Permutations and combinations
Pakistani politics can be compared to a perverse combination of Newton’s Third Law of Motion and Rubic’s Magic Cube. The Law states, “When two opposing sides move towards a possible rapprochement, the allies of the formerly opposing sides go into Opposition to the newly reconciliatory parties”. Two years into his Prime Ministerial rule, Nawaz Sharif managed tentative moves towards a reconciliation of sorts with the Opposition. Contrary to expectations Ms Benazir seems to have picked up the ball before going off to London to have a baby, causing consternation in both the camps on both counts. PPP’s PDA allies have not taken kindly to her seeming “surrender”, the IJI, fractious even at the best of times is at a loss how best to explain “victory” to their own recalcitrant constituent parties without upsetting the delicate state of present amicability.
Two paramount issues are bedevilling Pakistanis politics in early 1993, the election to the Office of the President and the repeal (or further amendment) of the 8th Amendment. Because of a sorry history of Presidential dismissals of incumbent Prime Ministers (two in three years), the said Amendment and the elections of the impending President have been quite unnecessarily lumped together. While the incumbent may have used it in extenuating circumstances in sacking the Ms Benazir Regime, he was certainly not the author of it. In simple terms, the 8th Amendment was initiated as a social contract between a dictator and the people, validating all the actions (bona fide or malafide) of the dictator during his period of military rule. It can be equated to a sort of a ransom paid by the people of Pakistan to get their fundamental rights restored, the choice was to keep on suffering under a despotic rule without recourse of accountability. The then elected representatives of Pakistan, led by Late Gen Zia’s hand-picked PM, swallowed their democratic pride and adopted the pragmatic course. They became its first victims.
The merciless use of the 8th Amendment without cause to dispose of Junejo’s Government as soon as it showed signs of growing out of their boots caused progress back to full democratic rule in Pakistan to stutter. In fact late Gen Zia did not even bother to appoint a Caretaker PM after firing Junejo till a promised election-to-be sometime in the future. Pakistan went into a state of limbo and while speculations were rampant and unverified, one fact was certain, late Gen Zia’s short-lived experiment towards unfettered democracy, was over.
The transition on 17 August 1988 was a Pakistani miracle that we tend to underplay. By a quirk of fate, the serving military hierarchy was democracy-minded, in the circumstances the best available civilian bureaucrat with any stature and governmental experience constitutionally in line to become the President. Three different events of August 17 shaped the future life of democracy in Pakistan, the death of Gen Zia and almost all his closest associates in the unfortunate air crash, the decision of Gen Aslam Beg and his colleagues not to opt for the martial law route and the accession of Ghulam Ishaq Khan to the Presidency. President Ishaq is unduly short-changed image-wise because there have been no initiatives (by others or himself) to promote his image in the media. President Ishaq tends to be a forbidding presence, unsmiling and grim, therefore he does not come across as a politically charismatic figure. He more than makes up in experience and capability. Above all, the errant within the bureaucracy are terrified of him. While the Army is tarred and feathered for three martial laws, basically each time it degenerated into an unfettered rule of the bureaucracy each time, with a few of the Army hierarchy existing as facade. It takes a bureaucrat to keep the bureaucrats under control, in all senses of the word President Ishaq Khan is a super-bureaucrat.
When the President sent the government of Ms Benazir packing, the Armed Forces, the bureaucracy and the populace were all upto their ears with the various excesses of PPP. Junejo’s was not really a popularly elected government in the full democratic sense and the military hierarchy remained as de facto rulers, Ms Bhutto’s unceremonious departure was more significant because of the lack of street protest, it was received by the population in studied silence. Nawaz Sharif was essentially conceived during Martial Law, then sustained and elevated in political stature by the backlash to the ill-advised attacks on him by Ms Benazir and PPP but he has President Ishaq to thank for his PM-ship. By all accounts Caretaker PM Mustafa Jatoi was the Establishment’s front-runner. Nawaz Sharif represented the authority of elected supporters, in comparison Jatoi would have been more amenable and pliable to continuing Presidential influence. By choosing Nawaz Sharif, President Ishaq took a giant step away from normal bureaucratic manipulations indicating clearly he was committed to a return into full democracy. Given that Nawaz Sharif was hell-bent in dismantling the controlled economy that President Ishaq had sustained as the topmost bureaucrat from 1977, till he became the President of the Senate, Nawaz Sharif’s induction as PM meant that Ghulam Ishaq Khan opted for the national interest over his personal inclinations.
Nawaz Sharif’s economic performances has been a brave act, most of the credit must go to him. Despite the many hurdles he has proceeded to denationalise, deregulate and disinvest at a more or less reasonable pace. His success in effecting economic reforms have yet to pay dividends. It takes time for the changes to take hold but he could not have effected the far-reaching changes smoothly unless he had the authoritative backing of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, as a President and as a former bureaucrat. All said and done, a remarkable economic turnaround is in the works. In his exuberance, the PM does go overboard sometimes and while his penchant for Motorways must be commended, a certain priority has to be adhered to as well as realistic time schedules set including the logistics of material. By pumping money into the economy one can kick start the economy, overdose brings with it an inherent danger of inflation, already into double digits. Being exposed to the disparity between the urban and rural areas must not only affect the PM as a leader but as a human being, that probably is the prime motivating factor behind his race to alleviate that poverty and misery. The impatience is also probably because of a 1995 election deadline.
There has been a dump-Nawaz Sharif movement around for some time as would be for any Prime Minister in Pakistan, the Junejo and Ms Benazir examples serving as incentives. No one should doubt that an “Agenda” of sorts existed but this went out of context with the sad demise of Gen Asif Nawaz. A motley collection of adventurers, some military men, ambitious bureaucrats and unscrupulous businessmen along with certain motivated media persons, had not yet managed to extract the necessary crucial support from the late COAS. There was enormous pressure on the President to sack the PM from various quarters but the President kept his cool and resisted this all along, notwithstanding his discomfiture during the Presidential Address to the Joint Session of Parliament in 1991 when Ms Benazir and cohorts staged an unseemingly protest farce without being countered by the Treasury benches.
The Presidential race may have kicked off too early because of Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan’s pique at Ms Benazir’s “deal” with the Government, some of the people have taken advantage of this to create controversy. The PML and PPP hierarchy are rumoured to have made a package “deal” that would have seen a joint Presidential candidate emerging, probably from the IJI but readily acceptable to the PPP and a quid pro quo repeal of the 8th Amendment. A matter of survival has been forced on the President by this exclusive and he has had to call in his IOUs early. By obtaining an exclusive mandate to name the Presidential Candidate from the PML Parliamentary Group and then keeping his options open, Nawaz Sharif has not helped matters any. At least it is an indication of sorts that he has been well advised not to make a Turgat Ozal-type bid for the Presidency. Five years and an economic miracle later, who knows?
The Americans have a saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. None of the President’s actions in Nawaz Sharif’s tenure merits that he should be ungrateful to the man he put in the Prime Minister’s chair in the first place. It would be quite unfair that while he should support Nawaz Sharif for over 2 years, particularly during the difficult period of the Coop and Daewoo scandals, he should not get reciprocation the one time he needs it. The present combination has worked well, the Prime Minister functioning effectively with very little interference from the President. President Ishaq’s present role may be likened to a Constitutional monarch in a Parliamentary democracy but even a Constitutional monarch has to lay down the law against excesses by an elected government lest they should go berserk. The President discreetly maintains a fine check and balance. Above all, the PPP has no love for either the President or the PM, they stand to gain by separating the combination.
Before the relationship goes completely sour, there is need to immediately check further erosion. Both stand to lose by coming asunder, Nawaz Sharif more than the President. For the economy to bring fruition, the PM needs at least 4-5 more years. Why change the status quo now when he is on a roll? Compromises with others are necessary in life. The IJI and PPP are political foes, their differences are far more difficult to bridge than the imaginary raison d’etre between Nawaz Sharif and the President.
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan does not need Nawaz Sharif, the constitutional numbers are with the incumbent President. The President needs 238 electoral votes to get re-elected but more importantly whoever is the Opposing candidate needs 238 votes to unseat him. Even if the PML and PPP could together muster over 140 votes in the National Assembly and the 43 electoral votes of the Punjab and maybe 21-30 more from others, they will fall far short of the total required. As things stand today, the President does not need the IJI, PPP or the National Assembly to get elected. Very discreetly, the PM should read the writing (and numbers) on the wall and go with the age old adage “if you can’t fight them, join them!”
While one strongly believes that the Presidential Elections should be an exercise of adult franchise in the future, we have to live for the present with the system that exists. Inadvertently a vacuum of sorts has been created and the unscrupulous are moving quickly to exploit it. The name of the game is quick rapprochement between the President and the PM. The PM should take a journey to the Presidential mansion before matters reach an impasse and give his unqualified support to the old man.
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