End of the coalition
FROM the start, the grand coalition always had an image of fragility about it. Hence, when Mr Nawaz Sharif announced on Monday that his party was withdrawing from the coalition, it surprised no one. The writing on the wall had already come on May 13 when the PML-N walked out of the cabinet. Since then the two parties have talked and quarrelled publicly and privately but, nevertheless, surprised friends and foes alike by achieving one of their two major goals — Pervez Musharraf’s exit from the presidency. Those who thought this should have cemented the PPP–PML-N alliance were proved wrong, for the two major parties have now parted ways on the other issue — the restoration of the judges, including Iftikhar Chaudhry. In what can be called a hasty move the PML-N advanced the deadline for the judges’ restoration by two days, thus forcing the PPP’s hand. It is, of course, obvious that the Sharifs felt piqued when the senior partners ignored them on the presidential election. They know that the PPP has enough votes to secure Asif Ali Zardari’s election as head of state even if the PML-N does not go along, but by boycotting the committee charged with drafting a resolution on restoration, the PML-N leadership only precipitated the break-up.
There is no doubt the PML-N can justifiably accuse its erstwhile senior partners of bad faith. Mr Zardari went back on the Murree Declaration, failed to keep the subsequent May 12 deadline, and again violated the pledge on the judges, who were to be restored soon after Musharraf was taken care of. The PPP co-chairman should have either not committed himself to specific dates, or if he did, should have been true to his word. The man who is certain to be the next president is now in a morally indefensible position. The issue, however, is not who is to blame more but the consequences of the grand coalition’s break-up. There is no doubt that a strong sense of vindictiveness has guided the PML-N’s policies on the two issues. With Musharraf gone the Sharifs have focused on the judges’ issue at the expense of other larger interests such as the economy and militancy.
The implications for the coalition’s break-up are immense. The people wanted an end to the crisis that began in March last year when Musharraf sacked the chief justice, but the coalition’s collapse has disappointed them, for they see further uncertainty and a blurring of the national horizon. More frighteningly, besides a worsening of the economic situation, the political instability could encourage the Taliban to step up their war on Pakistan.
A false truce
WHEN is a truce not a truce? When offered by the Taliban. Maulvi Omar, spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told a foreign news agency that the militants in Bajaur had been directed to “stop attacks against the government and security forces” on the insistence of a tribal jirga. The government swiftly — and rightly — rejected the peace offer. Rehman Malik dismissed the militants’ “verbal commitments” and demanded their surrender. For good measure, the TTP has been banned by the government. The latest offer of a ceasefire by the TTP in Bajaur comes at a time when the militants are under severe military pressure in Bajaur and Swat and a humanitarian crisis threatens to turn the local population against the militants.
In the operation that was launched by the security forces on Aug 6 the government claims to have killed at least 500 militants, including some high-profile members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. There is no doubt that Bajaur is a hub of militancy and that the militants led by Maulana Faqir Mohammad in the agency have close ties to the Maulana Fazlullah-led militants in Swat. Which is another reason to reject the truce offered by the TTP in Bajaur: it is only specific to the agency and any breathing space offered to the militants there will be a fillip to the militants in Swat. However, the government must be careful not to lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the local population. Nearly 200,000 people in the region are believed to have been displaced so far by the fighting in Bajaur. With the month of Ramazan approaching, the people will be desperate to return to their homes — which is not possible while the fighting is going on. The TTP knows this and — in a bid to win over the local population and also hide amongst them — they are keen to have the people back in their homes in Bajaur.
The non-military imperative for the government is to ensure that the internally displaced persons are provided a reasonable standard of care in the makeshift camps that have sprung up in the region to accommodate the Bajauris. News of delays in the provision of food and shelter and of appalling sanitary conditions is troubling. If the situation does not improve quickly the government may find itself winning the military battle but losing the war against militancy.
Truly exceptional Olympiad
THE head of the International Olympics Committee rightly called the Beijing Olympiad ‘truly exceptional games’, with the number of records shattered itself becoming a record of sorts. For the human spirit to go beyond conceivable limits, in terms of physical and mental capacity, as seen in Beijing, captured the imagination of billions around the world. The unassuming, almost shy, Michael Phelps splashed his way in the glittering Water Cube to a record eight gold medals in a single edition of the event — seven of them in world record times. His contrast was provided by the flamboyant, almost impudent, Usain Bolt, who became the fastest man on the planet ever and still had time to indulge in exaggerated chest-thumping even before he had crossed the finishing line. His characteristic ‘marksman’ celebrations, pointing to his own images on the giant screens inside the superlative Bird’s Nest when he came out for his next two gold medal sprints, will forever remain the image of the event. As is the nature of sporting meets, the ecstasy of success always comes with the agony of failure. At Beijing, especially for the home crowd, it came in the shape of the premature exit of Liu Xiang and Yao Ming from their respective disciplines. But that did not dampen the Chinese spirit for they still edged out the United States from the top of the rankings table which is but a rarity in Olympics history.
The extravagant opening and closing ceremonies apart, China also deserves the proverbial pat on the back for having organised the massive 17-day show with such perfection that all the fears that were expressed in the run-up to the main draw — smog, political tension, security threats, human rights concerns and so on — turned out to be absolute non-issues. In fact, the $40bn investment China made in the games would have earned it the awed admiration of millions of foreigners who were there as athletes, officials and spectators. Post-visit, many of them would now be able to see through the western propaganda, which will make the Beijing Olympics ‘truly exceptional’ in a much wider sense of the description than being limited to sporting excellence. In terms of organisational skills, event management and hospitality, China has certainly set a new standard that London, the host of the next Olympics, will find hard to meet.
Regime changes in Pakistan
FOR some strange reason Pakistanis don’t like history. They don’t write it; they don’t read it; and they don’t learn lessons from it.
If they did, they would have allowed their leaders to make fewer mistakes; they themselves would have been more alert whenever the country was sent in the wrong direction by those holding the reins of power. For this reason alone it may be a good idea to reflect a little on the number of regime changes the country has seen in the last 50 years, from 1958 to 2008.
There were changes even before 1958 when prime ministers came and went. After 1958 when the military intervened for the first time, each change brought about a structural transformation. Economists tell us that institutions don’t develop when societies are in a state of flux. Pakistan has been in such a state for its entire life as a nation state. It is not surprising that it has failed to create institutions without which the country cannot be governed for long in a steady way.
The latest change occurred on Aug 18, four days after the country celebrated its 61st birthday. There were a number of differences between this kink in our history compared to the previous discontinuities. This time a military leader was forced to leave office by an organised civilian movement. The process that brought about the change was semi-constitutional in that the leaders of the two parties who saw Pervez Musharraf out of the presidency used the power they had acquired in the provincial and national assemblies following the elections of Feb 18.
It was not fully constitutional since neither of the two men who devised the process to move Musharraf out of the presidency was an elected representative of the people. Before I speculate on what may lie in the future, let me go back to the country’s history of regime change.
It is perhaps a coincidence that major political periods in Pakistan have lasted 11 years. The country gained independence in 1947 but the chaotic rule of democracy ended with the military coup in 1958, 11 years later. Gen (later Field Marshal) Muhammad Ayub Khan governed for 11 years until he was forced out of office by Gen Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan in 1969. Ayub Khan both built and destroyed. He built a strong economy but weakened the political system by throwing out a constitution that gave the country a parliamentary system of government.
Yahya lasted for less than three years during which he saw the Pakistani state split in two with the emergence of the country’s eastern wing as Bangladesh. The military does not appreciate its leaders who surrender in the battlefield; Yahya Khan fell to the wrath of senior and junior military officers who shouted him down in an army auditorium where he had gone to explain the defeat of the forces he commanded at the hands of the Indians.
Yahya thought that his explanation before a highly agitated audience would help him keep his job. He did not survive and the reins of power were placed by the army in the hands of a civilian, the mercurial Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
There was to be no peace under Bhutto. He opened many fronts while he governed. While he gave the country a constitution in 1973 — it was very similar in structure to the one that had been promulgated in 1956 only to be abrogated by Ayub Khan in 1958 — he did not always govern by it.
The 1973 Constitution promised much but delivered little. It promised provincial autonomy but Bhutto created a highly centralised system of governance. Islamabad sucked in power from the provincial governments to strengthen the central administration. If the provincial governments were in the hands of the opposition they were dismissed and replaced by semi-authoritarian governors who ruled on the basis of directions received from the prime minister and his powerful secretariat.
Bhutto did not understand economics and tended to apply simple solutions to complex problems. One of these was to expand the size of the government and the economic reach of the state in order to deliver more to the less advantaged segments of the population. He didn’t understand that the state can’t efficiently manage economic assets — that only leads to waste and corruption. That is precisely what happened.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was made to surrender his job — and later his life — to the head of the military, and one whom he had appointed. Looking deep into the eyes of General Ziaul Haq, Bhutto did not think he read any political ambition.
He turned out to be terribly wrong. The new military leader also governed for 11 years, from 1977 to 1988. He may have lasted longer had he not been killed in an air crash. Zia’s 11 years saw a major structural change not in the country’s economy, nor in its political system. The change happened in the way the people looked at themselves and their country.
Pakistanis became more conservative and more religious while Zia governed. This made it possible for religious groups and organisations to throw deep roots into Pakistani soil. Before Zia, Pakistan was a tolerant society which allowed without fear or contempt expression of different points of view. Under Zia conformity became a requirement for advancing in society. The government brought in a new form of Islam — Wahabism, that was foreign to the lands of which Pakistan was a part.
Zia’s death in Aug 1988 ushered in another political period that also lasted for 11 years. While the military watched the political stage from the wings, two political parties locked themselves in a deadly embrace. Regimes changed four times and four elections were held and two individuals twice became prime minister but not with very happy results.
If the Pakistani people distributed sweets in the streets to celebrate Musharraf’s departure, sweets were also distributed in 1990 and 1996 when Benazir Bhutto was dismissed and in 1993 and 1999 when Nawaz Sharif was forced out of office. Pakistanis, it would appear, are always ready to celebrate regime change.
Pervez Musharraf broke the 11-year rule of Pakistani history. I once mentioned that to him to his great amusement. That was in March 2006 when I went to discuss with him the book I was writing on his period in office. “By your rule I should be in office until 2010,” he said. “That will be okay with me.”
Thatcher has dementia
LADY Thatcher has had dementia for as long as eight years, a condition that meant that she needed to be reminded that her husband had died, according to the memoirs written by her daughter, Carol.
In her book, A Swim-On Part in the Goldfish Bowl: A Memoir, Carol Thatcher describes her mother’s memory as having been at one time like a “website”, but said that in 2000 she noticed it starting to fail when the former prime minister confused Bosnia and the Falklands in a conversation about the war in former Yugoslavia.
Thatcher’s premiership was revived in 1982 by the Falklands war, while the Bosnian war came on John Major’s watch, more than a year after she had been forced from office.
Carol Thatcher said of the slip-up: “I almost fell off my chair. Watching her struggle with her words and her memory, I couldn’t believe it.”
In an extract serialised in a Sunday newspaper, she describes having to break the news of Denis Thatcher’s death to her mother more than once. He died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer. “Dementia meant she kept forgetting he was dead. I had to keep giving her the sad news over and over again. Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her husband of more than 50 years, she’d look at me sadly and say, ‘Oh’, as I struggled to compose myself. ‘Were we all there?’ she’d ask softly.”
Anthony Seldon, a biographer of Thatcher, said the memoirs were probably the first public airing of the former Tory prime minister’s dementia, a catch-all term for mental conditions that afflict at least 700,000 elderly people in the UK. Seldon said: “It was pretty obvious when I last saw her in November 2005 that she was pretty off the map, so to speak. But like with Reagan, people give former heads of state some dignity, because of the stigma attached.”
But the MP John Whittingdale, who was Thatcher’s political secretary and who still sees her every six to eight weeks, disagreed with Thatcher’s account.
“We know she has had small strokes and these lead to memory loss. You can still have a conversation with her about contemporary politics ... Dementia is a very emotive word which conjures up a very particular image. In conversation Thatcher may need a bit of occasional reminding, but then so do we all,” he said.
— The Guardian, London
OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press
Price control is not a seasonal job
Kawish
During the previous government, hoarders and profiteers were free to overcharge; perhaps theirs was the only class that enjoyed such freedom. Respecting their freedom, the administration then did not intervene to check the prices or monitor the availability of essential items.
The present government too has failed to change the situation. Except for appointing price-control magistrates and making some announcements with regard to purchases from utility stores, it has not come out with any effective mechanism or strategy. The price spiral is at its height. The control of the government and the administration can undergo any litmus test. It appears that the escalation of prices is related directly to the calendar and they continue to mount with each passing day.
Although the traders and profiteers continue to increase prices throughout the year on one pretext or the other … in the month of Ramazan, they shower more ‘kindness’. The government shows less seriousness in trying to check this menace.
The government only becomes aware of its responsibility when hoarders and profiteers succeed in creating a crisis. Then the government comes forth with advice and directives that prove to be a futile bid. With Ramazan round the corner, traders have started hoarding and increasing the prices of commodities particularly those in demand during this month.
The government at the most will fine those found to be overcharging [the customers]. In fact, the traders have deceived the government because through hoarding and creating artificial shortages they had already increased their prices. Now if the government freezes these rates, today’s rates would become a benchmark. In practical terms, this would render all government measures with regard to relief for the common man ineffective.
Although the government has frozen the prices, the present rates are already too high. First these rates should be brought down and then these should be frozen.
The price of rice has seen a decline in wholesale markets but consumers continue to be charged high rates and the government has not taken any measure [to stop this].
Bomb blasts are not the only form of terrorism, Creating [an atmosphere of] harassment, fear, uncertainty and instability in any section of society is also a subversive act. Depriving the people of the essentials of life, particularly food items, and creating artificial shortages and looting people through engineered price hikes is economic terrorism. Can these be controlled through normal administrative steps?
In fact, controlling prices is a regular job and not merely a seasonal one, as the government has been treating it — only on the eve of Ramazan does it take action.
The situation demands a fully fledged mechanism which would include monitoring demand and supply as well as taking action against not only hoarders and profiteers but also the concerned officials. — (Aug 24)
— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi