Political roller coaster
Nawaz Sharif’s first 180 days in office have long-term economic significance, the results will be more apparent in the years to come. This has been an outstanding achievement, in the economic situation that we had been thrust in during the Gulf crisis it required courage to take the necessary institutional reformatory steps to loosen bureaucratic control over the economic life of the nation rather than opt for stop gap temporary intervention. While one agrees totally with deregulation and privatisation, the method of carrying out denationalisation and privatisation needs rectification as it should be more people-oriented in the Thatcher-mold as well as worker-oriented to ensure robber-baronism does not return to torment the people of Pakistan. If it is seen by the masses that the “goodies” are being dashed out to the chosen few, the streets will react with unrestrained venom.
In sheer contrast to the glow in the economic field, Nawaz Sharif is in deep political trouble as the political roller coaster ride of the last 210 days suggests. The people need a stable law and order situation, even more they require that justice not be denied to them. Given that the IJI Government has an overwhelming Parliamentary majority and that two contentious politico-economic issues, the NFC award and the CCI are behind us, the political morass that we are thrust in is largely due to emphasis on a wrong set of priorities and faint-hearted tentative political initiatives, particularly the lack of will in the building of democratic institutions. Since the PM’s grounding of political life has a narrow base in time and experience in contrast to his business acumen, the wide gap in the two sectors is not surprising. Given that he has had two tough years of political sandblasting before he ascended the hot seat, one would have expected him to give greater attention to the needs of the masses which form his political base rather than resort to lip-service rhetoric only.
Among the major reasons used to sack the Ms Benazir Government in August 1988, three which stood out as casus belli were endemic corruption, gross misuse of power and failure to tackle the law and order problem in Sindh. Less than a year later, an evaluation will show that some of the personalities may have changed but overall not much is different. Both governments rapidly descended into a political morass centred on Sindh but with side effects in all the other Provinces, one must contrast that Ms Benazir was politically handicapped because the majority Province of Punjab was then ruled by the Opposition. Objectively speaking, the only saving grace in the abominable law and order environment in rural Sindh has been that the Jam Sadiq Government has maintained ethnic equilibrium in the urban areas of the Province by fostering a disparate coalition between ethnic Sindhis and Mohajirs, as such the Province has not been racked by ethnic strife the like of which had paralysed the normal activity of the major urban areas pre-August 1990. With the MQM monolith showing fissures for the first time, resulting in armed clashes between the factions, a volatile situation has now also arisen in the urban areas that will require political gamesmanship of the highest order to resolve, threatening to blow the lid off the Federal Government in Islamabad.
For some odd reason, the lessons of history are lost on our leaders. The political bankruptcy of going with front men loyalists rather than effective politicos has been severely exposed. During the time Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Aftab Shaban Mirani were the PPP CMs of Sindh, rumours used to abound that politically weak CMs were chosen only to facilitate surrogate rule by Ms Benazir’s husband, Asif Zardari. Both the CMs were essentially gentlemen, one more than the other but they could not serve Ms Benazir’s cause because in looking over their shoulders their authority was compromised. Ghulam Haider Wyne, the nicest of persons, decent and basically unassuming, is held to be the front man for Nawaz Sharif’s talented brother, Shahbaz Sharif. In contrast to Asif’s unelected status first time around, Shahbaz Sharif has a political legitimacy of sorts in his very visible Bobby Kennedy type of political role entrusted to him by the PM as a trouble-shooter extraordinary. Unfortunately any bond of relationship is taken in politics to mean nepotism, as such Shahbaz Sharif should have assumed a low-key role in contrast to his present status. The Ghulam Haider Wyne Government in Punjab almost came to grief over a minor traffic violation, exposing the fragility of the overwhelming IJI political majority. That the PM had to intervene to resolve the situation has eroded the facade around the Punjab CM, essentially he has become a lame-duck incumbent, waiting for a decent interval to pass before he himself resigns or is “elevated” to the Federal cabinet. But would the Sharif Brothers trust Pervaiz Elahi, the permanent CM-in-waiting aspirant in the Punjab, to be the natural heir to the Punjab throne or would he search for a more malleable candidate? For the time being it suits all concerned not to rock the boat and persist with the status quo, the Prime Minister duly certifying that the CM’s “Qila” remained strong, the need for such a certification undermining the CM’s political strength rather than strengthening it. Not that PPP would do any better, in the presence of educated, articulate and dedicated people like Salman Taseer etc, why Ms Benazir had to opt for Jahangir Badr as the Provincial President of PPP defies imagination and logic, maybe she chose him for his deep understanding of political philosophy.
Balochistan’s coalition Government, hardly overwhelming pro-IJI, nearly came to grief over two diverse incidents, both ingraining against Baloch traditions. The first incident involving a drug smuggler who sought sanctuary in the residence of a Minister passed without much further ado, the arrest of Sanaullah Zehri on the borders with Sindh as he was journeying to Jacobabad with a convoy of political support for Mr Abdul Hafeez Pirzada was many times more serious. The induction of a group clearly looking for trouble and armed with automatic weapons and rocket launchers into an already volatile election situation could hardly have been conducive to the maintenance of law and order, but the symbolism of a Baloch Minister being hauled up by another Province stirred Baloch pride and nationalism, crisis time loomed large. If anything, Jam Sadiq is an extraordinary dyed-in-the-wool politician and he reacted in a very political manner. Having accomplished his immediate purpose in Jacobabad, getting Buledi elected without the elections becoming a bloody orgy of political violence, Jam Sadiq turned around and apologized for the incident. Tongue-in-cheek he also apologized for putting the Balochistan coalition under strain. Jam Sadiq may be the subject of raging controversy, one thing is clear, as a politician he stands head and shoulders above every other politician in Sindh, most of them are centered on ego-trips. One just hopes that the situation does not slip away from him because of the excess being practiced in his name.
NWFP remains a stable bastion of the Government in the Centre in the same manner as during the Ms Benazir regime despite the inherent weakness of having disparate forces in the Coalition because Mir Afzal is trying to govern very much as Aftab Sherpao did before him, ruling by middle-ground consensus. Sherpao ran an honest, efficient Government devoted to the development and solution of the common man’s problems, the Mir Afzal Khan style is more stolid. However, the bedrock of the Provincial Government is formed on those who find it expedient to remain with every Administration, changing their loyalties out of convenience, the foundations of such a Government can hardly be considered strong.
The political situation in Azad Kashmir is rapidly assuming international ramifications. Given that in Indian Occupied Kashmir a basically dormant people have arisen in armed revolt after enduring four decades of oppression, the present political impasse undercuts the legitimacy of the Kashmir Mujahideen demands for independence from Indian tutelage. Everyday that passes complicates the situation, politically and legally. While the PPP has many politically effervescent characters spectacularly capable of going off at the deep end, Mumtaz Hussain Rathore remains in a class of his own, operating on totally spaced-out philosophy. Rathore’s defiant stand just delayed his inevitable downfall. The Federal Government had to react to contain the damage but there will be a high residual political cost particularly in the international arena, with a ready potential for internal turmoil if passions get out of hand.
After the death of the Shaheed-i-Millat in 1951, the bureaucracy took control over the nation’s affairs in the shape of Ghulam Mohammad as Governor General, followed later by Iskandar Mirza who became President in 1956 when Pakistan became a Republic. Playing ducks and drakes with Prime Ministers has been a bureaucratic pastime in Pakistan, they have become largely irrelevant despite their constitutional right of rule. Iskandar Mirza ultimately declared Martial Law in 1958 making the serving C-in-C as PM but was subsequently toppled by then General Ayub Khan since the President was seen to be the major cause of most of the problems be-devilling Pakistan. Within two years of General Ayub’s rule, the bureaucracy had crept back into power, this continued through Yahya Khan’s rule with the benefits of Martial Law being limited to few beneficiaries among the men in uniform. It was only after two decades of Shaheed-i-Millat’s assassination that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto got some political ascendancy over the bureaucracy, much before the end of Bhutto’s rule, the bureaucracy was back in business. Coming back into absolute power with a vengeance under late General Zia, bureaucracy has since had the dominant role in Pakistan, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan is symbolic of that status from 1977 onwards.
The Junejo Government was sacked in 1988, the Benazir Government in 1990 but Nawaz Sharif is not likely to suffer a loss of Presidential confidence in 1991 despite rumours of collaboration in the repeal of the 8th Amendment so that the President is unable to sack an elected government before the expiry of its natural Parliamentary life. These are deliberate red herrings, Nawaz Sharif is a hand-packed PM with an inter-dependence with the President not counting the fact that President Ishaq may have the authority under the 8th Amendment, he may not have the same backing from the Armed Forces as an instrument of Presidential design that he used to good effect in August 1990. Matters are in a see-saw transition and coming to a head, if push comes to shove, will anyone in the pecking order take some lessons from our chequered political history and exercise options in the national rather than the individual interest? Political expediency based on crass self-interest is counter-productive to the national requirement because it works against the general good of the masses. Sometimes it is in the supreme national interest to let go with grace, to compromise for the greater destiny of the nation, if such a thing is possible in Pakistan.
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