magic lay in what would fall into their hands. For those who had no money, this was easy to relate to. A father has to feed his family. The children should have the opportunity to go to school — this is just basic survival anywhere in the world.

The elements that are most difficult to deal with are the ones who run the show; be they contractors, merchants or local politicos…or even one’s best friends. I have now adopted the policy to believe that everyone, from my closest ally to a perfect stranger, has his own agenda. One constantly has to play a diplomatic game, always be ahead of the other and foresee what he wants and what he is going to do. This, of course, is not just a phenomenon of the rural areas.

I am constantly reminded of this in our battle in Peshawar, which is to save the great heritage that this province has been blessed with. Everyone agrees on this or that, but then everyone goes in another direction. Fortunately, the government is listening to all of us, so, perhaps, this will unite us in the pursuit of our common dream.

On the wider issue of the general elections, a view could best be summed up in the word ‘unite’. United, this country will stand. It is diverse, which is one of its many beauties, and it is also resilient. Only in unity can it fight any enemy; both within and from without.