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The Empire Strikes Back

The political struggle between the President and the PM that initially commenced with having more to do with egos has subsequently developed into a vested interest in retaining power rather than the upholding of any deep-rooted principles. A mass of disinformation has been let loose by both the sides that has kept the masses agog and the intelligentsia on tenterhooks, the business community registering its nervousness at the prevailing uncertainty through a steep decline of the stock market. In a perverse sense the internecine conflict has been a net gain for Pakistan for it has exposed our Parliamentary system for the farce that it actually is, a weak and spineless mechanism prone to Presidential remote control. In the past five years two elected Prime Ministers had become victims of Presidential angst, a third PM has now bitten the dust. We might as well declare the Presidency as a monarchy and be done with such a sham for a democracy.

Despite their own reservations about both the primary personalities involved, sane elements (including this scribe) had been counselling rapprochement between the President and the former PM in the greater national interest till they were blue in the face but to no avail, egos having enlarged to the extent of taking preponderance over anything else. Given the fact that the world political situation has undergone major surgery and we are in the midst of a sustained economic transition, the present political tussle has added to the country’s roller-coaster existence. Despite attempts at appeasement by the PM and his colleagues, the President has been as unforgiving as ever, driving Nawaz Sharif into such a corner that in a most uncharacteristic and surprising move he declared independence of the Head of Government from the Head of State, not a bad thing in itself in a Parliamentary system. The President’s mood had blackened over the PM’s alleged “indiscretions” in deliberately delaying to nominate him immediately as the PML candidate for the next Presidential election as soon as he had the mandate from the PML and for suggesting a repeal and/or amendment of the 8th Amendment. Having learnt nothing from Munich and appeasement thereof, the former PM had backtracked smartly on both the issues but the trust factor had already evaporated and did not satisfy those around Ghulam Ishaq Khan baying for Nawaz Sharif’s blood, particularly those who felt left out of the political and administrative mainstream, a habit that fails to die among old bureaucrats. Attempting to hound the PM out of office by a combination of bluff and bluster, the President’s men made the cardinal mistake of crossing a fail-safe line of courage and self-respect that is an in-built quality in all human beings, the potential to fight back in extreme adversity. The President may now have the PM’s head on a platter by sacking him and dissolving the National Assembly but he should re-read Homer’s Iliad, the admonition of the mother of Achilles to Achilles was not to kill Hector as he would not survive Hector’s death by long. It is common knowledge that the President has an extremely pronounced Achilles Heel in the form of the Presidential sons-in-laws. The citizens of this country may be forgiven for feeling that the country is being held hostage on their behalf.

On Saturday last Nawaz Sharif committed the ultimate heresy on prime time radio and TV by launching into an unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) from the Establishment. While the fact of thus publicly attacking the Head of State is debatable, this amazing event touched a particular nerve in the electorate who responded positively. Fighting for his political survival, he came out swinging with both hands, giving one of the most rousing speeches of his entire political career. Without naming the President directly, he made no doubt as to who was responsible for hatching the conspiracies against him. Unlike the two PMs before him who were disposed of in such a manner that they did not have an opportunity to react while in Office, by taking the public initiative while still in control of the TV and radio, Nawaz Sharif raised the cardinal issue of governance in a Parliamentary democracy, Pakistan’s democratic future in this respect is thus now in balance. Nawaz Sharif may soon have strange bedfellows, some of his die-hard electoral opponents could well become reluctantly allied with him keeping in view the prevailing mood of the electorate. However, as the composition of the Caretaker Cabinet and statements of Ms Benazir have shown, the PPP clearly thought that the President (Go-Baba-Go) was the lesser of two evils. While Asghar Khan was denouncing the President, Ms Benazir was having high tea with him. That the President would certainly react was a foregone conclusion as the former PM’s speech had effectively made the President look like a lame duck. The President’s charge-sheet against the former PM makes interesting reading but the fact remains that the President’s reaction lacks the same credibility that he would have enjoyed if it had been done before the former PM’s Speech. By coming onto the front foot symbolically, Nawaz Sharif has opened up a whole gamut of interesting possibilities, not the least being that if democracy survives the present onslaught of the Establishment, we will not have rubber stamp PMs susceptible to Presidential diktat in the future. The President wrested the initiative to an extent by having him LBW on the front foot.

In stark terms, whether one supports Nawaz Sharif or not, he has become Sir Lancelot of the masses against the forces of civilian authoritarianism that relies mainly drawing-room political machinations rather than public support, stunting Pakistan’s political growth and severely restricting the economic emancipation of the masses. What Nawaz Sharif was resurrecting economically had actually reached the deepest doldrums in the first place because of a sustained period of economic mismanagement from 1977 to 1985. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was late Gen Zia’s economic Czar during this period. We have lived with the farce that the military has ruled the country over three martial law periods, this is not true. This is a falsehood that shall not stand! The military has certainly been responsible for imposing all the three martial laws but not more than three to six months later the actual rule of the country passed fully in each of the cases into the hands of the civilian bureaucracy. Even now the prop is the military but the real rulers are the Establishment. Where are the military associates of Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan or Ziaul Haq? Except for the odd person here and there, has anyone survived the respective regimes? On the other hand the likes of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Ijlal Haider Zaidi, Roedad Khan, Fazlur Rahman Khan etc, etc have been the real rulers along with their colleagues in every regime. Most of them are in their late 60s, 70s or 80s, no matter, unlike old soldiers (sic MacArthur) old bureaucrats never fade away. They simply maintain the facade of alternately either military rule or “democracy”. In effect a great scam has been perpetrated for too long a period starting with late Governor General Ghulam Mohammad.

Stalin is once supposed to have asked, “how many divisions does the Pope have?” The rule of civilian bureaucracy in Pakistan does not have the same platonic authority behind it as the Pope’s. While being mercilessly skewered and damned by bureaucrats in the eyes of the public, it is the Army which is always used by the bureaucrats as an instrument to maintain their rule. With the reins of the previous government in the hands of the elected representatives as well as of the two major intelligence agencies, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the President could only count on the loyalty of a few odd bureaucrats in the system to impose his authority, perforce he had to call on support from the Armed Forces as their Supreme Commander. But what really constitutes a “lawful command”, the controversial throwing out of a legally elected government? Suppose the Supreme Court decides in favour of the former PM, where does that leave the Army? In effect, every elected government has been sacked by Presidential prerogative in the past five years. The President may well be compared to the boy who cried wolf one time too many. If both the IJI and the PPP, with 76% of the vote between them, are reprehensible in turn, who remains clean? With the Army solidly behind him, the President removed Ms Benazir’s PPP in 1990 and Nawaz Sharif became PM after the subsequent elections. Thereafter, allied with Nawaz Sharif, the President contrived to ease out his close ally in that crisis, Gen Aslam Beg, from the scene. Having outlived his usefulness, Nawaz Sharif has now become expendable and Octogenarian Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the Great Survivor, has struck again with the Army again available as a Praetorian Guard to do his bidding, even though the military hierarchy must be aware of the fact that they are protecting his own individual interests rather than the national interest. Whose turn is it next?

Without going into the merits or de-merits of either the President or the former PM as individuals, one must clearly state that the present conflict is clearly between the elected representatives and the civilian bureaucracy in which the Army should have played a conciliatory role and in absence of being able to arrange amity thereof, remained absolutely aloof. In any democratic system, politicians must be able to exercise control over the administration, not the other way around. The result of the ongoing struggle will decide whether there will be accountability in Pakistan or a continued lack of it thereof. In the worst possible democratic system, some accountability will always be there but even in the most benevolent kind of authoritarian regime accountability will only be directed against opponents of the regime. For once, the army should open its eyes wide and refuse to become a protection squad for the bureaucracy that is really the ruling clique of Pakistan. It is immaterial as to which politician is in power, whether it is Nawaz Sharif, Ms Benazir, etc. At least these leaders have a constituency having been directly elected by the constituents to the National Assembly. Can anyone name anybody among the President’s closest circle of advisors who can win any elections on the basis of adult franchise anywhere? Let us take one litmus test of accountability, why is the Army not being permitted to have a go at the list of “Untouchables” in Sindh? Why is Gen Shafiq’s report not being made public? People who do not really know the COAS dub him as the President’s man, unfortunately he has now more or less confirmed it in the public perception despite the fact that those who do know Gen Waheed know that he is very much his own man, a professional whose actions will be governed more by his own conscience and the perception of the desires of the uniformed men around him. The acid test for Gen Waheed will lie in how he handles his personal feelings as an individual in relation to his instincts as a soldier with a commitment to national integrity, democratic principles and professionalism. One feels that the COAS should have kept the army really neutral and not allowed it to be used either by the President or the PM. A Head of State is a neutral symbol of the Federation, he has no Constitutional authority to give direct commands to government officials. In the presence of a Head of Government he can only exercise authority through the PM. The President exercises moral authority by remaining aloof from politics, not becoming a party to it. The writ of Federal power must remain in the hands of elected representatives not a selected clique operating through drawing-room intrigues who have become the rich elite by living off the fat of this land for decades, allying themselves alternatively with either the politicians or the Armed Forces to remain perpetually in power. The politicians as well as the Armed Forces must also wake up and look reality in the eye, they must stop being used by others against each other in turn. Whether one agrees with Nawaz Sharif or not the die has been cast by the former PM, either this country will be in the hands of those who are representative of the will of the people or be forever governed by the will of those who have nothing to do with the people. As a committed democrat Ms Benazir’s action was surprising in the context of morality, as a politician she chose what she perceives as the lesser of two evils, the PPP has a sorry history of taking wrong turns. At a historic crossroads, the PPP has again been found wanting.

Nawaz Sharif is not fighting for his political survival alone, whether one likes it or not, this child of dictatorship has become the champion of democracy in Pakistan whereas the actual symbol of democracy, Ms Benazir, is now allied to the very Empire she has been calling evil all over the Universe. Having witnessed the administrative restraints that former PMs Junejo, Ms Benazir and Nawaz Sharif functioned under, one wondered whether we would ever have a Prime Minister behaving as a Head of Government should? Frankly speaking, after hearing Saturday’s speech of the former PM, one finally believed that Pakistan finally had an independent Prime Minister! That he survived for only one day speaks volumes for those who either profess they are neutral or those who continue the hypocrisy about their so-called democratic principles.

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