Debilitating the system
IN his address to the nation on July l1 General Musharraf declared, among other things, that he was not “power hungry,” and may have startled some of his listeners with the additional assertion that he was “not a liar.”
Government and politics are the business of pursuing and exercising power. Governors — or, if you will, rulers — must have power commensurate with the responsibilities that go with the office they hold. Lust or hunger for power surface when an official wants to control operations and functionaries beyond his own lawfully appointed jurisdiction. “Power hungry” is a term of disapprobation, and it may be just as well to set it aside. The evidence of whether or not General Musharraf desires excessive power is to be found not in the pronouncements he issues but in the arrangements for distributing governmental authority that he sponsors.
From time to time all governments tell lies and, in retrospect, justify it as raison d’etre. With rare exceptions, politicians will also tell lies, more often during election campaigns. It is taken in stride so long as the lie does not concern a matter of grave national interest or someone’s personal honour. The problem with the general’s observations in this context is that some of them, on the same subject, are mutually unsupportive and sometime even contradictory.
Take, for instance, his recent statements on the placement of governmental powers. He says that, being any army officer, he believes in the “unity of command,” and does not subscribe to the idea of “sharing” power. It is not wrong to speak of power in the abstract as if it were a unified whole.
In order to be understood clearly in work-related situations, it may be more useful to refer to “slices” of authority and power assigned to specific agents for performing specific functions. Authority, power, responsibility, and functions are all divided and sub-divided, making the government a huge web of shared and inter-connected segments.
If General Musharraf is saying that this is not the way governments should be organized and run, he should place the matter outside the military context and then give it further thought.
It may well be that the general wants to do no more than avoid duplication in the assignment of power and responsibility in relation to a given function for the obvious reason that it is not only wasteful but also liable to cause conflict between the agents involved. This is eminently sensible, but may we then submit that if this is what he means, then this is what he should say. Placing the point in its intended context, the spheres of authority and power belonging to the president and the prime minister should be clearly demarcated.
The issues of the general’s intent and the clarity of his thought and speech get mixed up to his listener’s greater disadvantage when we turn to his statements regarding the NSC and related subjects. Following the October elections, he says, all executive authority and power will vest in the prime minister, but he should not be allowed to become “all powerful.”
The president should not interfere with the prime minister’s work, but the president should not be reduced to the status of a “rubber stamp.”
The general intends to acquire the authority to dismiss the prime minister (by an appropriate rewriting of Article 58 (2B) but, having acquired it, he will “shed” it and transfer it to the NSC. It follows that having thus received the said power, the NSC will become competent to order these dismissals. It will oversee the functioning of government and stop wrongdoing on the part of the prime minister and his cabinet. It will also be the forum that will enforce checks and balances among the power brokers.
Having said all this, the general informs us also that the NSC will have no executive authority, that it will not be “intrusive” and interfering, that it will make no binding decisions, and that it will have only an advisory role and status.
If so, how will it prevent wrongdoing in government, guide it to the right course in policy-making, and if it is only an advisory body, will its advice be addressed to the president or to the prime minister? If it is to implement checks and balances, which ones of its members will check the army chief, when he and the president are the same person? And how will it exercise the authority to dismiss prime ministers and assemblies which the president had transferred to it?
When you put all of the general’s statements on the subject together, they make a package that is internally incoherent. Most probably he has no intention of “shedding” any of his presidential powers following the October elections.
He intends only to consult the NSC (whom he will dominate) on certain issues to obtain its endorsement of the decisions he is inclined to make. In any case, he should make up his mind as to which way he wants to go, and then find a competent draftsman to put it in decent language. In passing one may suggest to the general also that economy of words and brevity of expression serve a statesman (particularly one who also wants to be the nation’s chief diplomat) much better than overflowing zeal and expansiveness.
Much more unsettling than the above are certain facts relating to the elections scheduled for October10. First, the proposed constitutional amendments bearing upon them have not been finalized. Second, some of the rules framed by the election commission will be almost impossible to implement because of the lateness of their promulgation.
The general’s recent address to the nation revealed that the following election-related issues were still open to debate and reconsideration: voting age, electorate (joint or separate), number of seats in the assemblies, mode of filling seats reserved for women and technocrats, and qualifications for eligibility to contest. It follows that much of the work already done by the election commission may have to be cast away and redone.
For instance, electoral rolls and designation of constituencies will have to be reformulated, and once again made open to public review and consequent reconsideration, but where is the time for undertaking this huge task?
The requirement that candidates for election to the assemblies must be college graduates will knock off a great many of our established politicians. One reaction may be that, well, that is “good riddance,” for the excluded ones are “feudals” and, when in office, they had shown themselves to be incompetent and corrupt. That college graduates will carry none of these disabilities is an extravagant expectation. The Supreme Court says the requirement is not unlawful. But it is nevertheless foolish, for it will also exclude many good and competent politicians (current and prospective) who have the people’s trust in their respective areas.
Some of the items in the proposed code of conduct and relevant regulations may work to improve our style of waging politics — for instance, forbidding of large and unwieldy rallies that block traffic, excessive use of noise-making devices, spreading of sectarian disaffection, and limitation of campaign spending. The ban on hoisting of party flags on private homes may possibly serve to lower the heat of political rivalries within neighbourhoods. The prohibition of criticism of foreign governments and their policies may have been intended to keep Mr. Bush and his onslaught against Islamic militants out of our election campaign, but it will likely be branded as undemocratic.
A recent ordinance (June 27) requires each political party, as a precondition for its participation in the forthcoming election, to submit to the election commission satisfactory evidence of its status in the following respects: its constitution, objectives, and programme; description of its organizational structure, including bodies and office-bearers at various levels; modes of electing and dismissing officers; criteria for selecting party candidates for elections; financial records, showing income and disbursements, authenticated by recognized auditors. Moreover, the party must provide evidence that it has held its own internal elections to its various offices at all levels (presumably including the ward, constituency, district, provincial, and national levels).
It is not inappropriate for the state to regulate the organization and working of political parties.
The requirements now being issued in Pakistan are not unreasonable. But if honesty is also an expectation, the lateness of their arrival makes it virtually impossible to meet them. It is well known that with a few exceptions, our political parties, including the ones called “mainstream,” do not maintain membership rolls, hold regular internal elections, follow their own rules of business (if they have any), and do not keep accounts of their financial transactions. There is no law which says that a party’s constitution or manifesto has to occupy a given number of pages, or that its membership must include a certain minimum number of persons. It is conceivable that parties can quickly fabricate short (one-page) documents, covering the required subjects, and hold bogus internal elections.
But the exercise will surely be seen as a fraud. If it passes the election commission, the government itself will have become not only its instigator but a partner in its execution.
If the government insists on an honest fulfilment of the these requirements, most of the political parties currently in the field will stand disqualified and barred from participating in the election, We may then end up with a pernicious political product, namely, a “partyless” election. And given the continuing uncertainty about the number and shape of constituencies, mode of election for reserved seats, and other matters referred to earlier, how will even unaligned individuals decide whether or not to contest? If this state of uncertainty continues, and if the regulations already announced hold, the elections may bring us nothing better than a very spoiled crop to harvest.
Will an NSC prevent coups?
IS IT a death-watch of democracy or its resurgence in a true form is a question that hangs over the country. President Musharraf has no doubt that the October election preceded by his numerous constitutional amendments would be the harbinger of real democracy that has eluded the people so far.
His opponents, on the other hand, contend that it would foist constitutionally authoritarian rule on the country which it had endured for half of its existence through military coups and presidential proclamations. While the two sides are poised for a contest in the courts or on the streets, the masses for whom all this is meant remain uninformed and indifferent. They view it only as a tug of war in which Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are striving to come in and General Musharraf is manoeuvring to keep them out.
The NRB’s two “packages” of amendments laid over with Ziaul Haq’s Eighth Amendment and Nawaz Sharif’s 13th and 14th defy the understanding even of the constitutional specialists, leave aside the common man who is expected to react to them. The second package is more a statement of intentions than specific amendments. The vast scope and complexity of the amendments preclude any popular reaction and that too in less than a month. The debate thus will remain confined to party caucuses and legal chambers — which is not at all sufficient considering the fundamental nature of the changes proposed.
President Musharraf’s stated objective in making all these changes on which a neophyte, albeit determined, NRB, helped by foreign consultants, has worked for two years is to keep the future prime minister in check and, thus, to prevent military take-overs or presidential dismissals. On the other hand, the politicians as a class, or most among them, feel that the changes proposed would subvert the parliamentary system and institutionalize military rule. The mutual recriminations and suspicions of personal motives apart, both sides are equally unrelenting in their stands.
The vast majority of the people being unconcerned or unaware of the constitutional niceties, the two standpoints can be judged only in the light of the views of the constitutional experts and intelligentsia. Not that they all agree or are impartial but the implications or hazards of each stand become a bit clearer.
An favourite expression of the president — and the NRB — to describe what he wants to achieve is “checks and balances” in the system of governance. It has been pointed out by more than one writer in these columns that checks and balances are a feature of the presidential form of government in which the legislative and executive branches are independent of each other. In the parliamentary system, the cabinet is drawn from the parliament and is answerable to it. The check on the prime minister thus comes from the parliament which, in turn, can be dissolved by the head of state on the advice of the prime minister.
The part of the constitutional package most abhorred by the politicians is the one which seeks to empower the president to dissolve the National Assembly or dismiss the prime minister and his cabinet in his discretion in consultation with the proposed new constitutional entity called the National Security Council.
In a recent discussion aiming at conciliation rather than confrontation with the political forces, Hafeez Pirzada, a constitutional lawyer, suggested to the president that in exercising this power he should consult a committee of the parliament (representing a cross-section of the Senate and the NA) rather than the NSC. In this way he would strengthen the parliament in dealing with a prime minister who generally abuses his executive authority and even assumes the legislative power by making laws through ordinances. Such indeed was the position in the previous parliamentary governments, especially the second term of Nawaz Sharif when even constitutional bills of great import were hurriedly approved by a submissive parliament.
The prime ministers of the past tended to be autocratic and irresponsible because the committees of the parliament did not assert themselves. Duly strengthened by law and convention, they could act as the president’s watchdog, keeping an eye on the prime minister. The president however should quit office if his action is reversed by the Supreme Court.
Another constitutional lawyer, S.M. Zafar, cautioned against the scramble which must follow the dismissal of a prime minister who commands a majority in the house. To take his place, the aspirants will try to muster strength through bribe or intimidation. Therefore, if the president must act it should be to dissolve the assembly and not to dismiss its majority leader.
The majority in the discussion forum opposed a constitutional status for the NSC with the four service chiefs as its members. Such a body, apart from further weakening an already weak parliament, would also threaten the integrity of the military high command and professionalism of the armed forces since the prime minister in office or in waiting would constantly seek to woo them and vice versa. The Lahore High Court’s former chief justice, Dr Javed Iqbal, doubted if even the existence of the NSC could stop an army chief of staff from topping a government if he had so made up his mind. The president may have an NSC but only to advise him on national defence and economic policy without getting involved in the politics of the assemblies and prime ministers.
A civil servant who has, perhaps, served longer than any other, now retired and an author, Roedad Khan, suggested that the army, instead of becoming a part of the political structure, should growl at an errant government from the barracks and intervene only to avert disasters. The old “Bolshy” and new peacenik, Prof Khwaja Masood, feared that no constitutional arrangement, old or new, would benefit the people unless extremism is curbed and peace is made with India. Both are important but, perhaps, could not be made a part of the Constitution.
No one disagreed with S.M. Zafar’s warning in the closing stages of the discussion that notwithstanding the amendments made or omitted, a stable polity will emerge out of the elections only if the army and civil administration remain neutral in both electioneering and polling. Learning from the referendum experience that would call for significant changes in the policy and personnel supervising the whole process. That message was well registered.
The dominant view that emerged out of the discussion was that the elections should be held with a few good and undisputed amendments like the joint electorates and lowered voting age and somewhat enhanced authority for the president. The rest should be left to the new parliament. The disqualification law should target the evils, not individuals.
The constitutional packages contain little for the big issue of provincial autonomy nor a hope for it emerged in the president’s forum. Some subjects may be transferred from the centre to the provinces but no taxes. Autonomy or devolution without money has a hollow ring. The centre needs all the money that it can collect to pay back the debts and for defence.
The forum’s best feature was the patience and equanimity with which the president listened for five hours to the criticism, even denouncement, of his plan, and the conviction with which he defended it or ungrudgingly admitted its flaws. The discussion wouldn’t rest at that, he assured. Arising out of the experience is this advice to the politicians: talk to the president, he may concede some ground, they need out.
Will an NSC prevent coups?
IS IT a death-watch of democracy or its resurgence in a true form is a question that hangs over the country. President Musharraf has no doubt that the October election preceded by his numerous constitutional amendments would be the harbinger of real democracy that has eluded the people so far.
His opponents, on the other hand, contend that it would foist constitutionally authoritarian rule on the country which it had endured for half of its existence through military coups and presidential proclamations. While the two sides are poised for a contest in the courts or on the streets, the masses for whom all this is meant remain uninformed and indifferent. They view it only as a tug of war in which Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are striving to come in and General Musharraf is manoeuvring to keep them out.
The NRB’s two “packages” of amendments laid over with Ziaul Haq’s Eighth Amendment and Nawaz Sharif’s 13th and 14th defy the understanding even of the constitutional specialists, leave aside the common man who is expected to react to them. The second package is more a statement of intentions than specific amendments. The vast scope and complexity of the amendments preclude any popular reaction and that too in less than a month. The debate thus will remain confined to party caucuses and legal chambers — which is not at all sufficient considering the fundamental nature of the changes proposed.
President Musharraf’s stated objective in making all these changes on which a neophyte, albeit determined, NRB, helped by foreign consultants, has worked for two years is to keep the future prime minister in check and, thus, to prevent military take-overs or presidential dismissals. On the other hand, the politicians as a class, or most among them, feel that the changes proposed would subvert the parliamentary system and institutionalize military rule. The mutual recriminations and suspicions of personal motives apart, both sides are equally unrelenting in their stands.
The vast majority of the people being unconcerned or unaware of the constitutional niceties, the two standpoints can be judged only in the light of the views of the constitutional experts and intelligentsia. Not that they all agree or are impartial but the implications or hazards of each stand become a bit clearer.
An favourite expression of the president — and the NRB — to describe what he wants to achieve is “checks and balances” in the system of governance. It has been pointed out by more than one writer in these columns that checks and balances are a feature of the presidential form of government in which the legislative and executive branches are independent of each other. In the parliamentary system, the cabinet is drawn from the parliament and is answerable to it. The check on the prime minister thus comes from the parliament which, in turn, can be dissolved by the head of state on the advice of the prime minister.
The part of the constitutional package most abhorred by the politicians is the one which seeks to empower the president to dissolve the National Assembly or dismiss the prime minister and his cabinet in his discretion in consultation with the proposed new constitutional entity called the National Security Council.
In a recent discussion aiming at conciliation rather than confrontation with the political forces, Hafeez Pirzada, a constitutional lawyer, suggested to the president that in exercising this power he should consult a committee of the parliament (representing a cross-section of the Senate and the NA) rather than the NSC. In this way he would strengthen the parliament in dealing with a prime minister who generally abuses his executive authority and even assumes the legislative power by making laws through ordinances. Such indeed was the position in the previous parliamentary governments, especially the second term of Nawaz Sharif when even constitutional bills of great import were hurriedly approved by a submissive parliament.
The prime ministers of the past tended to be autocratic and irresponsible because the committees of the parliament did not assert themselves. Duly strengthened by law and convention, they could act as the president’s watchdog, keeping an eye on the prime minister. The president however should quit office if his action is reversed by the Supreme Court.
Another constitutional lawyer, S.M. Zafar, cautioned against the scramble which must follow the dismissal of a prime minister who commands a majority in the house. To take his place, the aspirants will try to muster strength through bribe or intimidation. Therefore, if the president must act it should be to dissolve the assembly and not to dismiss its majority leader.
The majority in the discussion forum opposed a constitutional status for the NSC with the four service chiefs as its members. Such a body, apart from further weakening an already weak parliament, would also threaten the integrity of the military high command and professionalism of the armed forces since the prime minister in office or in waiting would constantly seek to woo them and vice versa. The Lahore High Court’s former chief justice, Dr Javed Iqbal, doubted if even the existence of the NSC could stop an army chief of staff from topping a government if he had so made up his mind. The president may have an NSC but only to advise him on national defence and economic policy without getting involved in the politics of the assemblies and prime ministers.
A civil servant who has, perhaps, served longer than any other, now retired and an author, Roedad Khan, suggested that the army, instead of becoming a part of the political structure, should growl at an errant government from the barracks and intervene only to avert disasters. The old “Bolshy” and new peacenik, Prof Khwaja Masood, feared that no constitutional arrangement, old or new, would benefit the people unless extremism is curbed and peace is made with India. Both are important but, perhaps, could not be made a part of the Constitution.
No one disagreed with S.M. Zafar’s warning in the closing stages of the discussion that notwithstanding the amendments made or omitted, a stable polity will emerge out of the elections only if the army and civil administration remain neutral in both electioneering and polling. Learning from the referendum experience that would call for significant changes in the policy and personnel supervising the whole process. That message was well registered.
The dominant view that emerged out of the discussion was that the elections should be held with a few good and undisputed amendments like the joint electorates and lowered voting age and somewhat enhanced authority for the president. The rest should be left to the new parliament. The disqualification law should target the evils, not individuals.
The constitutional packages contain little for the big issue of provincial autonomy nor a hope for it emerged in the president’s forum. Some subjects may be transferred from the centre to the provinces but no taxes. Autonomy or devolution without money has a hollow ring. The centre needs all the money that it can collect to pay back the debts and for defence.
The forum’s best feature was the patience and equanimity with which the president listened for five hours to the criticism, even denouncement, of his plan, and the conviction with which he defended it or ungrudgingly admitted its flaws. The discussion wouldn’t rest at that, he assured. Arising out of the experience is this advice to the politicians: talk to the president, he may concede some ground, they need out.
The domino effects of need
Wars uproot families, villages, even cities, spilling their people across borders to live in crowded encampments threatened by epidemics and violence. For decades, hundreds of thousands of Afghans fleeing Soviet invaders and later the Taliban endured miserable conditions in Pakistan near the border of their homeland. Many more waited as unwelcome guests in Iran for the day they could go home. That day has come for far more refugees than expected.
Feeding and housing the returnees has overtaxed the new Afghan government. The countries that promised so much aid so many months ago need to pay up.
In the last four months, more than 1.2 million refugees have returned from neighboring countries to Afghanistan, nearly triple the number originally expected. —Los Angeles Times