Has the 60-day Clock Started Ticking?
The Supreme Court decision on May 26 last year signalled the beginning of the end of the “Empire”. It restored Mian Nawaz Sharif as PM of the Federation and seemed to signal to an excited population that for all practical purposes the machinations of backroom politics (selections) would give way in the future to a genuine representation (elections) of the people at the helm of national affairs. By this token both major political parties would seem to benefit, they had youthful leaders who aroused universal adulation, this was reflected in the near equal October 1993 vote. However, the Empire was not yet quite finished and even while conducting a deliberate retreat, it manoeuvred new alliances (1) ensuring that Mian Nawaz Sharif would not acquire the power that democracy bestows on the elected and (2) the Empire helped Ms Benazir to come to power even though the vote was too close to call and in that process acquired enough IUOs from her to make the going tough whenever she was faced with a political crunch. Because the powers-that-be had contrived to confine his Federal authority to the perimeters of Islamabad and to avoid being frustrated in exercising his Constitutional parameters, which would invoke civil war conditions, Mian Nawaz Sharif quit on July 18, 1993. CMs Mir Afzal Khan (in NWFP), Wattoo (in Punjab), Magsi (in Balochistan) and Muzaffar Shah (in Sindh) were in open defiance of Federal rule. Less than a year later, it would be an understatement to state that the PPP Government in NWFP is shaky at best, Wattoo in Punjab takes advice from everybody but does not listen to anybody, the Government in Sindh is in a state of paralysis because of the PPP-MQM rural-urban divide and Magsi in Balochistan remains very much an independent soul. For Constitutional purists, the Provincial “Autonomy” being presently exercised may not be a bad thing by itself, for a nation increasingly at odds internally on any number of issues, the Centre cannot afford to lose its pre-eminence, given the example of fragmentation of unions along ethnic lines as seen to great detriment in Eastern Europe and former USSR.
The Men Who Would be President
The General Elections has evoked such focus of attention that the Presidential elections, most important of all in the context of the practical experience of politics in Pakistan over the years, has been virtually sidelined. The period between the end of the General Elections and the Presidential elections being less than a fortnight, the parties must at least indicate their possible choices, their actual preference could be announced till after the Elections. The present conspiracy of silence will give room for backroom manipulations. The Constitutional requirements about fulfillment of qualifications by the Presidential aspirants should be so transparent that not an iota of doubt or controversy should exist. Though his bureaucratic shortcomings were well known, Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK) made a fine start as President, succumbing later to his baser instincts and destroying the respect he had earned in the ushering in of democracy. GIK brought the country to the brink of political and economic apocalypse by manipulations that froze all government activity. Such tendencies for malfeasance and subterfuge must be examined thoroughly in the individual Presidential aspirant.
As the point man in the struggle against late Gen Zia’s Martial Law, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan was the obvious preference of Ms Bhutto and her allies but he was ditched by her in December 1988 in fulfillment of the package deal (made in Washington, not in Heaven) she had to accept to come to power. Often derided for his lack of a popular base of support, the Nawabzada has been a necessary cog for the Opposition for the last three decades in combining against a ruler, dictatorial or democratic. As a COP leader, he saw the end of President Ayub Khan, as a PNA leader the last of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and as a PDA leader, first the dismissal and later the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Respected among the politicians’ community, the Nawabzada nevertheless does not command that much admiration within military or bureaucratic circles as a potential President should. A possible candidate of the rapidly unravelling PDA, PPP’s political pragmatism may mean he is already deemed expendable. There are rumours that former CM Mir Afzal Khan, much more of a wily fox than GIK, may have opted out of taking part in the elections to the Assemblies on “health grounds” to remain a viable PPP candidate for President. His tendency to switch sides and principles on an “as required basis” are well known.