Anwar Syed
Politics in Punjab by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
October 19th by Anwar Syed.
WE the Punjabis have never excelled in the art of associating together to pursue the common good. A few relevant cases described below may be of interest.
An unceasing quest for dominance destabilised the Punjab Muslim League and its government within weeks of the country’s establishment. On Aug 16, 1947 Nawab Mamdot, the party’s provincial president, became the chief minister. Mumtaz Daultana, one of the party’s leading men, was taken as a minister in his cabinet. He did not think much of Mamdot’s standing as a landed aristocrat or his abilities as a politician and administrator.
By the end of December the estrangement between the two became widely known and began to create factional divisions in both the administration and the party organisation. Mr Jinnah twice summoned them to Karachi to resolve their differences but his efforts failed. The governor, Sir Francis Mudie, also tried to bring about a reconciliation between them but he too failed.
Mumtaz Daultana resigned his cabinet post in June 1948. In November he ran for the party president’s office against Mamdot’s nominee, Alauddin Siddiqui, and won by a small margin. He proceeded to campaign for Mamdot’s removal as chief minister and got a little more than one half of the party’s MPAs to sign a statement demanding his resignation. Daultana sent word of this statement to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and advised him to dismiss the Mamdot ministry.
Liaquat Ali Khan came to Lahore in January 1949 and Mamdot showed him a statement signed by a majority of the MPAs expressing confidence in him. The prime minister noticed that the names and signatures of several MPAs appeared on both statements.
Instead of asking the governor to call the assembly to session to show whether Mamdot had majority support, he advised the governor general to dismiss the Mamdot ministry, dissolve the assembly, and impose governor’s rule in the province.
The Punjab Muslim League council met on July 24, 1950 but the meeting turned chaotic. Mian Abdul Bari, its president at the time, failed to restore order and left the meeting along with Mamdot and their supporters. Daultana and his supporters stayed on, dismissed Bari and elected Soofi Abdul Hamid, a Daultana nominee, as president. Despondent, Mamdot left the Muslim League and set up a party of his own called the Jinnah Awami Muslim League.
Provincial assembly elections were held in March 1951 which the Punjab Muslim League won with a landslide and elected Daultana as the chief minister. He got the position for which he had resorted to manipulation and intrigue for four years. His dominance in the PML and the government in Punjab would, however, last only a couple of years.
Following the elections of 1970, Punjab emerged as the stronghold of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the PPP. Ahmad Raza Kasuri, one of the party’s founding members, denounced Bhutto’s decision to stay away from the National Assembly session scheduled for March 3, 1971. He tried to set up a faction within the party but eventually left to join Asghar Khan’s Tehrik-i-Istaqlal. Mukhtar Rana, a militant socialist and effective labour leader in Faisalabad, criticised Mr Bhutto’s ‘fascist’ inclinations. He was sent to prison on a charge of inciting violence and, allegedly, died under torture.
Fist fights between PPP factions were reported from several Punjab towns as far back as May 1972. Higher party dignitaries were by no means above factional rivalries. Sheikh Rashid, one of the venerated party elders, was president of the Punjab PPP while Ghulam Mustafa Khar, known to be close to Mr Bhutto, was the secretary general. He, being the domineering type, did not want to work with Rashid who was popular with many of the party leaders and workers. At the beginning of 1972, Khar became Governor of Punjab but retained his party post.
Khar as governor had influence with the provincial police and controlled some of the government patronage. He used these levers, and his reputation as Bhutto’s friend, to harass and dislodge Rashid’s supporters. By May 1973 there was hardly a party branch organisation in Lahore that had any pro-Rashid functionaries.
In a party ‘reorganisation’ in the summer of 1973, Sheikh Rashid lost his position and a Khar nominee, Mohammad Afzal Wattoo, one of the few PPP candidates to have been defeated in the 1970 elections, replaced him. Thus Khar emerged as the effective head of both the government and the party in Punjab. But as in the earlier case of Daultana, his glory would be short-lived: he was forced to resign his post in March 1974.
Coming to more recent times, we saw Shahbaz Sharif and the PML-N members in his cabinet asking the PPP ministers to go away. They argued that since the PML-N had withdrawn from the PPP-led government at the centre, the PPP ministers in Punjab should be nice guys and reciprocate. This was poor reasoning. Nawaz Sharif withdrew his men from the central government because he was unhappy with Asif Zardari, who had gone back on his promise to reinstate the deposed judges. But the PPP ministers in Punjab were not unhappy and had no reason to quit their posts.
It would have been proper for Shahbaz Sharif to throw out the PPP ministers if they had been particularly corrupt or incompetent, or if they had been obstructionists in cabinet meetings. But none of that was alleged. The real reason for the PML-N’s demand has never been revealed. I venture to suggest that it may have been something like the following:
As the recently reported settlement between the two sides tells us, the PPP ministers wanted their share of development funds and jobs, and they wanted their advice concerning the postings and transfers of officials in their areas to be heeded. This would have shown their constituents that they were doing a good job for the folks back home and would incline them to vote for the same aspirants in the next election.
Shahbaz Sharif and company did not want these PPP politicians to win next time. They wanted to replace them with their own people who would use funds and jobs to ingratiate themselves with the PPP’s current voters and defeat that party’s candidates in the next election.
In other words, it was the PML-N’s design to drive the PPP, its main rival, out of Punjab. It is good that eventually wiser counsels prevailed.
Source l DAWN
Accountability of rulers by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
September 28th by Anwar Syed.
ACTIONS have consequences that catch up with us sooner or later. But this law of nature does not seem to apply equally to rulers. Presidents and prime ministers often get away with the improprieties they may have committed. The procedure for punishing their wrongdoing is very tedious.
An American president may be removed for his violations of the law through impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate. Actually, no president has ever been forced out of office. President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1866 but the move to convict him failed by one vote in the Senate. Richard Nixon, facing the danger of impeachment over the Watergate break-in scandal in 1974, resigned. The House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton for perjury in connection with his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, but the Senate acquitted him.
In parliamentary democracies a prime minister may be removed by his own party or by the voters at the next election. Another way is for a majority in the lower House of parliament to pass a vote of no-confidence against him. Governments have fallen in this manner in some European countries, notably France, but I can’t recall the same having happened in recent British history. Nor has the central government in India or Pakistan fallen as a result of a no-confidence vote.
The constitution of Pakistan allows the president to dissolve the National Assembly where the prime minister is the leader of the majority party. If the assembly is gone, so is the prime minister. This is a weird method for the president to get rid of an unwanted prime minister in that the institution being penalised — the National Assembly — has done no wrong. Presidents Ziaul Haq, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Farooq Leghari resorted to this method. They did so because they did not get along with the prime minister, but the reason they gave in each case was that her/his government had been corrupt.
Condemnation of corruption from the public platform is loud even though it appears to be deeply entrenched in the Pakistani political culture. All decent men will vote for the ways and means that can be effective in eradicating corruption. I am, however, very sceptical of the efficacy of two of them.
If my recollection is correct, it was during Mr Nawaz Sharif’s second term as prime minister that an agency called the Ehtesab Bureau was set up. It went after Mr Sharif’s predecessors in power — Benazir Bhutto, her husband and associates — and filed numerous cases of corruption and misuse of authority against them to be heard in courts located in different places so that the accused had to run from one city to another to present their defence. These cases went on for long as did cases filed under the National Accountability Bureau installed by Gen Musharraf in 1999.
One reason for these cases to drag on was that the charges in most of them were said to be bogus, the supporting evidence was inadequate and the prosecution incompetent. Another reason was that the sponsoring government was more interested in harassing and tiring out its rivals than in delivering justice. Charges were also brought against other public officials such as former ministers, legislators, and civil servants, but on a partisan basis. Those among the corrupt who had made deals with the current regime were left alone. Friends of the bureau’s own staff were also spared. Plea-bargaining and out-of-court settlements were allowed in which the accused surrendered a part of his loot and was let go. NAB became notorious as the regime’s instrument to persecute its political opponents.
There has been some talk of disbanding NAB, which is a good idea but has not been implemented so far. Its funding has been reduced substantially and as a result it has had to lay off many employees. Perhaps it will have a slow death by attrition.
Let us now look at another way to detect and deter political corruption being used in Pakistan. The Representation of the People Act of 1976 requires legislators to submit annual statements of their assets and liabilities to the chief election commissioner (CEC). These statements are to cover, in addition to the legislator himself, his spouse and dependents.
According to a recent news report, the CEC has called upon members of parliament and the provincial assemblies to submit their statements by Sept 30, 2008. Failure to do so will result in the suspension of the defaulter’s membership of the relevant assembly. This requirement is open to several objections.
First, the CEC is being asked to deal with some 1,200 statements. He is most unlikely to have the skilled manpower to examine that many statements and compare them with those filed during the preceding years to see if any extraordinary increase has been taking place.
Second, those filing the statements will probably understate their assets and overstate their liabilities. The election commission is in no position to verify their accuracy.
Third, unlike officials in the executive branch, legislators do not have the power to offer or deny citizens substantial gains. They may obtain small favours for their constituents by interceding on their behalf with ministers and civil servants whom they happen to know well, but their ability to do so is limited. They cannot make a whole lot of money through corrupt practices even if they want to. The CEC’s annual scrutiny of their assets would then seem to be a dysfunctional exercise.
Fourth, assets include not only money in the bank, which can be counted, but also immovable property such as homes and their contents (furniture, appliances, paintings and other works of art), which the election commission has no way of evaluating.
Fifth, while an income tax officer is admittedly entitled to look into a taxpayer’s income, the furnishings in his house should be none of his or any other public agency’s business. The government’s entitlement to know must be weighed and balanced against the individual’s right to privacy. This right applies with even greater force to the rubies and diamonds that the legislator’s good wife may happen to own. Her affairs should be entirely beyond any public official’s reach.
The apparatus of accountability has not worked well in Pakistan. It needs to be reconsidered and redesigned.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts.
Uses of ambivalence by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
September 21st by Anwar Syed.
AMBIGUOUS are words, phrases, or statements that are open to more than one interpretation. Ambivalence is a state of mind in which a person entertains at the same time two opposite inclinations towards the same object, person or situation (as a ‘love-hate’ relationship).
A man is ambivalent when he has not yet decided on which side of the fence he wants to be.
Ambiguity is an art that diplomats and politicians cultivate and practise when they don’t want their audience to know what exactly they have done or intend to do. It leaves them the option of later denying that they had said what they were understood to have said.
I remember reading about a debate in the House of Commons during which the government was asked whether it had been negotiating with the Hamas leaders in Lebanon. Jack Straw, a master of ambiguous speech, rose to address the question and left his listeners in a state of wonder as to what might have happened.
Eventually they understood Straw to have said the following: The government was not negotiating with Hamas; British representatives had not conferred with Hamas spokesmen; there was a military wing of Hamas with which no contact had been or would be made; then there was a political wing with which contact might be considered; two junior British diplomats had met two individuals who did belong to Hamas, but they had met the latter not as Hamas leaders but as mayors of their respective towns; they had talked but not conferred or negotiated.
The United States has never subscribed to the ‘two China theory’ and has always conceded that Taiwan is a part of China. Were China to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, that would be its domestic affair. The United States accepts the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. Yet, it has been giving Taiwan military assistance since the 1950s to enable it to resist Chinese military action on the island. At one time some American commentators even viewed Taiwan as a potential counterpoise to mainland China.
Considering that the United States and China have sought ‘normalisation’ of relations since President Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, the American posture described above could be regarded as one of ambivalence. But note that it did not result from confusion; it was a deliberately chosen policy of keeping one’s options open. It meant that the situation was not ripe for a definitive choice. When one of the two opposite courses being pursued emerges as the more advantageous, the other would be given up. It is not uncommon even for parties at war to negotiate the terms of peace even while fighting is still going on.
Pakistan and India have been pursuing a ‘peace process’ to build a relationship of peace, amity and cooperation. Their representatives have had several rounds of a ‘composite dialogue’ with a view to resolving their various disputes, including the one relating to Kashmir. But at the same time, each side accuses the other of sending agents to sabotage its political and economic order. These allegations may be exaggerated but they are not entirely unfounded. Thus, each side has adopted an ambivalent attitude towards the other. That is the case because neither side has yet concluded that the other is not an enemy.
Pakistan is America’s foremost ally in fighting terrorism. Believing that it cannot fully eradicate the militants in its tribal areas adjoining Afghanistan, American aircraft and ground troops have been hitting suspected Taliban hideouts on Pakistani territory, Many Pakistanis see this action as a violation of their sovereignty and virtually as an American invasion of their country. It has caused them intense anger and anguish. The government of Pakistan does not have the will or the capacity to stop these American raids, but it does not want to admit this fact to its people. Its public response to the situation is understandably ambiguous.
Gen Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, rejects the American argument that the ‘rules of engagement’ allow its forces to pursue the enemy to his hiding places wherever they may be. The country’s borders, he says, will be defended “at all costs”. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has endorsed Gen Kayani’s statement, adding that Pakistan cannot allow any external force to breach its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Other Pakistani officials say also that the Taliban and their doings are this country’s domestic concern and, under international law and conventions, these are none of an external power’s business. The foreign office has repeatedly conveyed its protest against America’s incursions into Pakistan’s tribal regions to Washington.
Sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of national frontiers, domestic jurisdiction and non-intervention are terms that may have had precise meanings at one time. But, as a result of globalisation, they have all become ambiguous. Nations are sovereign in law but not in actual fact. It is no longer conceded that what a government does to its people within its own borders does not concern outsiders. As the world becomes a ‘global village’, the distinction between external and domestic has faded to an extent. Illegal immigrants cross the borders of rich and powerful states every day and many of them get away with it. Illegal aliens abound in America and most of the other highly industrialised countries.
It is possible that Pakistan’s protests are meant more for domestic consumption than they are addressed to America. They may be intended to cause the impression that the government will not take American violations of the country’s territory lying down. But in fact that is exactly what it is doing. It does not have the capacity, and therefore the will, to use force against the American intruders. It suspended the supply of fuel and other necessities to the ‘coalition forces’ in Afghanistan but allowed them back again a day or two later. Pakistani fighters have carried out reconnaissance flights over the tribal area but it is most unlikely that they will shoot down any American planes that enter Pakistani airspace.
American officials have been intervening in Pakistan’s domestic affairs, usually at its own invitation, for more than 50 years. Their current intervention, even if it is intended to serve their own interest, is nothing new. It will go on as long as they think it is necessary. There is nothing that Gen Kayani or Prime Minister Gilani will or can do about it.
Source: DAWN.com
Struggling for democracy by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
September 7th by Anwar Syed.
POLITICIANS in Pakistan tend to flatter their audiences with the observation that they, the peo-ple, have waged a long struggle for democracy.
Following the election held on Feb 18, 2008, it was generally expected that democracy would soon be operational in this country. Now, six months after that event, one is not sure what exactly is going on.
The PPP leaders and workers have been asserting that Benazir Bhutto had valiantly fought for democracy throughout her career, and that she got killed because of it. Her successors and associates claim to be carrying forward her legacy. Their rivals in other parties contend that in their dedication to democracy they are second to none.
Many observers say they have not yet seen real democracy at work in Pakistan. Even those who won a mandate in the last election and formed governments seem to be unsure as to whether democracy is here. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said a few weeks ago that dictatorship was creating problems for the people’s representatives, implying that a dictator was still present and presumably pulling the strings from behind the scene.
Addressing his party notables in Islamabad, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif (PML-N), said his party wanted “genuine” democracy, which would come when the supremacy of parliament had materialised and the deposed judges had been reinstated. Still others argue that democracy can be said to have been achieved only if and when the hardships afflicting the masses are removed.
It may be that politicians express these reservations to sound good to their constituents. But since many others also feel that way, it may be useful to consider the aforementioned reservations a bit further. Mr Gilani and Mr Sharif are heads of governments that resulted from the last elections. They have claimed repeatedly that theirs are democratic governments. But if at the same time they feel that these fall short of genuine democracy in some measure, it is for them to do the needed mending. If ‘dictatorship’ is obstructing the full functioning of democracy at the centre, most of us have not seen it happening.
Mr Gilani would be understood to have implied that the dictatorship he spoke of resided in the presidency. If that indeed were the case, one would want to know why he did not tell the then president to mind his own business (which for the most part should be to read and improve his mind, eat and drink in moderation, and play golf to stay physically fit). If he and Mr Zardari were not restraining the president, it was their choice and fault, and they cannot pass the blame on to others.
Mr Sharif’s argument that democracy in Pakistan will not become genuine until the supremacy of parliament is established and the deposed judges are reinstated is not sound. Reinstatement of the judges is doubtless a worthy objective in itself but it has little to do with the genuineness of democracy: we may not have genuine democracy even after the judges have been restored.
In political systems where powers are divided, checked and balanced, no organ of the state is supreme. In a parliamentary system while the legislature prevails over the executive its supremacy goes only as far as the constitution allows. Talk of the want of parliamentary supremacy in our political discourse must be understood to refer to the president’s authority to dissolve the National Assembly under certain circumstances specified in the constitution. Since his authority in this regard comes from the constitution, it cannot be wished away. It is open to Mr Gilani and his partners in government to divest the president of this authority by moving to amend the constitution. But as far as I can see they have no real intention of making such a move. One cannot be sure that Mr Asif Ali Zardari will want to let go of this leverage that the president has had to date with the National Assembly and, thereby, with the prime minister.
The argument that the present governments are not democratic enough because they have not solved the people’s problems is also poor. Democracy is a way of organising governance, not particularly a problem-solving device. Actually an authoritarian ruler, dedicated to his people’s wellbeing (e.g. Mustafa Kemal of Turkey), may be better situated to solve problems than a full-blown democracy. We want democracy mainly because we like the idea of being governed by our chosen representatives who will be accountable to us.Nevertheless, it is a democratic government’s duty to do all it can to solve the problems of the people. If it does not succeed or succeeds only partially that may be because the problems are intractable, not because the government’s democratic character is deficient. But if it does not even try, its credentials will be open to question.
Given to discussion, debate, and compromise in the process of making decisions, a democratic government is more likely to be sensible than an authoritarian regime. But it is not immune to passions and prejudices of which the masses may be seized at times. There is no assurance that a democratic government will be ‘good’ in absolute terms, but it will be better than any of the other available options.
Governments resulting from a fair election are in place. Why then the feeling that democracy has eluded us? It derives from a widespread impression that the ruling party (PPP) does not really care much for democratic norms, and secondly from the equally widespread feeling that it is not trying hard enough to alleviate the common man’s misery. It has not done much even to restore law and order. It makes declarations of intent to do the right thing but does not match them with action.
Lastly, a word about the struggle for democracy that the people are said to have waged. It is true that the struggle in each instance was labelled as one for the restoration of democracy, but it was actually a struggle for the removal of dictatorship. The people had not yet quite internalised the culture of democracy which includes, among other things, their and civil society’s ongoing oversight of the elected representatives’ performance and the disposition to punish them if they have ignored the people’s needs and aspirations. A few more elections like the one we had on Feb 18 may help this culture take root in our soil and flourish.
Office of the president by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
August 31st by Anwar Syed.
PERVEZ Musharraf resigned as president on Aug 18. The two Houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies, acting as an electoral college, will elect a new president on Sept 6.
One should like to think that the person they choose will have the qualifications that answer his job description spelled out in the constitution.
The president is head of the state and represents the unity of the republic. He is to be kept posted on the cabinet’s decisions and proposed legislation. He may suggest reconsideration of such decisions but must accept them if they remain the same even after they have been reconsidered. In performing his functions he is to act on the prime minister’s advice.
The president summons and prorogues the National Assembly and may call for a joint sitting of the two Houses of parliament; may dissolve the National Assembly in the event of a constitutional breakdown, order new elections, and appoint a caretaker government for the interim. He assents to bills passed by parliament before they can become law, may return a bill for reconsideration with his recommendations for revision, but must assent to it after it has been passed again with or without amendment. He may cause a referendum to be held on a question of national importance that will admit of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
He appoints persons to the posts of chief election commissioner and chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission in his discretion; provincial governors in his discretion but after consulting the prime minister; chairman of the joint chiefs committee and chiefs of the army, navy and air force in consultation with the prime minister. He appoints the chief justice of Pakistan and appoints the other judges of the Supreme Court after consultation with the chief justice. The Supreme Court has interpreted this requirement to mean that the president has no discretion with regard to these appointments.
The president has real operational authority in relation to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). Acts of parliament do not apply here except in so far as he may require. He is to make such regulations as he deems appropriate for the peace and good governance of these areas. The governor of the province where a tribal area is located acts as his agent and carries out his directions.
Commentators who assert that the president has enormous power are simply wrong. Apart from Fata, the constitutional stipulations noted above actually add up to a bill of constraints on his authority. His discretionary authority to appoint is limited to two posts (mentioned above) neither of which is a carrier of much power. He may disregard the prime minister’s advice in appointing provincial governors, but they too, are largely ceremonial heads of provinces as the president is of the federation.
The president appoints the service chiefs in (not after) consultation with the prime minister, meaning that the latter’s concurrence with the president’s choice is necessary. And he has no discretionary authority at all when it comes to the appointment of judges. His power to dissolve the National Assembly (Article 58-2b) can be exercised only if it can be shown that a constitutional breakdown has indeed occurred. The courts can annul his action if it is found to have been arbitrary.
It should then be clear that there isn’t a whole lot the president can do of his own accord. Unless the prime minister turns out to be excessively submissive and willing to take external direction, the president of Pakistan cannot be much more than a figurehead.
As stated above, the president represents the country’s unity, dignity and honour. It follows that a candidate for the president’s office must also be a man of honour, one who inspires trust and confidence. He must also have the qualifications required of a member of the National Assembly. Article 62 of the constitution lists these qualifications including the following. A person seeking election to the National Assembly must bear a good moral character and have an adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings. He should not be known as one who violates Islamic injunctions. He must also be sagacious, righteous, honest, ameen, and a keeper of his covenants.
Nomination papers for the presidential election have been filed for a large number of persons, including Mr Asif Ali Zardari, who is being billed as the candidate most likely to win. It is not clear why he wants a post which, as we have seen above, is for the most part ceremonial and devoid of operational authority.
I saw a report in this newspaper (Aug 21) saying that Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, governor of Balochistan, had sent in his resignation, but Mr Zardari had asked him to continue working. Another report had it that Nawab Raisani, the chief minister, had gone to Islamabad and requested Zardari not to accept Magsi’s resignation. Normally Mr Zardari, who holds no elective or appointive office, would have nothing to do with the acceptance of a governor’s resignation. But it so happens that he does: he has been directing the present government since his party took power five months ago. One may then expect that he will do more of the same, and unabashedly, when he comes to hold an office, and in this case that of the president of Pakistan.
Moving on to another aspect of the matter, it may be argued that Mr Zardari, who has recently advised us that covenants made with others need not be kept, does not meet the constitutionally mandated conditions of eligibility for election to the National Assembly (noted above), which a candidate for the presidency must also have. He may be intelligent, even clever. But one’s imagination would have to be stretched to preposterous limits for him/her to believe that Mr Zardari is a preserver of Islamic virtues, righteous, trustworthy, sagacious and capable of personifying this country’s honour.
Yet, the PPP has named him as its candidate for the presidency, and the ANP, MQM, JUI-F and some of the provincial assemblies have endorsed his candidacy. I cannot claim to understand this show of support for Mr Zardari’s ambition to occupy greater heights of power and glory. I have been studying this country’s politics for some 40 years. I thought I understood it all. But evidently there is an abominable streak in the culture of Pakistani politicians that I had failed to see.
The ISI debacle by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
August 10th by Anwar Syed.
ON July 26, 2008 a Cabinet Division notification announced that the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate had been taken out of the prime minister’s establishment and placed under the interior ministry.
This decision was rescinded the following day. Ten days later it was brought back to life but only to be held in abeyance.
The initial move may have been made to cause the impression that the ISI would henceforth be under stricter control, and this to allay the oft-repeated American concern that elements within the agency were giving aid and comfort to certain militant groups. It is not known why the interior ministry should have been thought to be more capable of controlling the ISI than the prime minister’s office had been.
It is more likely that the move was made to appease a certain individual’s appetite for power; that individual being Abdul Rehman Malik who is in effect the interior minister. His rise to eminence, like that of several others in the present regime, is puzzling. Once a middle-ranking police officer, he left Pakistan under a cloud in 1998, lived in London, then returned to Pakistan in 2007 with Benazir Bhutto as her chief security officer. He failed her in that role both when a hostile mob surrounded her upon her arrival in Karachi in October, and again in Rawalpindi where she was assassinated on Dec 27. A few months after her death, Mr Zardari made Mr Malik the guardian of law and order in Pakistan as head of the interior ministry.
Needless to say, he would have become immensely powerful had he been able to direct the ISI. But his ambition in this regard was to be in vain partly because, as we will see shortly, the ISI is not all that amenable to external control. The attempt to place it under the interior ministry failed also because it met intense opposition from the chiefs of the armed services, who had not been consulted before the notification of July 26 was issued. The ISI is their agency, not a civilian organisation.
That in a democracy the military should be under ultimate civilian control is indisputable. The same holds for the ISI. Since its inception in 1948 it has reported to the prime minister or the president. It may then be said to have been under the prime minister’s control, which is civilian enough. But control in this context does not denote the supervising authority’s permission for every action that the agency is taking. It is limited to a broadly defined charter of its missions. Intelligence agencies — such as the ISI, the CIA in America, MI6 and MI5 in Britain, RAW in India — will work within the requisites of the mission assigned to them, but they are not receptive to external direction of their specific operations.
The ISI was established to collect and analyse information concerning foreign governments, corporations and politically significant individuals, with special reference to India. President Ayub Khan extended its mission to include the opponents of his regime. The agency joined hands with those who engineered his victory and Fatima Jinnah’s defeat in the presidential election of 1965.
Since then it has routinely intervened in domestic politics. It keeps an eye on opposition politicians and also those in power. It has sponsored the formation and disruption of political parties and alliances. It has funded individuals and parties of its choosing in elections. It has given money and weapons to certain groups to fight other groups.
ISI operatives are posted in Pakistani embassies abroad as attachés, usually military or commercial. They watch Pakistani officials serving out there, and their colleagues at home watch foreign diplomats, businessmen and important individuals working in Pakistan. ISI agents abroad are expected to gather intelligence and, when appropriate, undertake covert operations.
Some observers believe the ISI is not performing these functions well. Even with regard to India, which is its principal concern, its knowledge of that country’s military capabilities, planning and dispositions, its political and social dynamics, and its industry and technology is said to be inadequate. Its information concerning Pakistan’s domestic politics, and its covert operations in that area, may be more newsworthy than its accomplishments abroad.
The ISI is a huge organisation. It employs nearly 10,000 persons, including hundreds of serving and former military and police officers, a number of researchers and analysts, administrators, and even some scientists and technologists. Its financial resources and its expenditures remain unpublished for the most part but one may be sure that they are far greater than those shown in its official budget.
What kind of control can the prime minister, or even the army chief, exercise over an agency so large and powerful, so abundantly resourceful? Let us take a quick look at its American counterpart the CIA, established in July 1947, employing twice as many persons as the ISI does (reportedly about 20,000), and doing the same kind of work: intelligence gathering, espionage, aiding or destabilising foreign governments, and other covert operations including ‘termination’ of an undesirable ruler or politician (albeit none of this within the United States).
The CIA, along with 15 other intelligence agencies, reports in the first instance to the director of national intelligence, but as and when necessary its director may report directly to the president. The president — aided by his national security adviser, defence secretary and occasionally the secretary of state — gives the CIA its mission set forth in broad terms for the world generally and, when necessary, with reference to specific countries. Within this general framework the CIA director, his deputies and officers in charge of various country sections make their own determinations of the actions to be taken from day to day. They do not seek the president’s permission for each operation they intend to undertake and they do not report all of their doings to him. Nor does he want to know all of what they do.
The likelihood is that the ISI’s modus operandi in Pakistan is pretty much the same as that of the CIA in the United States. The ISI, like the CIA, is a ‘state within a state’, an ‘invisible government’ and a ‘law unto itself’. That elements in the ISI are supportive of the militants means either that the government doesn’t really object to their activities, or that the Zardari-Gilani combination is too fragile to control them.
Issues and ‘non-issues’ by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
August 3rd by Anwar Syed.
SENATOR Khalid Mahmood (JUI-F) recently called upon Mr Nawaz Sharif (July 14) to stop raising “non-issues” such as the reinstatement of the deposed judges. Others have spoken in the same vein. They assume that the government can tackle only one issue at a time, and that concern with the judges is keeping it from dealing with other more important issues.
The present government consists of some 50 divisions and related agencies where its work is done. Some items of business, regardless of where they have originated, come to a cabinet meeting and get settled there along with numerous other items on the agenda. Rarely is the cabinet called to meet to discuss and decide a single issue. The fear that concern with the judges has become an unacceptable distraction arises from ignorance of how governments work. It may incidentally be noted that the judges are not distracting this government at all.
Guided by Asif Ali Zardari, it has no intention of restoring the deposed judges. Mr Sharif’s statements for public consumption notwithstanding, he is aware of, and reconciled to, Mr Zardari’s position in this regard. Addressing his supporters in London on July 15 Mr Sharif claimed to have an agenda for putting Pakistan on the road to progress and prosperity. It consisted of the following elements: (1) rule of law; (2) independence of the judiciary; (3) restoration of the deposed judges; (4) blocking the army’s intervention in governance; (5) parliamentary supremacy; (6) exclusion of foreign dictation; (7) accountability; and (8) institution of a treason case against Musharraf. It will be seen that except for the president’s authority to dissolve the
National Assembly in the event of a constitutional breakdown, all of Mr Sharif’s concerns are already met in the original version of the 1973 Constitution. The first order of business should then be to reinstate that version. Next, there is the fact that no government to date has been willing to follow the constitution, including the ones headed by Mr Sharif. One may wonder if Mr Sharif will do better next time if he gets another chance to be prime minister. His professed goals are all worthy, but none of them is urgent in the sense that if it is not achieved right away calamity will befall the nation.
We have seen times when we had no constitution at all and others when an unwanted constitution had been imposed on us. Can Mr Sharif’s agenda put our people on the road to progress and prosperity? In a manner of speaking, yes: if, for instance, our judiciary becomes independent and our public officials are made accountable to the people through appropriate organs of the state, progress may be said to have been made in the area of our civic culture. But progress has several other dimensions with which these developments have no causal connection. Progress can also refer to the inclination to question the conventional wisdom, inquisitiveness, ingenuity and inventiveness, attainment of excellence in arts and sciences, tolerance of the dissident and, in sum, the ability to be at peace with complexity. Judicial independence, a virtue in itself, has little if anything to do with these attainments.
Prosperity, in the ordinary sense of the term, means that folks have money enough not only to meet their basic needs but also to make their living comfortable, even save and invest. This happens when agricultural production and incomes increase and commerce and industry expand, creating more jobs. These developments will not take place if law and order has broken down, uncertainty and insecurity prevail, or if governments are unstable and their policies infirm. But they are not likely to be directly affected by the degree to which public officials are accountable and judges are independent. If there is any relationship between these two areas of development, it is probably remote and peripheral. It is amazing that the fight against militancy and restoration of law and order do not appear on top of Mr Sharif’s agenda. It is possible that he neglected to mention them in a fit of absent-mindedness. In any case, these are the two most pressing and urgent tasks to be accomplished if a state of utter chaos and impotence is to be avoided.
Resorting to the use of indiscriminate and naked physical force against persons and property, kidnapping, arson and murder, and by waging war against the state of Pakistan, the militants are striving to strike terror in the hearts of the people and to bring the normal routines of life to a halt. They are out to destroy our state and society, our institutions and culture. They must be stopped. Beyond the havoc the ideologically motivated militants are wreaking, there is the breakdown of law and order that conventional criminals cause. Criminals of all varieties — thieves, robbers, kidnappers for ransom, rapists, murderers and the perpetrators of white-collar crime — now abound.
They too spread fear and insecurity among the people. Their operation works like a vicious circle: the more the law is violated the more the law-breakers increase. There are problems that cannot be made to go away in a hurry regardless of who is at the helm. Food and fuel prices have risen dramatically in Pakistan, America, and many other places. No government in Islamabad can bring them back to where they were a year ago. There isn’t much that the government, this or any other, can do to pull the economy out of stagflation (recession and inflation at the same time). This is a state in which American and numerous other economies are currently placed. I hear that they are going to stay that way for another six months to a year, and that there is nothing the governments concerned can do to help them out. But abatement of crime and the restoration of law and order, being the first and foremost duty of any government, should be within the capacity of the present administration.
It is a matter of assigning these missions the priority they merit and allocating the requisite resources to pursue them. If Mr Gilani’s government does not have the will or the know-how to tackle these tasks it should vacate the seat of power. Eradication of militancy is admittedly a complicated and difficult undertaking. But it is not impossible; it requires a firm resolve and adequate material resources to succeed, which the present government has not been willing to assign it. The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. anwarsyed@cox.net
This column is taken from DAWN.com
Coalition politics by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
July 13th by Anwar Syed.
IT has been strangely quiet on the political front with no report of any significant development, except that the government may be toying with the idea of launching an ‘operation’ against militants.
More worrisome is the fact that not much is even being said. Asif Zardari and Asfandyar Wali Khan may be believers in silence being golden. Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Mushahid Hussain were all known for their loquaciousness, but they too seem to have taken to taciturnity. It may be that they have chosen to be non-committal on the overriding issue facing the country (dealing with militants).
A few sparks have, however, flown out of an otherwise cool pile of ash. Amin Fahim, still a vice-chairman of the PPP, said recently that the ruling PPP was not the old and real PPP but a new one (new presumably because it is now directed by Mr Zardari), and that he had nothing to do with its governance. On July 3 Mr Zardari removed Abdul Qadir Shaheen, a veteran party worker and devotee of Benazir Bhutto, from his post as head of the PPP’s labour bureau.
Mr Shaheen had committed the indiscretion of attending a function in honour of Ms Bhutto, organised by Naheed Khan, a confidant of Ms Bhutto and her secretary for many years, whom the party’s new leadership has left out in the cold. Amin Fahim was the guest of honour at this function and other participants included Aitzaz Ahsan, Senator Safdar Abbasi, Senator Enver Baig and many other party loyalists disaffected with Zardari and company.
A PML-N spokesman stated on July 2 that his party had not been consulted about the operation launched in Fata. The party is also said to have distanced itself from the PPP government’s decision to raise oil and gas prices. Its differences with the PPP over the reinstatement of deposed judges and the president’s impeachment persist. These facts have led some observers to wonder if these two parties are really in a coalition arrangement and, if they are, why don’t they reach agreement on major policy issues.
The nature of their coalition merits scruti ny. It was initially made to form governments at the centre and in Punjab. Further, it was predicated on the assumption that the partners would get the National Assembly to pass a resolution calling for the reinstatement of deposed judges by April 30 (Bhurban Declaration) or, at the latest, by May 12, 2008. The PPP, being the leading partner, was to initiate this move. It went back on its promise, whereupon the PML-N withdrew its ministers from the central government. But it said it would not join the ranks of the opposition, and would support the PPP government in all situations where it was doing the right thing. The coalition in Punjab continued to function.
It may then be said that there is no coalition between the PPP and PML-N in the central government. The relationship between them consists only of a one-sided declaration of intent that the PML-N made voluntarily. The party, however, is not bound to support the government on measures which it considers to be wrong or which are otherwise liable to lower its standing in public esteem.
It follows also that the PPP government at the centre is under no obligation to consult the PML-N, an outsider, on issues with which it may be dealing. What do we then make of the PML-N statement that it was not consulted about the Fata operation? I interpret it not as a grievance but as a statement of fact intended to dissociate the party from a potentially troublesome move.
The Sharifs may have figured that the PPP, being the recipient of the rewards of power, should be the one to bear the responsibility (and blame) for an operation which, howsoever necessary it might have been, was bound to invite strong disapproval from several quarters, especially the Islamic parties and like-minded others.
The reinstatement of judges was a matter of honour for the PML-N leadership. The PPP’s unwillingness to do anything about it could have been reason enough for the PML-N to move to the opposition benches in the National Assembly. That it has not done. If it did so, the PPP would not be able to form a viable government, and the president would have to dissolve the assembly and order new elections.
This turn of events would not be welcome to the PML-N or the PPP. Apart from the fact that a new election will cost a lot of money and effort, it may not produce significantly better results for either of them. There is still another consideration to be noted. If the PML-N deserts the PPP at the centre, the latter may desert the PML-N government in Punjab and bring it down. The Sharifs would then do all they can to keep the PPP on board in Punjab.
Unlike the PML-N, the JUI-F, Awami National Party and the MQM are partners in the coalition government at the centre, and it may be said that they are therefore entitled to be consulted on issues under consideration. Maulana Fazlur Rehman recently said (on July 5) that his party had not been consulted regarding the Fata operation and that the PPP is making decisions unilaterally which, he thought, would cause trouble. It is known that the ANP has reservations about the government’s Fata move, meaning that the PPP has not taken this party on board either.
The argument for consulting partners is valid but its mode may be moot. Mr Gilani should not have to be running to heads of parties in the coalition every time an issue is to be settled or a move made. If consultation means securing of concurrence, the party heads will each have a veto they can use to paralyse the government. Another way has to be found.
The normal procedure in democracies is to take the business at hand to the cabinet, which includes nominees of the coalition partners, and get it settled there. These nominees can present their respective parties’ views which will be considered as the discussion proceeds. If the majority in the cabinet does not accept their positions, they should let its decision prevail or, if they can’t live with it, resign. That is the way a cabinet government works. ¦ The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts. anwarsyed@cox.net
Democracy in transition by Anwar Syed
Print This Post
| Email This Post
|
Share on Facebook
February 9th by Anwar Syed.
IT is said that Pakistan is going through a period of transition to democracy. Elections were held nearly a year ago. Representative assemblies are in place. They have been meeting, debating issues, passing resolutions and laws, and holding the executive accountable for its conduct of affairs.
Yet, certain quarters believe that democratic institutions and practice in Pakistan are in a fragile state, need tender care and protection from hostile forces that stand ready to take the country to some kind of authoritarian rule.
A recent newspaper editorial notes that while the lawyers do have the right to demonstrate their support for the reinstatement of judges whom Gen Musharraf had dismissed on Nov 3, 2007, they should cancel their planned long march on Islamabad, for it will disrupt public tranquillity and place a strain on the country’s frail democracy that it may not be able to bear
This reasoning exaggerates Pakistani democracy’s vulnerability. There may be elements in society that are sceptical of democracy but most of them are in no position to overthrow it. The army is the only agency that has ousted civilian regimes in the past and is capable of doing the same again. But this is not an opportune time for the army to make such a move. The generals know that they cannot overcome the difficulties the country faces. They will not want to seize power, invite universal censure, fail to deliver and fall still lower in public esteem. It follows that democracy in Pakistan is not likely to be overthrown by external foes.
Some observers contend that democracy in Pakistan is not the genuine article in as much as it is not delivering good governance. This contention derives from a misunderstanding of the meaning and function of democracy. It is the sum of processes by which the people govern themselves through their chosen representatives.
Democracy cannot ensure that rulers will be honest and efficient. Voters may be moved by their prejudices and passions, ethnic and regional affiliations, and they may elect their own kind even if they are wicked and iniquitous. The resulting system remains a democracy nevertheless. Athens did not cease to be a democracy when its citizens sentenced Socrates to death because he had been questioning the conventional wisdom.
However, a word of caution may be in order. Democracy is coeval with the system of governance of which it is a part. If the system and its good order fall apart and chaos takes their place, its democratic institutions and processes, having become dysfunctional, will languish and wither away. This will most likely happen if the system’s managers do nothing to meet the people’s needs and use their offices mainly to misappropriate the nation’s resources.
Let us now see where the present PPP regime stands in this context. It is getting to be known as a “do nothing” government because it is seen as not even making an effort to overcome the crises afflicting the country. Actually, it is creating new crises. Pakistani lawyers have been out on the streets protesting against Pervez Musharraf’s proclamation of emergency rule, promulgation of a constitutional amendment (the 17th) and his dismissal of some 60 judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Nov 3, 2007.
Days before her assassination on Dec 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto declared, loud and clear, that if her party formed the government after the election on Feb 18, 2008, it would reinstate Justice Chaudhry. Mr Asif Zardari reiterated the same pledge to Mr Nawaz Sharif and the nation. The PPP formed the government at the centre in the first week of March 2008 and Mr Zardari became president of Pakistan a few months later. Yet they have not reinstated Justice Chaudhry.
Some constitutional experts said at the time that his reinstatement would require nothing more than an executive order with or without a supporting parliamentary resolution. Other experts contended that it would require a constitutional amendment. In either case the needed instrument could have been prepared within a few days. The PPP government has made no move in this direction, and it is generally believed that, guided by Mr Zardari, it has no intention of putting the deposed chief justice back in the Supreme Court.
One interpretation has it that Justice Chaudhry, back at the Supreme Court, might admit a petition challenging the validity of the National Reconciliation Ordinance which, setting aside Mr Zardari’s alleged involvement in criminal cases, enabled him to run for the president’s office. In that event Mr Zardari’s election could be deemed as invalid and he could be forced to leave the high office he occupies.
It is possible that none of this will happen, and that a bench that does not include Justice Chaudhry will hear such a petition, if it is filed, and reject it, and Mr Zardari will continue to enjoy the comforts of living in the president’s house. But apparently he does not wish to take any chances. All of this means that in order to secure the career of one individual, the government is willing to keep the country in an unceasing state of turmoil.
Going on to another aspect of the present government’s operational style, we see that it insists on spending money it does not have: it has been borrowing hundreds of billions of rupees. It spends as if there is no tomorrow. When the next day (‘tomorrow’) does arrive, as it must, it borrows more to keep going with its recklessness. Instances of its recklessness abound but here we shall limit ourselves to one of them.
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s government gave several thousand PPP workers superfluous jobs in a number of public corporations and other establishments. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government discharged some 7,000 of them between 1996 and 1998. The present PPP government has decided to reinstate these former employees (who were lawfully terminated) retrospectively and give them back pay for more than 10 years. This measure will cost many billions of rupees.
This government’s lavish spending, its inability to restore law and order, its failure to deal with the acute shortages of the necessities of life, have made the state of Pakistan bankrupt and pushed it to the verge of chaos. If the state and its good order are thus disrupted, democracy will be left with no place in which to function.
The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is currently a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.
anwars@lahoreschool.edu.pk
Loading ...