The Return of MQ Prime Minister-in-Waiting?
Former Caretaker PM Moeen Qureshi, flew into Pakistan in the early hours of April 14, 1994, almost 6 months to the day after he handed over power to the elected PM, Ms Benazir Bhutto. For those addicted to conspiracy theories, his visit seems to have been synchronized with that of US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott as well as carefully orchestrated to invite attention. It raises a pertinent question, what is MQ doing here at this time? For the Ms Benazir regime, this is certainly not a happy period. Given that a very bad precedent had been set in July 1993 for future Constitutional sleight-of-hands by forcing out an elected PM who commanded a substantial Parliamentary majority, speculation is rife that MQ is here to personally gauge the situation and if the political environment is conducive for a “national” government, indicate to the powers-that-be his availability to be of service to Pakistan in taking our chestnuts out of the ever-spreading quagmire. Unlike last time, when his credentials were only that of an international technocrat and he was an unknown quantity to the public-at-large in the field of governing third world countries, MQ’s Curriculum Vitae (CV) is now much more credible for any concerted sales effort by vested interests. Whether anyone likes it or not, there are many in this country who believe that an interim period of national government is necessary and for them MQ remains a very distinct possibility as a PM in-waiting. It is also true that no political government can survive a nuclear “rollback”, at least publicly, MQ has no such problem in delivering.
Less than 180 days after MQ handed over the reins to Ms Benazir, Pakistan is in much deeper trouble economically, politically, socially and externally than when he took over from Mian Nawaz Sharif. Some of Pakistan’s problems were inherited by Ms Benazir as they were inherited by Mian Nawaz Sharif before her. To cast a broad brush in apportioning blame on PPP alone would not be fair, however on one important count Ms Benazir’s PPP surpasses Mian Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N) by miles, most of her problems are either self-created or occasioned out of designed neglect. Caretaker PM Moeen Qureshi stemmed the rot that arose out of the civilian coup that had paralysed the Federal Government. By the time he left the country was on its way to a more or less stable economic condition with hopes for building adequate foreign exchange reserves. The present situation may not be one of extreme economic apprehension despite the fact that the price of atta is slowly edging past the reach of the common urbanite. However, it is nowhere as rosy as the government’s rhetoric presents. On paper, the country’s foreign exchange reserves has gone up to US$ 1.9 billion, unfortunately it seems the same bureaucrats who served Mian Nawaz Sharif “loyally” do not seem to be informing the PM that almost US$ 1.5 billion of these so-called “Reserves” are short term borrowings by different government and semi-government corporations. To test MQ’s intellectual honesty, one could well ask this technocrat what is his analysis of the state of country’s present foreign exchange reserves?
For the record, MQ did achieve a landmark status in Pakistan by providing a clean and honest government during his short stint as Caretaker PM. Quoting Mark Antony from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, “the good is oft buried with their bones, the evil lives after them”, unquote, but there is no real aspersion about corruption on the Caretaker Government. MQ tried to give the country free and fair elections (or at least the semblance of one) but even he was powerless to totally contain a powerful group within the Establishment (which had had enough of Mian Nawaz Sharif) from decisively tilting a crucial slate of 12-15 seats in urban-rural constituencies in PPP’s favour despite the PML (N) majority votes. More importantly MQ seemed to totally ignore the plight of the party representing the majority of the Mohajirs (the MQM obliged by committing political hari-kari in boycotting the NA elections and thus losing their 12-14 seats critical clout which had given them their national voice). Forced to raise prices, MQ defended himself against the street protests by railing against the “yellow cabs”, thus tilting the official media weight in line with Ms Benazir’s arguments, viz that the entire scheme was a financial disaster of the previous elected government’s making. Given MQ’s calling as that of a world economist, the credibility of this denouement was not lost on the populace. Moeen Qureshi enacted many reforms but none of them have survived the “democratic aftermath”of real-politik. This fact does not seem to have devastated him, in fact he seems to have come to terms with the fact that such reforms were media popular transactions at best and his task was limited to enacting them with fanfare, not ensuring their immortality. On a more personal basis he has been aroused enough on the “dual nationality” charge to call JI Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed a “patent liar”. On two important issues that he addressed, the publication of the lists of loan defaulters and the recipients of residential/commercial plots, he was pushed into action by Judge Tiwana of the Lahore High Court. His “vision” of Pakistan, as articulated to the senior officers of the Armed Forces at the National Defence College when he was Caretaker PM, thus became frustrated even before it was ever launched. Even now he has nothing to lose politically by strongly taking the present democratic government to task for ignoring his reforms but he will probably soft-pedal this. During his Caretaker PM-ship he showed the same pragmatism in not touching the intelligence services from playing their games since he had come to the PM-ship with their blessings. Instead of labelling this as lack of courage, one can call it justifiable “prudence” that he did not question their shenanigans. Reforms of the police and of the judiciary were not even mentioned as being on the cards but even then one can honestly state that MQ ‘s performance as Head of Government was extremely impressive. Except for a couple of self-serving Ministers, his cabinet colleagues were generally honest. His greatest achievement was to keep the political process from going out of control in the heat of the political campaign. He inherited near civil war conditions, he handed over a peaceful country to an elected government without any reservations.
One important issue that he gave benign neglect had today become the most explosive factor for Pakistan’s continued stability and integrity. The PPP does not seem to be addressing the continued MQM unrest because of the contrived absence of an MQM nuisance value at national level politics. No elections can be said to be fair when almost 5 million of Pakistan’s inhabitants (more than the entire population of Balochistan) have been disenchanfrised. While we cannot blame Moeen Qureshi for the manipulations that provoked MQM into a suicidal electoral abstinence, as Head of the Caretaker Government that oversaw elections MQ must share responsibility since he could have intervened positively by over-riding the vested interest that conspired to keep MQM out in the cold. For that matter he had an unique opportunity during his tenure in ensuring that both the major political groupings signed off on a sort of Pakistani “Magna Carta” that would ensure that the major problems confronting the country in the future would be a matter of consultation and consensus rather than confrontation. How many times did MQ call a meeting of the leaders of the major political groupings to sort out the mutual problems and get a commitment of combined purpose on the national issues? It is true that both the PPP and PML (N) were reluctant to enter into any dialogue, by not persuading them to be part and parcel of the “reforms” process, he gave all his excellent initiatives the kiss of political death.
While giving MQ the benefit of the doubt as regards his personal ambitions vis-a-vis Pakistan, the fact of the matter remains that despite what may simply be altruistic reasons for visiting Pakistan occasionally, the elected government of the day comes under pressure by his remaining available and thus acting “politically cute”. For all that MQ may know, inadvertently his presence is perhaps being used for blackmail of the political government by past masters of the art (or science) thereof to get their own personal ambitions sanctified? His statement that our nuclear exercise has been “capped” and only verification remains as a stumbling block gives ammunition to the conspiracy theorists that he is here on a different agenda, one that subordinates Pakistan’s critical concerns to serve western interests.
Mian Nawaz Sharif’s ouster was an extremely bad precedent for Pakistan’s democracy, it does not serve democratic purpose by putting Ms Benazir under similar pressure. One hopes that PML (N) will not fall prey to machinations of third parties which may or may not bring them back to power. They should continue their campaign to oust the government only by constitutional means. Two wrongs cannot make a right and certainly democracy does not stand to gain by it. Furthermore, the Head of Government must be a person committed to the political process in Pakistan, not a part-time political player. As much as one personally likes MQ, if MQ does not aspire to be a future Head of State or Government, it is important that he should publicly say so in order to dispel all doubts. In order to retain the credibility of a respected statesmen, he needs to stay in Pakistan rather than act as the political conscience of the nation from abroad. As much as one admires his capabilities, absentee landlords must either have permanent stakes in the land they call their own or become a part of history.
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