Parliament and Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf’s military regime has been exceedingly ill-served by legal advice as to the mode of transition to democracy, half measures cannot paper over problems, either have full democracy or military rule, nothing in-between. Trying to run the country by liberal quasi-democratic means is a non-starter, Indus culture respects only absolute power. As the only military rule in history where media has been allowed to function freely, and even flourish, given grudging respect in some quarters, what else has the military got? Pakistanis want democracy and were comfortable with the fact that the process had started with elections to the Local Bodies but the Referendum was mismanaged, comparable to the Ayubian 60s PR disaster “Decade of Reforms”, a popular President (and Musharraf remains popular even today among the masses) was made “unpopular” in media-served perception.
Having contested the general elections under the Legal Framework Order (LFO), the Opposition has called into question the basis of these elections. Why not oblige them and scrap the results? As a major sticking point the LFO incorporates the proposal for a National Security Council (NSC) and Presidential powers to dismiss the Prime Minister (PM). While the transition from military to civilian rule needs to be eased through a staggered exit strategy, why should the President voluntarily become a lame-duck civilian incumbent in the present internal and external environment? With the Opposition behaving as it is, would not that put us from the frying pan into the fire? The Opposition cannot swallow the fact of Pervez Musharraf’s retaining the post as COAS in a democratic set-up. As one of those who strongly believe that the military must be subservient to civilian rule and that a serving uniformed person cannot be a Head of State of a democratic country, one cannot close one’s eyes to the fact that we are passing through extraordinary geo-political and domestic circumstances, can we gamble with the sovereign integrity of the country as we did in 1971? Creating a precedent may be unwise, do we have a choice? The use of abusive language in the Upper and Lower Houses desecrates the sanctity of Parliament and stokes the military’s recurring fear, the politician will take this country down the drain. The President’s stance that he would not address the Joint Session of Parliament in the face of the “uncivilized behaviour” of the Opposition-created ruckus is justified. Why should the President subject himself to abusive behaviour by a mob that forswears universally accepted “Parliamentary language”?
Elsie is Not a Girl
Unlike most nations where individuals excel in some discipline or the other, Pakistan has been blessed with professionals of world comparison but we do not seem to recognize this varied excellence. It would be nice from time to time to eulogize our own potential. Which other country can boast pilots and doctors of world compare in such large numbers, or for that matter, bankers? Even in sports, hockey and squash we ruled the world for quite some time, in cricket we have (and have had) the best individual players. Many of today’s top airlines in the Middle East and Asean made their beginnings on the strength of PIA’s airline management staff, pilots and engineers, two of the largest hotel chains in the world began with PIA’s participation. Let us recognise Air Marshal Nur Khan’s initiative in most of these fields of excellence.
Agha Hasan Abedi turned Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) into one of the leading banks of the world. The institution remained very much synonymous with the personality of its maker. The seamy side in the Bank’s operations may have suited special clients but without Agha Sahib’s constant monitoring the whole system had a tendency to explode in the face of its investors and it did. With bad legal advice and gung-ho activists in collecting “private deposits”, BCCI became vulnerable (So-called Black Network, 30 July 91 THE NATION) and thus targeted for extinction. Big money transactions are commonplace in every large international bank (there being a very tenuous fail-safe line with respect to money laundering), BCCI was singled out for punitive action and a dream based on Pakistani professional competence was brought to an end (The Collapse of a Dream, 30 July 91, THE NATION) with the reputation of Pakistani bankers in shreds, or was it? Pakistani banking professionals continued to excel in other international banks, particularly Citibank (The Banking Professionals, 15 Oct 91 THE NATION). Our present Finance Minister, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, is on leave of absence as Head of “Private Banking” in Citibank, the largest conglomerate in the world, formed by a merger of Citibank and Travellers Group. Habib Bank’s Shaukat Tarin, UBL’s Zubyr Soomro (both Citibank) and NBP’s Mohammadmian Soomro (Bank of America), all left US$ one million plus (Rs.5 crore plus in today’s Pakistani Rupees) salary packages abroad when they were motivated to return to Pakistan in 1997. And this when not counting their bonuses in preferred stocks which ran into millions more! Under very trying political circumstances, all three have been very successful in bringing the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) back from virtual extinction. In comparison Allied Bank, run by the old crowd, has been a virtual role model for corruption, inefficiency and nepotism of the worst kind. Messrs Tarin, Soomro and Soomro’s virtuoso performance was achieved by assembling a bunch of Pakistani professionals in the banking industry from abroad, almost all of whom were persuaded to leave secure jobs at the call of their country. As financial compensation they opted for less than 20% of what they were getting abroad. Worst off was probably Mr Moinuddin Khan, who resigned as Head of Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, to come as Chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR). Faced with public criticism at his “high salary” in Pakistan and the foreign exchange crisis post-May 28, 1998 he opted to work without salary, living off his savings. The moment he started to give sleepless nights to the “fat cats”