Accountability
System Failure?
A low-key but intense national debate has been initiated because of the comments of some foreign observers expressing doubt about Pakistan’s survival as an entity. In the immortal paraphrased words of Mark Twain, “rumours of our demise may have been greatly exaggerated”, a cursory analysis does show that the “doom and gloom” clouds are much more dense in Karachi, even among sincere, dedicated citizens, than up-country. In the face of continued insecure environment for the city’s citizens, this is not surprising. The creeping anxiety in the psyche of the intellectuals and the entrepreneurs should ring alarm bells for those who are genuinely interested in the continued sovereignty and integrity of the country.
An extremely bright, young ISI major in the then East Pakistan in November 1990 gave his visiting boss from Islamabad a presentation in Dhaka as to what was likely to happen if events continued to follow an uncertain and erratic course. He ended his detailed submission by commenting that those who strongly believed in a united Pakistan felt very insecure as they would be left in the lurch if the worst came to pass. Having said his piece with courage, the field officer waited with bated breath for pearls of wisdom to emanate from the great man. It was not long in forthcoming, “if you are feeling scared, let me shift you and your family to West Pakistan”. That astonished young man, who later rose to high military rank in Bangladesh, decided in sheer frustration at that point of time that despite his personal convictions about the survival of Pakistan, his ethnic background left him no choice but to go with the growing synergy among the masses in then East Pakistan for a separate country. Whereas the intent of the individual was to bring into focus the strategic relevance of the times, his boss, whose appointment and vision thereof should have taken in the measure of the situation, reduced the implications to that of a petty individual requirement. Of such faux pas by the high and mighty is secession born! Today if you go to Islamabad and aspire to get the attention of those who matter in between office routine, afternoon nap, golf, riding and/or tennis and before the usual evening reception (i.e. business as usual), the answer to your repeated entreaties to please focus on Karachi in supersession to everything else is, “shift your family to Islamabad!” When you pester them repeatedly in the hope that maybe your persistence would break through their veneer of calm, the telephone operator (or bearer or whoever) has a repeated message for you, “Sahib has just left for a reception”. If this was confined to one person one would dismiss it as an aberration, unfortunately the exasperation with the bearer of bad tidings about Karachi is universal in Islamabad. While the country was burning in 1970-71, the leadership was out to an extended lunch, no wonder our world collapsed around us. Such is the irony of fate that when it did collapse, all those who had gone from pillar to post predicting dire straits unless remedial measures were taken, immediately became “traitors” for having stated the obvious. Twenty-five years later this is the same labelling for those who now dare to talk (and write) about growing Mohajir alienation from the Pakistan mainstream. The tragedy is that now almost, all except some myopic parochial diehards (with what goes for brains in their shoes), accept that gross mistakes across the whole spectrum were committed in the East Pakistan, dereliction of the norms of leadership and statecraft being directly responsible for the disaster.
Thinking the Unthinkable
Almost 250 years to the day a lady named Mughlani Begum was installed as the Governor of the Province of Lahore, succeeding her deceased husband, the Viceroy of Lahore, Moinul Mulk, popularly known as “Meer Mannoo”. A compromise between several opposing factions who did not want anyone strong and powerful from any of the other sides in that seat of power, she ruled Lahore between 1754 and 1756 with such authority that the factions who had agreed to a woman in the first place out of a misplaced conception that she was the weaker of the sexes, united out of convenience to depose her (and the favourite Eunuch she had subsequently married), installing in her place another puppet. Mughlani Begum emulated many Lahorites (before and after her) who sought refuge in Kashmir whenever Ahmed Shah Abdali ventured from Afghanistan. With the Kashmir valley inaccessible to Pakistanis, the place of political exile presently is Model Town, today’s Mughlani Begum being succeeded as Chief Minister (CM) by another nobody (at least on a sliding scale basis) named Sardar Arif Nakai, giving company in the political cold to his former mentor, Mian Nawaz Sharif. Like the retired US general given the assignment by US President Lyndon Baines Johnson to assess the war situation in Vietnam, who advised “just declare victory and go home”, Ms Benazir Bhutto and the State-controlled media has declared victory in dislodging Wattoo from his CM’s perch and gone off to Islamabad, conveniently forgetting that the whole exercise was meant to install a PPP person as CM according to the burning desire of the PPP rank and file in the Punjab who struggled mightily to be rid of Wattoo but are still left out in the cold. The exercise of constitutional farce continues, whereby a minuscule minority, in the form of Chattha and party, have emerged much stronger while Ms Benazir, a brave front notwithstanding, has been severely wounded politically, using up many of her rumoured nine lives — and her near and dear ones that much poorer for having doled out millions to the greedy and undeserving in a no-win game of horse trading.
Pakistan today is in a deep crisis because of the farce that is practiced in this country in the name of democracy, having no relation to constitutional logic or morality. The wonder is that educated men prefer to ignore this reality. In Sindh there is an urban-rural divide that is gradually fostering an economic crisis. While one or two-day strikes hurts petty businesses, the frequency of strikes has started to paralyse commercial activity on a wider scale, particularly those dependent on daily cash flow, such as various services, vending, etc. Children stayed away from schools, shops remained closed, office attendance was thin, Karachi Stock Exchange was closed, port activity was minimal, but most important since the cash counters of the banks and the Central Clearing House of State Bank of Pakistan did not function, money movement which is the oil of the economic engine was shutoff. The result is that the engine that revs up the economy in the form of livelihood of the middle class and the poor, is grinding to a halt, no matter that certain areas of Karachi had transport plying on a reduced basis. The gradual wearing down of Karachi’s commercial life is having a domino-like effect on the rest of the country, we are not many miles from economic midnight. Sharing of the ever-decreasing economic pie by competing ethnic groups, makes Karachi’s problem very political. While Gen Babar has had success in his single-minded campaign against the terrorists, the Administration is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, only possible through a dual track socio-economic package meant to alleviate the miseries of the common Karachi citizen. Without such an initiative, the schism is going to get deeper, instead of trying to re-induct the alienated Mohajir Community back into the mainstream of Pakistani life, we are making them more estranged from our national ethnic melting pot. Everybody agrees something has to be done to stop this polarisation, why doesn’t somebody do it then before the country goes to pieces? While the awaited revolt in the NWFP against Aftab Sherpao has not taken place, it is lurking dangerously near the surface. In Balochistan, the government of Zulfikar Ali Magsi is only surviving by pragmatic exercise of the art of compromise but this delicate balancing act can be undone by the re-settling of the rebel Bugti clan of Kalpars in Sui, what it will do to the supply of gas if a conflagration between the warring clans breaks out is left to one’s imagination! As it is the Taliban movement in Afghanistan may well spill over into the areas bordering Pakistan in both NWFP and Balochistan, with disastrous consequences for our more liberal society.
Head-Hunting and the President
Acting on the advice of the Federal Government, President Farooq Khan Leghari suspended the Punjab Government for a period of two months, asking the Governor to assume all powers. A day earlier, all the PPP ministers in CM Manzoor Wattoo’s Provincial Cabinet had resigned as an orchestrated move to create “suitable” conditions to justify Presidential action. While no tears can be shed (without resorting to hypocrisy) for the Wattoo Coalition which was unnatural in the first place and overdue for demise, democracy could have been better served by asking Wattoo to take a “vote of confidence” route or better still, to have moved a vote of no-confidence against him while he was in power. Twice now, the President has used his powers to intercede and interfere in the principle of provincial autonomy by causing the demise of the NWFP and Punjab Governments to facilitate the entry of a PPP-led Coalition Government. Technically within Constitutional parameters, as far as the norms of democracy he is constitutionally pledged to uphold the President stands on rather shaky moral grounds. Another round of manipulation and horse-trading by both major political groupings was set in motion, this shameless exercise denigrates the entire democratic system. While his partiality and judgement can be called into question, the President is a decent human being and he should have adopted a more neutral stance so as not to call his partiality and judgement into question. The President must not forget he was a victim of “Mehrangate”, the scam perpetrated by Mehran Bank’s unscrupulous Younus Habib (remember him?) and others to maliciously defame his character. Haji Nawaz Khokhar, the then PML (N) MNA, was most vociferous in demanding an “egg and tomato” assault on the President in the NA during his address. It was only when he jumped ship and went across to the PPP that it became clear his this “more loyal than the king” cheerleading, ostensibly on behalf of Mian Nawaz Sharif, was part of a master scam devised to dupe (and ensure) that the Opposition remained in confrontation with the President lest his known upright nature lead him to “positive neutrality” as per his Constitutional role. Who was behind this conspiracy? Before those of us led astray by the scam could render an apology of sorts, we were rudely awakened to reality by the Punjab Blitzkrieg led by the Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) Raja (Von) Saroop. Those of us who had seen (and maybe fantasised) about the President becoming independent for the good of Pakistan, have to live with the fact that the widely awaited transition of Leghari from PPP stalwart to being the President of all the peoples of Pakistan has suffered a setback.
The Wind Cannot Read
Two momentous events concerning the media and Press freedom have recently taken place in Pakistan. During “the night of the Long Knives”, the PM Ms Benazir Bhutto, replaced the whole team of her media-handlers, from the Secretary Information, Hussain Haqqani, downwards, the only escapee being friend Farhat Ullah Babar, the PM’s loyal Press Secretary. Farhat is such a mild and honest soul that the PM’s hand may have been stayed by some angel.
Congratulations are in order to former PM Mian Nawaz Sharif because the incumbent PM has brought back into information power almost the whole team who had made her life miserable successfully during his tenure as PM. The PM kept one surprise choice up her sleeve, the aberration of Ms Rana Shaikh was transformed from being Secretary Culture to being the 22nd Managing Director of PTV since 1964. A former TV actress and Producer/Director, this was a natural end reward for the Herculean PR efforts of the wife of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Najmuddin Sheikh, to display the liberal side of Pakistan culture by a special “song and dance” fashion show in the US during the PM’s Yatra, a designer-clothing performance that could not be seen (being banned for TV viewing) in Pakistan by the likes of Maulana Fazlur Rahman lest he forget his holy vows of abstinence from such worldly pursuits. Ms Rana Shaikh shrugged off accusation of plagiarism, when you copy from many plagiarism turns into research.
Missed Opportunities
It is May 26, 1993. The Supreme Court has just restored Mian Nawaz Sharif as PM of Pakistan. On the hill a lonely (and suddenly beleaguered) President waits with apprehension about his former protege’s next move. Ms. Benazir Bhutto similarly waits anxiously with her worry beads. If Mian Nawaz Sharif should choose to go to the President and make up as any politician in his place would have done in similar circumstances, showing magnanimity in victory, the game is over for her for some time. On the outside chance that the PM expands on his confrontation, there is hope yet. Riding the crest of success, Mian Sahib chooses the path of confrontation and thus takes the “laurels from his (own) brow and casts them into the dust”, to quote Churchill about Wavell after his defeat at the hands of Rommel in the desert. Next, having formed the Government after the 1993 elections and thus displaying its coalition majority, the PPP shows signs of political accommodation over the election of a compromise President, maybe even someone like Senator Sartaj Aziz from the PML(N). Again Mian Sahib’s hawks prevail, the PML(N) stands firm about a PML(N) President of their choice, seesawing between Gohar Ayub and Wasim Sajjad. Net result, PPP goes for its own candidate and we see the non-controversial and generally liked PPP stalwart Farooq Khan Leghari elected as President. Third flashback, President Leghari immediately resigns from the PPP in an effort to display genuine neutrality in his new role as President and journeys to Lahore, inviting Mian Sahib to tea in the Punjab Governor’s House and if not, requests to go over himself to Mian Sahib’s house in Model Town to call on the Leader of the Opposition, in fact leaning over backwards beyond the limits of protocol. Peevishness persists and discourtesy aside, the meeting has not yet materialised, two years later. In Mian Sahib’s political history, the field is strewn with missed opportunities, so many and so crucial that it would require much more than one single article to recount them. Teflon-like hide aside, one cannot keep on passing the buck to his Advisors.
Given the present Karachi situation and the grave danger that it poses to the existence of the country, the Leader of the Opposition has taken the initiative and called a Conference of all parties on Karachi. Given the foot-dragging of the PPP regime as far as negotiations with MQM are concerned, this is indeed a most welcome proposal to draw the MQM(A) back into the national mainstream. One should take the analogy of the ultimate symbol of terrorism, the air hijacker. Does one stop talking to the hijacker or does one immediately start talking to him in order to gain time and wear down his demands? While labelling MQM as terrorists may be a moot point in a city full of terrorist groups of various ilk and creed, the PPP should certainly not stop talking with the majority party in Sindh’s urban areas. To circumvent PPP’s obduracy on this issue, Mian Sahib took a political lead of great significance by calling this Conference and then proceeded to shoot himself in the foot by refusing to invite PPP.
Proportional Representation
As a measure of ushering in democracy in its original concept we have already discussed why it is necessary to (1) have a run-off election between the two candidates having the maximum votes in case any one candidate fails to get 50% of the votes cast (2) must return to the joint electorate system in preference to the present system of separate electorates and (3) have direct voting for every electable seat to avoid manipulation by a corrupt of few over the many. However, the major argument against all the three aforementioned measures is the fact that it will deprive smaller communities, religious groups, minorities like Christians, Hindus etc, from representation in the legislative assemblies. This “outcast” status will cause frustration among a fairly large segment of the population who will despair of ever having a voice in the mainstream of the country’s politics and may become extremist in their outlook, even looking to separate themselves (secede) from their present society. The world is witness to terrorism which has its roots in denial of (or the seeming denial of) fundamental rights to individuals and/or groups, which then resort to violent means to restore (and assert) what they feel is their God-given rights. As such while we must strive to remove the anomalies in our present version of democracy, we must also be careful in bringing in such measures that give every segment of our society their just due by giving them a voice roughly commensurate to their percentage of population in our legislative assemblies. A mechanism that is fair to all must be formed to overcome the present shortcomings in our democratic system.
Direct Vote and Democracy
The basis of democracy is that every individual has occasion to exercise his or her vote freely to choose individuals for a particular seat or post. This vote is not transferable and cannot be exercised by proxy. Given the basic concept of adult franchise, any indirect vote is bound to be controversial, particularly since it transfers the basic individual right of choice of electors of one constituency to another individual who then takes a solitary decision on behalf of others which may not be really representative. In third world countries where individuals are invariably more susceptible to the influences of power, money etc than in western countries, there is always the possibility that for various considerations the indirect vote may be cast against the actual aspirations of the basic unit of a democracy, the individual citizen. Therefore, it inculcates an element of corruption at its very inception. Moreover, it circumvents the process of a candidate’s accountability before the masses that is one of the basic premises of democracy.
The Federal structure in Pakistan is composed of the directly elected National Assembly and an indirectly elected Upper House called the Senate. Albeit peopled by some very fine men and women for the most part, the indirect elections to the Senate (each Province has equal number of seats with a number reserved for technocrats, etc) offers an opportunity for chicanery inasmuch as the Electoral College is composed of the members of the respective Provincial Assemblies (with Punjab having the maximum of 240 electors for 20 Senate seats i.e 12 electors can vote into office a Senator while at the other end of the scale Balochistan’s 45 electors vote also for 20 Senate seats, i.e. only 2 votes to get a Senator elected). While the Senate is supposedly a higher body than the National Assembly (NA), this lop-sided indirect elections to fill its seats contradicts its higher status, undercutting the basic principle of exercise of adult franchise to fill all electable slots in a democracy. It gives an inordinate advantage to those with money and/or influence to become members of the Upper House. Conceivably those who have made their money illegally and do not want to go through the exhaustive “accountability before the masses” process of a full fledged election campaign, can avoid the elections to the Provincial (PA) or National Assemblies (NA) and “purchase” the small number of necessary voters to get elected to the Senate by either giving “donations” to individual legislators or to the political party whose support they want. One should not forget that this concept of indirect vote was firmly rejected by the Pakistani populace in the form of Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s 80,000 Basic Democrats who formed an Electoral College to elect (Provincial and National) legislators, etc as well as the President. The Opposition to this concept stemmed from the fact that the masses were effectively disenfranchised by the indirect method and that the smaller number of elections could be influenced to cast their vote in particular manner by various means, some of them coercive in nature. The same principle must apply to the Senate, being a higher body than the National Assembly, it’s claim to legality can only be borne out if its members are directly elected by the populace. To give continuity to the democratic process, direct elections to the Senate, where members’ terms should only be of four years, can be held during the mid-term stage of the NA (and PA) elections (whose terms must also be shortened from five to four years as per Ms Benazir’s pre-election promise).
The Majority Vote
Over 30 million French voters went to the polls in the first round of Presidential elections to decide their preference in a full slate of 9 candidates. In a major upset that stunned political pundits, Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin secured nearly 7 million votes (or 23.24% of the votes cast) to come out first in the pack while the favourite Jacques Chirac, a Gaullist, was grateful to scrape through to the second round with about 6.2 million votes (20.64%). Chirac was just ahead of his former friend, fellow Gaullist and handpicked PM Edouard Balladur, who had deserted his mentor in a bid for the Presidency but fell just short by 600,000 votes, getting only about 5.6 million votes (or about 18.54%). Not to be denied his place under the French sun Jean Marie Le Pen, the Far Right candidate, secured 15.15% of the vote, translated into 4.6 million votes, slightly above par than his previous performances. Next came Communist Robert Hue with 2.6 million votes (3.72%), then Trotskyist Arlette Laguiller with 1.6 million votes (5.34%) followed by Nationalist Phillipe de Villiers (1.4 million votes 4.78%) and Ecologist Dominique Voynet with 3.33% of the vote representing 1 million votes. At the very tail was the Extreme Right candidate Jacques Cheminade with 83,472 votes (about 0.27%).
Since none of the candidates got an outright majority (50%), a second run-off election will be held on May 7, 1995 between the Socialist Party Candidate Lionel Jospin and “Rally for the Republic (RPR) Party” Candidate, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac. Contrary to pollsters’ speculation a few months ago that pitted Conservatives Chirac and Balladur against each other, the early front runner French PM Balladur self-destructed in the final weeks to make it a straight Left-Right contest. On the surface, the Right (Chirac, Balladur, Le Pen, Villiers and Cheminade) picked up about 18 million votes (60%) to 12 million votes of the Left (Jospin, Hiz, Laguiller, Voynet), about 40%. However, this is rather a simplistic calculation as not all the voters of the Right will vote for Chirac or for that matter Jospin will not automatically sweep up all the votes on the Left. A fair estimate is that a vast majority of each side may still favour their ideological inclination (and a fair amount may stay at home) but most voters react to individual candidates in preference to their political leanings. The inaccurate French Polls had shown Chirac getting nearly 27% of the vote or about 8 million votes, he fell short by a massive 1.8 million votes, nearly 25% less than predicated by pollsters. On the other hand Jospin did better than expected by about 1.6 million votes and Balladur was short of the projections by about a million votes. These represent very wide margins of error and expert analyst are of the opinion that Chirac almost got clobbered because of (1) voter apathy inasfar that they expected him to win anyway and stayed at home (2) the Right-Right split of the Gaullist vote and (3) desperate Socialist attempt to keep their candidate Jospin alive by concentrating the left vote. At the same time Le Pen, who had no chance anyway, profited from his rabid rhetoric against immigrants, the symbolic backlash maintaining his performance of the past. The Extreme Left (in Hue, Laguiller and Voynet) got a better than expected 5 million votes (about 17%).
Ms Benazir’s American Odyssey
There is no doubt that Ms Benazir’s US visit from which she returns today after completing a 10-day journey, has been a media triumph for her personally. The Prime Minister happens to be one of the more charismatic leaders of the world, having more name recognition and goodwill than any other leader of Pakistan, past and present. This has been extremely well exploited to the advantage of her person and in extension this country. If she stands as the Asia candidate for the UN Secretary General’s job, God help those who stand against her candidacy. All this has resulted in a not-so subtle pressure on her US hosts to recognize that Pakistan has a case for favoured treatment in contrast to the doghouse-status we have been consigned to. Even making others recognize a reality is some achievement.
Nothing is more becoming to Ms Benazir Bhutto than aggression and defiance, that has always been her finest moment. She has used it within the parameters of diplomatic nuances to good benefit for the country with both the US Establishment and Congress. She had the President of the US very visibly on the defensive in accepting that a fair standard was not maintained in the business of our paid-for arms and equipment (in the pipeline) that had been virtually confiscated. In a manner of speaking, she ticked off her hosts in the Thatcher-style, calling a spade a spade, maintaining viz. (1) new equipment or our money back (2) trade not aid and (3) no deal on nuclear non-proliferation unless tied with commensurate treatment to India. For good measure she brought Kashmir into international focus making India truly squirm with discomfort. Since Americans like nothing better than an underdog and are hyper-sensitive about fair-play, things went down well in Peoria, Illinois. With a better understanding of our vital necessities and reminded about our cold war role culminating in the turning of Afghanistan into Soviet Union’s Vietnam, it is to be expected that US will search some way to assuage our feelings of hurt and abandonment, one hopes by some material help rather than symbolic rhetoric only.
The Inferno Within
For a person who led a relentless struggle in the 80s decade for the restoration of unadulterated democracy in Pakistan, Ms Benazir displays a remarkable obduracy in refusing to recognize the ground realities of the increasingly anarchical situation in Karachi. Though it is true that fate intervened rather fortuitously to her advantage, one cannot take the credit away from Ms Benazir’s struggle against dictatorship (and vestiges thereof) with respect to the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. The then Establishment tried to stop her in her tracks by the cobbling together of the IJI by Maj Gen (later Lt Gen Retd) Hameed Gul, the then DG ISI, but the people of Pakistan gave her enough NA seats to be the prime contender to form the Federal Government. Even when the sizeable MQM bloc changed sides in late 1989, she survived a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly, mostly because both the intelligentsia and the masses continued to believe in her recurring song of democracy.
During her long stint in the cold, Ms Benazir had repeatedly pointed out that with drugs and Kalashnikovs flooding into the urban cities of Pakistan, particularly Karachi, there was a dire necessity to usher in democracy immediately to “counter the dangerous vacuum created by Martial Law and dictatorship at the grassroots level because of the lack of leadership duly elected by the people.” Her contention rightly was that a mixture of ethnic and sectarian bigots along with mobsters, drug barons, foreign-trained terrorists etc, would flood into this void, anybody who could wield power through the power of forcible suggestion, more potently, through the barrel of a gun. Ms Benazir Bhutto had very rightly advocated that the only solution to avoid apocalypse was to have free and fair elections at every tier of government so that credible, authentic leaders would emerge, with their roots in a rock-solid base because of the peoples’ confidence in their abilities and person.