THERE are many areas of institutional reform that need to be addressed before the transition to civilian rule can become credible. I will mention only four of these. One, the need to create confidence in the parliamentary system of government.

It can’t be said that a good start has been made in this respect when the prime minister chosen by the national legislature seems more answerable to the heads of political parties who are not the Assembly’s members. He can’t exercise executive authority with this kind of constraint placed on him. It will be recalled that this is the way Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was hemmed in, in 1988, when she was made the member of the ‘troika’.

This was also one of the criticisms against President Musharraf’s style of governance. It was said that he could only work with a prime minister who would accept his authority rather than that of parliament. Shaukat Aziz was such a prime minister, one reason why he left such a poor legacy in the field of governance as well as in economic management. He was answerable to one man rather than to a collective body such as the National Assembly. The system has to evolve in a way that the prime minister draws full executive authority from parliament and not from some ad hoc arrangement.

The second institutional imperative is to turn political parties into genuine democratic organisations rather than have them function as fiefdoms under the control of powerful political families. The way power was transferred from the assassinated Benazir Bhutto to her 19-year-old son — but in reality to her husband — does not make the PPP a democratic

organisation.

The PPP’s claim that its main interest is to bring democracy to the country rings a bit hollow when it totally disregards democratic principles to manage its own affairs. The PML-Q, the second largest party, is similarly dominated by one family as is the Awami National Party, the ANP of the NWFP.

What is required is a code of conduct for political parties overseen by a fully autonomous Election Commission that requires parties to hold elections to choose their leaders, maintain open financial accounts, regularly update their platforms, etc.

The modernisation of the political system needs to proceed along all the fronts that Nobel Prize-winning economist Douglass North has identified as institutional reform. There has to be respect for rules and laws, both formal and informal. And there have to be formal organisations in place that can oversee the political process on behalf of the entire citizenry. This will have to be done by a fully autonomous Election Commission whose head is appointed not by the executive alone but with the involvement of the citizenry.

The executive can draw up a list of candidates which should be vetted by civil society — say, a 10-member commission appointed by civil society. The commission’s recommendations should then be submitted to a joint sitting of the two chambers of parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate.

The third area for reform — in the current context perhaps the most important — is the design, implementation and ownership of national security policy. This is best done by an arrangement that reports to the prime minister but has inputs from the senior military staff.

A National Security Council staffed by civilian and military personnel, some picked up from the private sector and some serving on secondment from various government departments and agencies, could be set up that does analysis and policy advice that is submitted to a cabinet committee that also has the chief of general staff represented on it.

The fourth area that needs attention is the decentralisation of political and economic powers from the federal to the provincial governments and from the provinces to the institutions of local government. Pakistan is too large a country to be governed from Islamabad.

The grant of provincial autonomy that was promised under the Constitution of 1973 was never implemented. The military believes in centralised command and authority. When it was in charge, there was an unmistaken trend towards the concentration of power in the hands of the government operating out of Islamabad.

However, civilian leaders also did not wish to part with power and kept the provinces weak. Decentralising and devolution of greater authority to sub-national governments would help to create greater accountability to the citizenry. The first place to start might be the abolition of the Concurrent List that has given the federal authorities the excuse and opportunity to interfere in provincial affairs and deny the transfer of power to the provinces which was promised to them as a part of the grand bargain that resulted in the agreement over the Constitution of 1973.

The prime minister, in his first address to the National Assembly, promised that his government would turn the Concurrent List into a provincial one within one year.

The Musharraf government took a step in that direction by establishing the system of local government to which considerable power was devolved at least in theory. This system has indirectly elected nazims in charge of the areas from which they are chosen. They have replaced the deputy commissioners in that respect. But the system needs to evolve further. The nazims should be directly elected and the local police should be responsible to them.

From what has transpired in the last few weeks, it can’t be said that the transition to civilian authority has begun in a manner that would restore the confidence of the citizenry. This has happened before in the country’s history when the disaffection with the way the civilians governed created political space for the military which it was very happy to occupy. If the civilians fail again, the military will not be prepared to step in as quickly as it has done in the past. Civil society would resist such a move.

However, for the transition to be complete and become secure there is a great deal that needs to be done. One can only hope that the problems that are being faced as the transition proceeds are teething ones and not the first indication of system failure.

THE idea of forgiving and forgetting that the two unelected party leaders — Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif — have mutually agreed on was obviously inspired by the ‘truth and reconciliation’ approach adopted in South Africa following the end of the Apartheid regime.

The controlling Afrikaners had been divested of their unilateral and inhuman powers. But when the new government sought to bring justice to the people who had been denied all their rights for decades, had lost activists and loved ones to torture and suffered unimaginable ignominies and cruelty, they were blocked by a seemingly impregnable wall.

Their past tormentors had been relieved of their powers, but except for being identified by individuals, there was no independent means of verification.

This was because the whites responsible for ordering the repression and violation of human rights refused to bear witness against their own kind, especially since there was no one among them whose own hands were not bloodstained. None could give evidence without incriminating himself.

Furthermore, the number of crimes committed was numerically so overwhelming, that the country’s judicial system lacked the capacity to bring justice to all. It was then that Archbishop Desmond Tutu came up with the idea of getting the culprits to confess their guilt and at least providing the victims the solace of having the truth acknowledged by promising the wrongdoers escape from punishment in the ‘eye for an eye’ manner.

It worked. The perpetrators not only admitted their crimes to a horrified world, they described in blood-curdling detail the nature of the tortures carried out on their hapless and largely innocent victims.

It made even the hardest people in the courtrooms weep. Justice was left to the afterlife, but the people of South Africa won an unprecedented moral victory heralded by the entire world.

Hard as it was to swallow the idea of unpunished inhumanity, the issue was addressed in an open forum for the entire world to hear and see, and people were finally, if slowly, able to get on with their lives and rebuilding South Africa.

The recent blanket ‘reconciliation’ being claimed between two parties, however, bears none of the underlying principles of the South African solution. The natures of the crimes and injustices have not been enumerated nor have the per-petrators been identified by name.

The victims have not been given the voice or opportunity to confront their tormentors and pour out their side of the story in a public forum for all citizens to hear and empathise with — a necessary part of the process of mourning to be able to put the past and all bitterness behind them.

Nor have the perpetrators, whether those who ordered the crimes and tortures or those who implemented them, made a clean breast of their actions publicly. There is no mandate for a couple of unelected people to unilaterally determine what is forgivable and forgettable when there is much that is not — unless conceded by those who suffered. But no such concession has been made here.

This overriding decision of convenience conceals all and reveals nothing, without making any acknowledgment whatsoever to all the injured parties, whether deceased or survivors or family members. It gives an unwarranted opportunity to permanently close the doors on crimes that were not merely politically motivated but taken advantage of, for personal or financial benefit as well. That would be rank injustice. Such arbitrary deals may have been made by kings and autocratic rulers of the past in which people had no choice, but these are supposed to be democratic times.

Finally, such an approach would have been more acceptable if it had been debated openly and widely. All victims were not necessarily political party members; they may just have been relatives or friends or inadvertently ‘in the way’. It is not for others to forgive and forget on their behalf. If everything is forgiven in one city and one province, it would create a precedent for similar initiative being taken in other provinces that may not be warranted.

Given that the supposed ‘war on terror’ created scope worldwide for silencing or eliminating anyone politically inconvenient, this would not just be a wrong start; it would enable even more wrongs to be committed.

Already, great misgivings have arisen amongst ordinary citizens and not just party workers that matters are going back to square one, of the status

quo being subtly or not-so-subtly retained.

For a quarter of a century or thereabouts, Karachi and some areas beyond have been ruled by fear and intimidation. And while fresh hope of relief arose with the coming of a new, elected government, enough fear had prevailed to the extent of many not revealing to anyone but their closest friends who they actually did or did not vote for this time round.

Disappointments having occurred over and over again over the past six decades, mostly the last three, their fears were justified when it began to appear that firm promises made around election time were now being watered down, enough to be ineffectual.

Reconciliation is desirable, but not at the cost of justice or creating even more irreconcilable differences in the process — something that is bound to occur when vast numbers find that for them at least, insult has been added to injury.

The worst of history can be mitigated if steps satisfying the public at large are taken to rectify them, as in the case if South Africa.

But segments of history cannot be rubbed out as if they never happened — although this has happened with many school textbooks in which huge blanks are left out rather than addressing events that officialdom is not proud of.

National reconciliation should not be confused with whitewashing.