BORN amidst bloodshed and raised in turmoil, it appears that this country’s has been marked out for unceasing pain and suffering. In fact, the year just ended has had more than its usual share of disappointments — though also the occasional triumph.

Last year had dawned with the people still mourning Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination; a wound so sudden and so painful that it left them in a state of deep shock and trauma. It appeared as if the gods were conspiring once again to deny the people their hoped for redemption. But it speaks volumes for the people’s inner strength and unyielding resilience that even this tragedy could not extinguish their yearning for a genuinely democratic government.

The Feb 18 elections represented a powerful repudiation of authoritarianism and rejection of extremism and provided compelling evidence of the people’s inherent maturity and wisdom. Incidentally, these were the very people whose understanding and intelligence had been disparaged and ridiculed by Gen Musharraf who had claimed in Europe that they were not fit for democracy. If ever a people had voted with courage and conviction this was it. Pakistanis at home felt a sense of triumph, while those abroad exulted in understandable pride.

These high expectations were reinforced by the manner in which the country’s two most important mainstream political parties were able to resolve their differences and renew their commitment to the Charter of Democracy. Sadly, all this was too good to be true and to the deep regret of the people, the coalition broke up and the danger of a fierce tussle between Lahore and Islamabad, reminiscent of an earlier era, began to haunt the people. The manner in which the PPP chose to ignore its solemn commitments, including the restoration of the ousted judges and the repeal of the much-hated 17th Amendment, created the spectre of a debilitating confrontation.

Thus, the spring of hope gave way to the summer of disappointment. The stifling heat combined with fears of an economic meltdown, frayed nerves and deepened worries, sending the rupee plunging and the stock market crashing. As if this were not enough to sap the energies and shake the faith of the people, the state of uncertainty worsened with suicide and drone attacks.

It is true that the PPP is firmly entrenched in power — its co-chairman occupying the presidency, with all the authority wielded by his military predecessor, coupled by the legitimacy derived from the electoral process and aided by a submissive prime minister. This unnatural concentration of power in a single person has been explained as necessitated by the requirement of a strong leadership to preserve the democratic dispensation and to ensure good governance.

Instead, an increasing tendency to flout the rules and disregard established norms, are creating doubts regarding the ruling party’s commitment to strengthening the institutions of democracy and ensuring the rule of law. More importantly, whispers in the wind speak of a change, while even the party faithful complain of an absence of governance, a lack of direction and a sense of drift, all leading to a state of pervasive fear.

As if we this were not enough, the Mumbai terror attacks have pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of a major conflict. The audacious attacks exposed major weaknesses in India’s intelligence and security agencies. And, coming at a time when the country was preparing to go to polls, the Congress could not but adopt a belligerent attitude to cover-up its mistakes and derive electoral advantage from the tragedy. New Delhi may also have been motivated by a desire to test its newfound strategic ties with the US to see how far it could push the Bush administration to come down heavily on Pakistan.

After somewhat inconsistent and incoherent reactions, Islamabad was able to take important corrective steps. There is welcome vigour and resolve in its pronouncements, helped by the opposition’s call for strong and effective measures against terrorism.

India is certainly a big power now; it enjoys the support of major world capitals as well. It may not be a friend of Pakistan, but even those BJP leaders who talk of “strategic strikes” know well that while such an action would hurt Pakistan, it would not leave India unscathed either. India’s strategy may be a road paved with good intentions but will surely lead to the destruction of both. The two sides have tried war as well as bilateral negotiations to settle their differences. Let them now consider the regional approach that is finding increasing international favour with US president-elect Barack Obama among its most ardent advocates.

In any case, India does not constitute as great a threat to Pakistan’s political or economic well-being as the threat that emanates from within. Whatever the historic rationale or justification for policies that may have contributed to extremism, there can be no denying that it has now become a monster that threatens to destroy all that Pakistan stands for. And abroad it is pushing us into a frightening isolation that would leave us weak and vulnerable to both pressure and intimidation.

In a situation of domestic strife and external pressures, the need of the hour is to strengthen democratic institutions and honour the rule of law. But none of this can be achieved unless we go back to the only document that enjoys acceptance and legitimacy in the country, namely the 1973 Constitution and ensure compliance with the provisions of the Charter of Democracy. That would be a far more enduring and befitting tribute to the memory of Benazir Bhutto than any number of monuments named after her. That would also be the only way to pull the country out of the winter of discontent into which it is sliding inexorably.

ONE of the priority objectives in the government’s New Year resolves, if anybody is thinking of that, must be to secure a substantial improvement in parliament’s output. This is necessary, among other things, to prevent the people from once again becoming disillusioned with democracy.

As parliamentary institutions have mostly been used, especially since 1958, to legitimise the doings of autocrats, they can command the respect due to them only through exemplary performance. The strengthening of the state’s democratic foundations will depend on the extent to which the present parliament can engage with the people.

The direction and quality of parliament’s legislative work, the substance and tenor of its debates, the efficiency and sincerity with which the government responds to questions and furnishes information will determine public faith in democratic institutions. It will also provide a significant guarantee against disruption of the constitutional order.

Obviously it is necessary to ensure that in the coming months parliament performs better than it has done so far. More so in view of the fact that it has already lost some of the goodwill it started out with. The fact that the National Assembly elected in February 2008 was dominated by the two parties that had suffered heavily under authoritarian rule had aroused hopes of an early demolition of the extra-democratic edifices created by praetorian rulers over the past decades. Lack of progress in that direction is causing frustration.

The new National Assembly did not meet till almost a month after the election, contrary to the standard practice of installing newly elected representatives in power immediately after the polls. Even after making allowances for the filling of seats reserved for women and non-Muslim citizens, the delay in the transfer of power could only be attributed to the previous regime’s lack of respect for democratic proprieties. The government would do well to adopt measures to prevent such delays in future.

The National Assembly did little during the first two and a half months of the parliamentary year (March, April, May) apart from electing its speaker/deputy speaker and a prime minister. Much time was lost in scrambling a coalition cabinet and then in discovering an easy way to unscramble it. While the people waited for relief from their mounting miseries, the main coalition partners wasted week after week debating how to undo, or not to undo, the effects of Gen Musharraf’s final coup, especially his ultimate crime of sacking the apex court.

It was not until the eve of the budget session that the much talked about constitutional package was sprung upon the people. It was meant to assure the coalition partners that the task of restoring the judges had not been forgotten. It didn’t work and for some unexplained reason the government chose to put the draft of the omnibus bill on the shelf for discarded papers.

This was surprising because the draft contained a number of proposals besides the contentious issue of the judges’ restoration — about 60 of the 80 proposed amendments to the constitution were not related to the judiciary. Why did the government choose to sleep over them? Was the exercise to draft the package meant only to placate the PML-N? A serious matter if that was the case.Leaving constitutional reform aside, because that is a difficult undertaking even at the best of times, the government did not pay sufficient attention to ordinary legislation either. The prime minister was quite generous with promises in his acceptance speech. Most of them remain words. True, a new Industrial Relations Act has been adopted, and bills to amend the Pemra, Press and Books, and Freedom of Information Ordinances have been drafted. Unfortunately, the most important stakeholders are not satisfied with them. The problem could have been avoided by consulting them beforehand. At the beginning of 2009, a good eight and a half months after the general election, all that we have is two enactments worth mentioning — the Finance Act and the Industrial Relations Act, and about two scores of bills yet to be taken up.

This is not to deny some of the positive achievements during the past year — the choice of a woman as speaker of the National Assembly (who has already served as acting president more than once without affecting anybody’s mental health), the unanimous election of the prime minister, and the ouster of Gen Musharraf from the presidency. The National Assembly is said to have done better than the preceding assembly although it is grossly unfair to compare the present one to Gen Musharraf’s puppet show. A better measure is offered by the much-maligned constituent assembly.

As usual the private members have stuck to their task. They seem to have done better than the ministerial benches in terms of both quantity and quality. The evolution of mechanisms to ensure due respect and support for private members’ legislative proposals should be high on parliament’s agenda.

Nor should one be unmindful of the government’s difficulties. For a better part of the year parliamentary affairs had been condemned to a corner in the crowded law, justice and human rights ministry and the new minister has had little time to grasp his primary responsibilities. A number of bills are stuck because the standing committees are not yet done with them or some committees are still without heads. But the government will not be able to go far with such excuses because it has the means to overcome them.

Besides, the people expect some movement on developing a democratic political culture that men in authority are fond of recalling. Nobody was happy with the thin attendance during the joint session of parliament when the latter was supposed to be discussing matters of (the state’s) life and death. The absence of ministers from parliament’s sessions, especially when they are expected to answer questions, annoys the people a great deal. The impression that many members drag themselves to the Houses of parliament only in the hope of finding some ministers to sign petitions lying in their large pockets is probably incorrect but it needs to be removed nonetheless.

Above all, there should be no doubt in the minds of government representatives and parliamentarians that Pakistan will not be able to resume its journey towards its democratic destiny unless two milestones are reached. First, the basic law must be purged of the pollutants forced into it by autocrats over the past 30 years and more. And, secondly, the sooner the state starts respecting its obligations as a federation the better it will be.

Some will argue that the country’s multidimensional crisis does not permit the luxury of the state’s reconstruction and parliamentary dynamism. The answer to them is that only a democratically reconditioned state and an effective parliament will enable Pakistan to navigate the present crises.

MARK Felt, who has died at the age of 95, was appalled by the sleazy echoes of the pseudonym jokingly wished on him by Howard Simons, the managing editor of the Washington Post. But long after memories of Linda Lovelace’s pornographic film have vanished, Felt will live on in American political history as “Deep Throat”, the mysterious insider whose leaks to the journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought ruin to the Nixon presidency.

There was a neatly ironic touch about Felt’s decision in 2005 to reveal his central role in exposing Richard Nixon’s links to the 1972 burglary of the Democrat offices in the Watergate building in Washington. “Follow the money,” he had enjoined the two Washington Post reporters when they briefly stumbled in their investigation into the White House conspiracy. And it was Felt’s daughter’s dire need for funds, allied to her father’s failing health and memory, that fuelled the family’s decision to unmask him after more than 30 years of speculation.

The revelation unleashed a torrent of further information, including Woodward’s account of how he established Felt as a contact in 1970. They met by chance at the White House, where Woodward, then a young naval officer, was sent to deliver admiralty documents.

Felt, a senior FBI agent, was also in the waiting room and they chatted. Felt gave Woodward his office phone number, which he later used as a new reporter to check odd tips that came his way. It was evident, even at this stage, that Felt had little love for the Nixon administration and was willing to break the law to damage it. In 1971 he told Woodward that the Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, had received a bribe of $2,500, a claim that turned out to be accurate when Agnew was forced to resign two years later.

Felt’s attitudes were deeply ambivalent. He seemed to have accepted the FBI’s clandestine illegalities and played an active role in them. (They were exposed in 1971 after activists stole thousands of incriminating documents from an FBI field office in Pennsylvania.) But he also harboured a visceral loathing of the Nixon administration for the unconstitutional threat he thought it posed to American society at large, and to the independence of the FBI in particular. Felt joined the bureau in 1942 at the relatively late age of 29.

Felt’s age may have been a factor in his decision to opt for service with the FBI. He was soon immersed in counter-espionage against German agents, an activity he continued into the late 1940s with Russian agents as his new target. He was an admirer of the FBI’s legendary boss J Edgar Hoover. The admiration seemed to be mutual and Felt was assigned to increasingly important postings. In 1971, Hoover created a new post for Felt that in effect made him the FBI’s third-ranking officer.

The train of events that followed could have been scripted for a bad melodrama. On May 2, 1972, Hoover died of a heart attack. Felt saw himself as the obvious successor and was stunned when Nixon appointed the assistant attorney-general Patrick Gray (widely seen as a Nixon flunky).

After Deep Throat’s identity had emerged, Paul Daly, a former FBI agent, broke cover to tell a newspaper in New York state that Felt had collaborated with Kunkel and two other senior agents to pass information to the Washington Post. According to Daly, Felt would meet his colleagues at the end of each day to review new material (there were eventually thousands of pages) and decide what could be passed on without giving clues to the source. Woodward and Bernstein later described the elaborate precautions that Felt had required Woodward to take before arriving at the underground garage where their discussions took place — routines apparently based on Felt’s counter-espionage years.

Felt remained an enigma to the end. On the face of it, he conformed to the classic stereotype of the ideal FBI man, and shared many of Hoover’s prejudices. His colleagues saw him as tough but fair, and he had a reputation of being all things to all men. With Hoover gone, Felt and his colleagues apparently decided that the time for action had arrived.

— The Guardian, London