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Pakistan's tortuous road to democracy
Every military takeover has so distorted the constitution that a free and fair election becomes an academic question without a prior compact to eliminate or at least mitigate the distortions.
- By Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:37 September 4, 2007
- Image Credit: Illustration by Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Benazir Bhutto's statement that only a cat's whisker stood between her and a settlement with President General Pervez Musharraf made headlines all over the world.
When I tried explaining to a western journalist that the one and a half point that, according to her, still remained unresolved posed a serious obstacle, he asked with understandable impatience why the outstanding issues could not be tossed up to millions of Pakistani voters and why it was necessary to script even the small print of a future political dispensation in secret parleys.
This need to negotiate a prior agreement may well reflect the cruel reality of Pakistan's politics; an honest reference to the people in the form of a free and fair election has not taken root in the national polity.
There are two outstanding reasons why the Pakistani people do not become the final arbiters despite every stakeholder affirming the principle of their sovereignty.
First, Pakistan's dominant elite insists on treating elections as a means of a controlled change that does not abolish what over the years has become an oligarchy. There is a long tradition of trying to predetermine the outcome of the electoral process to prevent a radical transformation of the society.
The second reason is even weightier. Every military take-over has so distorted the constitution that a free and fair election becomes an academic question without a prior compact to eliminate or at least mitigate the distortions. The civilian politicians have to first struggle for the restoration of a level playing field.
Pakistan has shifted away from the constitutional norms and practices much further than is commonly realised abroad. Musharraf got special legislation enacted to retain the office of the chief of army staff while serving as the president of the republic.
He has injected thousands of army personnel into civilian administration. A Pakistani scholar recently published a book detailing military's corporate economic empire. His demand soon after his coup of 1999 that the judges of the higher courts take a second oath forced some of the most eminent judges to seek retirement.
What has disturbed the level playing field even more is the war that his regime waged relentlessly against the two mainstream political parties - Benazir Bhutto's Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League.
Both these leaders have not only lived in exile but also stand debarred from holding the office of the prime minister a third time. Musharraf also revived a law that enables him to dismiss assemblies and governments at will.
The stage was set for Musharraf to win another term as president without relinquishing the office of the army chief. His regime overreached itself by seeking to remove Pakistan's Chief Justice. It triggered off mass protests and in the end led to an historic decision by the Supreme Court to reinstate the Chief Justice.
Suddenly Musharraf faced the possibility that the Supreme Court may rule against combining the two offices and even question his eligibility to be a presidential candidate.
Meanwhile the public outrage on the suspension of the Chief Justice has aggravated Musahrraf's loss of popularity caused by his support for what is almost universally taken as US's war in Afghanistan.
There had been no signs of the government moving towards a national compact after eight years of absolute power and now the affair of the Chief Justice suddenly challenged the sheer inertia of power.
The Musharraf regime had depoliticised the Pakistani society more effectively than any previous military-led government. But the popular support for the Chief Justice re-politicised it at a breath-taking pace; the event has become a watershed in national politics.
A strong opinion emerged within the country and amongst its foreign allies such as the US and UK that Musharraf needed to broaden the base of his power and that the best option for a larger coalition would be a power-sharing arrangement between him and Bhutto - a new alliance of moderate forces.
Bhutto was a signatory to a multiparty "charter for democracy". Musharraf's expectation that she would completely detach herself from that common agenda and cooperate in his re-election on his terms has not turned out to be realistic. There is a minimum without which she cannot justify her collaboration.
The bar on former prime ministers getting elected for the third term had to go. Musharraf was expected to provide a firm timeline for giving up the office of the army chief.
Again, and perhaps the most challenging demand made on Musharraf was the repeal of the constitutional provision that enables the president to dissolve the assemblies and dismiss the elected governments. The cumulative effect of these "concessions" would be that Musharraf settles for a largely ceremonial role.
Important factor
Time has become an important factor. The current presidential tenure and the life of the assemblies are running out. Musharraf faces strong challenges in the Supreme Court which can be forestalled to a degree only through parliamentary legislation.
Lack of political progress in the first week of September may increase the pressure on Musharraf to attempt a more drastic solution of his problems such as declaration of emergency or dissolution of the national assembly.
But such steps may not bring anything more than a brief respite and may eventually sharpen the confrontation with the political forces.
The present state of uncertainty warrants high statesmanship from Musharraf . What stands in the way is not just his perception that the country needs him as a powerful head of state with total control of the armed forces but also the growing insecurity of the political party he cobbled together to provide his rule with a civilian face.
This party wants him to take draconian steps to ward off the threat from the opposition. How Musharraf reconciles the larger national interest with these more personal and parochial considerations would make a deep impact on Pakistan's political history.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary of Pakistan.
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