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Idealism versus Pragmatism
In matters of State objective idealism always gives way to rank pragmatism. Gen Pervez Musharraf articulated his seven-point agenda within days of taking power, the vision was that of an idealist. In preparing the nation for real democracy, his solution is that of a pragmatist. And by the way there is no duality of personality here, over the past 38 years one has seen it to be in consonance with his character. Between the idealism the President embodies and the pragmatism he has adopted, the fault-line is blurred by the doctrine of necessity. In the hard world of realities and given the adverse circumstances, pragmatism is perhaps the only course that any leader of a beleaguered nation, such as ours could have adopted, not only for the sake of the nation, but being inexorably linked with the reforms he has enacted, for his own continuity. The starkest example was his swift decision in Sep 11, 2001 to abandon decades plus of foreign policy alignment to seek security for the State in a region made suddenly untenable for countries like Pakistan to continue civilized existence. Musharraf’s decision was certainly not popular, it was hugely unpopular among the masses, but in the given environment it was correct, Our heart may have been with the Taliban but it was neither logical nor right, we stepped at just the right time away from an extremism to which our masses have never subscribed to.
Crunch Time
That this military regime has been able to manage good governance as much as a basically corrupt system will allow without the formal declaration of martial law is no mean achievement. Yet in not being able to bring the Bhutto-Zardari combine and the Sharifs to justice as promised at the beginning of their tenure, the Musharraf government have managed to resurrect the fortunes of those who should have been politically dead and gone. The eloquent official waxing about our present rosy situation notwithstanding, what we have today is a political morass without great future for the country. Economically, we are far better off than on Oct 12, 1999, sound reforms and Sep 11 combining with really good monetary policies of the State Bank of Pakistan to provide a good base for economic resurgence.
Living in a glass house, the Choudhry Shujaats of this world do need the discretion of a front man, relatively clean (but nevertheless a nonentity outside of Lahore) Azhar is custom-built to take the heat, and if the electoral manipulation being blatantly done by the civil administration succeeds, odds – on favorite to be our next PM. Is this what Pakistan deserves? All the print and electronic media (barring PTV) have confirmed that the Choudhrys of Gujrat have Tariq Aziz as a friend, obviously he carries greater clout than Lt Gen Hamid Javed, the other Principal Staff Officer (PSO) to the Chief Executive. It is no secret that Tariq Aziz kept National Accountability Bureau (NAB) cynosure away from the Choudhrys. If Tariq Aziz was a corrupt, inefficient person, this would have been logical, but he is essentially a good man with misplaced loyalty to his friends superceding what should be responsibility and commitment to the people of Pakistan. That unfortunately happens to be Pakistan’s major problem in every level and strata of society, whether one is in politics, judiciary, the Armed Forces, civil administration, business, etc. nepotism and favouritism is always far more important than what one owes to the nation.
Misconceptions about NSC
In his address to the nation last Friday the President touched briefly on Afghanistan before turning to the major event in the future, the general elections on Oct 10, 2002 and the proposals for constitutional amendments thereof for good governance. He was extremely eloquent in elaborating the concept and mechanics the next day at the editors briefing. While the complete subject requires profound analysis and debate, one would like to concentrate on the fundamental misunderstanding of the concept and role of the National Security Council (NSC) as proposed in Pakistan and in vogue in other countries. This misconception badly needs to be corrected, at the moment we are jumping to conclusions because of misnaming of the entities, at least in the Pakistan context.
In the political sense, the NSC, as being proposed by the President, is an 11-member body composed of the President, the PM, the Leader of the Opposition, the four Chiefs Ministers and the four Service chiefs. This NSC would give the Armed Forces an indirect role in governance and act as a escape valve to avoid military intervention in the future. This would also put some restraint on the President in using his arbitrary powers under clause 58(2)b of the Constitution. Given the history of martial laws and dismissal of the PM (twice each Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif), there needs to be a mechanism to serve as a check and balance between the President and the PM. Critics say that the proposal gives too much power to an indirectly-elected President, they conveniently forget that in a parliamentary democracy the PM is also indirectly elected and derives his strength from the same source that gives the President the mandate also. As for giving the Armed Forces a role in governance, the proposal does not give any role in day-to-day governance but in fact mandates a monitoring function expressed as a minority (4 members out of 11) in the NSC.
Constitutional Proposals
The military regime last Wednesday solicited public opinion for the first batch of 29 constitutional amendments proposed by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) to improve the performance of political and democratic institutions of the country. The National Security Council (NSC) and the Federal Cabinet will meet after a month to finalize the amendments in the light of suggestions received.
Nobody should have any problems with (1) reducing the term of the National Assembly (NA) and the Senate from five and six years respectively to four (2) increasing the existing 207 NA muslim seats to 357 and (3) reducing the voting age from 21 years to 18 years. It is better for the Assemblies to finish their natural terms (even though reduced) rather than having them artificially shortened by arbitrary authority. The population growth necessitated the increase in seats and the precocious nature of modern youth the decrease in age. The Provinces should be happy with the relative increases in seats, both in the NA and the Provincial Assemblies.
Arrogance and Corruption
Despite the dire predictions of his many detractors, Pervez Musharraf will be credited by posterity with a number of positive initiatives/actions, a few more than others, viz (1) having called the Indian bluff despite having the whole Indian Armed Forces camped for six months on our borders, remaining calm and cool in not blinking under the most hostile external environment in the history of the nation and (2) carrying out accountability, if not fully at least nearly across the board. Apropos of the President’s comment about nuclear potential giving Pakistan strategic balance with India the main reason for avoiding war, the Indians fell over themselves in calling it as “nuclear blackmail”. There was an embarrassed silence a day later, when the consensus candidate for the Indian Presidency Mr Abdul Kalam, soon after filing his nomination flanked by BJP’s Vajpayee and Congress” Sonia Gandhi, said that the reason why Pakistan and India did not go to war was because of “nuclear detente”. Already proving to be a bit of an unguided missile, how long before this muslim is labeled as an ISI operative?
The military regime’s calm under a flurry of ultimatums and outright threats avoided panic in our own population. My touchstone was the many up-scale farmhouses in Bedian adjacent to the border near Lahore, no one evacuated. Conversely India had built up such a war hysteria that when the Pakistan missiles were test-fired in early May, sheer panic swept through the Indian population at the belated realization that no Indian city was safe from a Pakistan counter-attack. The bulk of foreigners in India voted their confidence in India with their feet, clogging the airports in a rush to exit. Over the past few months, investment into India has dried up. For Pakistan where investment is confined to burgers, shakes, french fries and ice creams, not good for health in any case, it hardly matters. The Indians finally got their sums right, calculating that their commercial losses far outweighed their political and diplomatic profit in browbeating Pakistan and trying to label us a “terrorist State”. Before any sensor could be put on the LOC, Chief Monitor Fernandes surmised that infiltration cross-border had almost ceased! Thank you, George, for providing the comic relief during a period of extreme tension!
90 Minutes in an Hour of Crisis
In the first exclusive one-on-one comments made after the much-awaited Jan 12 speech, General Pervez Musharraf annunciated the parameters he set out for himself, “I wanted to address issues bedeviling Pakistani society and focus on priorities, confront internal problems damaging Pakistan’s image internationally and raise the morale of the Pakistani nation and, lastly, lay out support for the Kashmiri people without it being labelled as cross-border terrorism or compromising Pakistan’s sovereignty and self-respect, i.e. a good enough signal to India that I wanted to pursue the peaceful route in Kashmir but I wanted them to clearly understand that they could not bully us, we were ready to fight if we had to”.
Given not only a national but a world-wide audience, he said “I had no room for vacillation or empty rhetoric, I had my work cut out for me”. A day earlier, the Indians had tried to provoke him (and Pakistan’s manliness) through a rather strange Press Briefing by the Indian COAS Padmanabhan in which he virtually threatened Pakistan with nuclear extermination. Musharraf said, “militarily I can equate my speech as attacking across a minefield to capture vital ground, the danger very much visible from the enemy’s small arms and artillery fire but also the invisible ones like the mines planted just beneath the surface. I had to keep my cool.” With positive reactions flowing in from within the country and from outside, even the Indians gave grudging acceptance. Pervez Musharraf clearly achieved his “vital ground”, credibility in the comity of nations, quite something for any Pakistani leader.
Playing Nuclear Chicken
India played nuclear chicken with Pakistan and the world blinked. The President’s swift decision to go with the Coalition against terrorism, and thus against the Taliban in Afghanistan, gave the world (and many of our countrymen) a wrong perception that under pressure he was a pushover. Bureaucrats have it right when they caution new entrants from taking decisions expeditiously. You will be called “hasty”, they say, delay the decision-making, be “deliberate”. Pervez Musharraf was right in opposing terrorism emanating from Pakistan’s backyard and he was not going to allow hell to freeze over before taking a decision. The vast middle ground among the intelligentsia and the masses supported him then, and still supports him on this issue. The President gauged the west’s mood after 9/11 very correctly and he confounded friend and foe alike by being decisive for Pakistan’s sake at a moment of world truth. The religious parties took to the streets and even though the country waited with bated breath the fanatical lot failed to excite the masses, who while plainly aggrieved at the abandonment of the Taliban to their fate, knew that the President had done right by the country. A sustained Indian media and diplomatic campaign thereafter has successfully blurred “freedom fighters” from “terrorists”. One can only imagine to what lengths India would have gone to if Pervez Musharraf had delayed even by a few days. Putting it bluntly, we can resist and even counter an Indian offensive, would we have been able to simultaneously resist concentrated US and allied airpower? And to what purpose?
Media Strategy Failure
If one can orchestrate a barrage of lies to the media long enough, it will eventually be broadcast to the world as the truth. Take for example, the theory that India will do a limited strike in Kashmir as punitive action and hard-pressed Pakistan will be forced to react across the international border in an all-out war. The surmise is that since India has greater numbers in conventional forces and Pakistan has no strategic/tactical depth, Pakistan will eventually be forced into first use of nuclear weapons at the tactical level and such an exchange may well escalate very quickly into all-out nuclear war. This makes out Pakistan to be an irresponsible “rogue” State whose nuclear weapons are a menace to the world at large. This is far from the truth. In 1965 Operation Gibraltar was a brilliant plan but it had one major flaw, the conditions within Occupied Kashmir were not conducive to guerrilla warfare. Today, that situation is totally reversed, a full fledged guerrilla war mostly indigenously nurtured has been a fact of life for a dozen years even though they are badly outnumbered and outgunned by better trained and equipped Indian forces, the Kashmiris are hardened guerillas and can tie up the operations and logistics of Indian forces on the frontline. What will happen if a few thousand well armed totally motivated commandos infiltrate a number of locations across the “Line of Control” (LOC) to bolster their strength? This time motivation is at its height, and the Indians have created the right conditions by their inhuman behaviour, surrounded by a hostile population up in arms anything can happen. Remember what happened to the Indians when the Chinese got behind them in 1962 in NEFA. Who will then be ready to resort to nuclear weapons? This very likely scenario is ignored by the media.
Our media strategy failures started with the Kargil crisis when a brilliantly executed tactical military plan having strategic dimensions became a diplomatic disaster because of lack of strategic media harmony duly orchestrated by the government of the day. Despite the fact that on the ground a terrible toll was taken from the Indians sent to dislodge those occupying the mountain-tops, our credibility took a sustained pounding in the international media and the Indians had a field day. While taking at least 4 to 5 times the number of casualties we had, the Indians went on a media blitz to claim victory on the one hand, while successfully tarring and feathering whatever official line we dished out. The domestic reward for the BJP government was electoral success, enough for them to head a credible coalition.
Tidal Wave 2002
A few days before Referendum 2002 a crude poll conducted by Research & Collection Services revealed that, viz (1) the turnout would be less than 30% and (2) 65% of those responding to the queries would support the President. This poll was conducted over 93 cities/towns and adjacent rural constituencies, there was plus/minus 5% margin for error in this poll. By 12:30 pm on Referendum Day the feedback from the staff in the field concluded that the poll was spectacularly wrong on both counts. Except for Quetta, some parts of interior Sindh and a few places in Karachi, the polling throughout the country was brisk, the turnout already crossing the 30% mark. In exit polls, slightly more than 90% were openly favouring the President, only 2-3% demurred. Between 2 pm and 4 pm voting slowed considerably because of the intense mid-afternoon heat, by 5 pm there was a rush to meet the 7 pm deadline. The 60% plus turnout claimed by the government is therefore credible.
Where and why did the pre-Referendum forecast go wrong? First and foremost the voters were well motivated towards the President. Even while complaining that the present governance was far from satisfactory, many did not want Ms Bhutto or Mian Nawaz Sharif misgoverning them again. Third, almost 15 million voters are under the age of 21, voting age being reduced to 18. Owing no allegiance to any political party and brought up on political horror stories, they cast their vote en bloc for the President. His hard stance towards the militancy of the religious parties was another factor. Lastly the increased number of polling stations, 164000 in all, almost 6 times the normal electoral day average, increased the voter turnout manifold as it allowed easy voting throughout the day. As someone remarked, everyone and his mother-in-law went out to vote, many had never voted before. The same refrain remained throughout the country. There were certainly voter irregularities, mainly, viz (1) voters not having their identities properly checked (2) the indelible ink coming off and (3) repeated voting. These did not have official sanction much and were not in such large numbers as to affect the voting turnout, which hovered around 60%. Of the 40% who stayed away, at least half were hard-core supporters of the opposition political parties.
The Rainbow Coalition
A week or so into the Referendum process, the equation has changed drastically in favour of the President, the rallies to muster support having only marginally to do with it. While the process of transformation from a soldier to a soldier-politician will have created new dynamics in his personality, Pervez Musharraf will never become a politician. It is out of character for him to deliberately represent something as true when he knows it is untrue. Most politicians fail to accept something as true even when they know it to be such. On April 16 he did his best to sound political, the Press Conference only managed to reinforce his military identity. Even his apology for the more-loyal-than-king police baton charge on journalists in Faisalabad was revealing, he did not like what happened and therefore was not averse to the need for “damage control” but as the Commanding Officer he took responsibility for the action of his subordinates and was not about to throw the Punjab Governor to the wolves.
What the President has managed in the past week is very far-reaching, a decisive shift in the political landscape in Pakistan. In the 1965 Presidential race between Field Marshal Ayub Khan and Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, 80000 Basic Democrats acted as an electoral college. In 1984, Gen Ziaul Haq used Referendum as a sleight of hand. In keeping with his character and his penchant for taking calculated risks Pervez Musharraf has opted for a far more transparent process, a mixture of 1965 and 1984 with the realities on the ground in 2002. By choosing direct universal franchise over the indirect process of an electoral college, Musharraf has pre-empted democratic protest by reaching into the very basics of democracy. And very intelligently he has put the Nazims and Naib Nazims of the Local Bodies under notice to get off the fence and be counted, using the grassroots rulers as vote musterers rather than being voters only. Everyone and his uncle knows that while the Local Bodies election were fought on a non-party basis, nearly 80% of these elected owe their existence to one party or the other. Once in power in various municipalities, the elected officials have been forced to stay with the “party-less” fiction, according to the laws availing they could be disqualified. Moreover, those who have been elected to the Local Bodies have a vested interest in keeping the system in place. Virtually a District Governor, a Nazim has authentic political power in his area, far more than any MNA/MPA had, or even a Federal/Provincial Minister. Why should he voluntarily give up the new status quo, he has far more power being elected locally than being a small cog in the nation’s capitals. The result has been nothing short of devastating.