Pakistan's charter must dictate course

A genuine power play is currently underway in Pakistan. Politicians and the establishment are the two main antagonists in this power play.

This is very important for the evolution of genuine democracy in Pakistan. After decades Pakistan's uniformed political managers may have recognised the limits to managed politics.

Their blueprint for the 2002 version of Islamic Jamhoori Ittihad is still to be implemented. The hurdles in its implementation persist. They range from the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) PML QA's inability to get it right in the number's game to getting the MMA to take the oath under the vastly amended Constitution.

Although the die has still not been cast on which way Pakistan's post election scenario is headed, the problems for the establishment have increased.

If the politicians, not currently patronised by the establishment, have still not been able to firm up a coalition arrangement it is because a genuine coalition, not a 'pre-cooked' one, is being worked out.

Similarly the pro-Musharraf PML(Q), despite being the establishment's flag carrier, has been unable to as yet garner majority support in the parliament. The key group that the PML(Q) had banked on – the coalition of religio-political parties the MMA – appears unwilling to enter into an alliance with it.

PML(Q) has rather quickly recognised that MMA is not the 'natural ally' that the PML (Q) leadership had maintained it was. MMA is into real power play. It is no longer anybody's party. Its posturing and parleys with all political forces including the establishment makes it no more an establishment party than others who have entered into a dialogue at different points with the establishment.

As the future of Pakistan's parliamentary politics unfolds, four key points emerge as the silver lining in Pakistan's difficult and indeed 'dicey' democratic period.

One, that as far as the supremacy of the parliament, of the elected representatives and indeed of the vote is concerned, the ball is in the politicians court. They have to demonstrate their ability to stand together to uphold at least some basic principles of democracy.

They have to move beyond their political hostilities and competition, which of course is integral and legitimate within a democratic set-up. Instead, they have to agree on some basic 'rules of the game' including the limits of establishment power and the responsibilities of the elected players.

For all its confusion and delay in coalition building, Pakistan is witnessing a genuine post-election democratic process. This is all legitimate power play; at least where no 'invisible hands' are directing the political choir.

Naturally, the struggle and the negotiations will be over power sharing within the coalition partners. Politics is for power. Seeking positions and bargaining over it, on one's own party strength is genuine.

Two, Pakistan's uniformed establishment is recognising the limits to its authority as well as the limits to which it can alone work out a vision for Pakistan. The largely fair and honest polling , for which the establishment deserves praise, has demonstrated that the people of Pakistan are prompted by considerations vastly different from that of the establishment when it comes to casting their votes.

The hounding by the establishment and the courts of Benazir Bhutto, the corruption charges against her, her government's performance and even her occasionally questionable statements on foreign policy matters were not elements that were going to keep the voters away from the PPP.

While the candidates' own personality made a difference, the key factor certainly was the Bhutto name. After all the voters have brought Benazir's party back in the fray as the second largest political party holding 80 National Assembly seats.

Similarly the political defeat of some of the establishment's favourite candidates and now the possibility of the most unlikely alliance between the MMA and the ARD must indicate to the establishment, the paucity of its own political wisdom. The establishment has banked, at least in this round, largely on the bankruptcy of the political class. Part of the bankruptcy has also meant the inflexibility of certain political players.

All that may be proven wrong. Maybe some fundamentals of Pakistanis politics will now be re-written; of reconciliation between previously irreconcilable players. Whatever the outcome of the current power play, the establishment will not have the last laugh on the Pakistani politics.

With every passing day, these political players are likely to establish and expand their own influence on the political scene; an influence that they had willingly ceded to the establishment over the past decades when their party and personal hostilities had pushed genuine political power play in the back ground, allowing the scripts written at GHQ to dictate the game.

Three, a new experiment of genuine coalition-making, a process of politics maturing is now under way.

Pakistani politicians, pushed ironically together by the very establishment whose script would militate against the unity of political parties, are now entering into genuine negotiations for a very real kind of power sharing. Unlikely partners now hustle together, not in hidden conspiratorial ways but through open and transparent negotiations.

As political figures like Benazir Bhutto, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Altaf Hussain and others negotiate it is a good omen for Pakistan's democratic process. PPP has shown political maturity by agreeing to an MMA candidate as the PM despite its own larger share of seats.

If this agreement holds, then the MMA and PPP would also be in a position to bridge the unnecessary but huge divide among the religious and the rest in society, not just in politics. Mutual co-existence on some agreed upon principles is required.

Finally, the political dividing line between the pro-Musharraf and the other political parties is the restoration of the original Constitution and above all a rejection of the supra Constitutional body, the National Security Council.

The debate and in fact, the dividing line is neither on foreign policy matters, nor the implementation of the shariah. These issues are of significance too and at the policy level will have to be worked out between the coalition partners.

Yet different approaches in these two areas is not viewed as irreconcilable by the MMA , the PPP and the PML(N).

Politics is indeed the art of the possible. Depending on how this ARD-MMA coalition building fares, many factors that appeared impossible in the past, could become possible.

For Pakistanis, the supremacy of parliament has to be the key issue. It is the very foundation of genuine democracy. The fear of the rise of the MMA is not the key issue. That has its own logic, and one that is familiar to those living in the zone of turbulence and turmoil, both within and outside Pakistan.

Significantly, the future of Pakistani politics still rests with General Pervez Musharraf. He still has with him the power to dismiss the elected assembly if he considers it necessary for the 'national good' or 'national security.'