Najam Sethi's Editorials (Volume 6) from Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan Under Asif Zardari, 2009-2013 by Najam
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Najam Sethi’s Editorials (Volume 6) From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan under Asif Zardari, 2009-2013 By Najam Sethi Volume: 6: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan under Asif Zardari, 2009-2013 (February 22-28, 2008, Vol. XX, No. 01) Beginning, not end, of transition to democracy This has been a great election. It vindicates those who, like Benazir Bhutto, argued for a peaceful transition to democracy instead of a confrontation aimed at transformation. It supports the pollsters who said the country was awash with anti-Musharraf sentiment and the PPP was the most popular party in the country followed by the PMLN. The best part of the election is that the forces of religious extremism have been routed and the true worth of moderate, mainstream and even secular parties has been duly upheld. To give the devil his due, President Musharraf has shed his uniform and held credible elections like he promised. But it is not lost on anyone that he was shoved and pushed in that direction by a persistent civil society and a concerned international community. What more could Pakistanis ask for? Plenty. With the tail-wind behind them, Mr Asif Zardari and Mr Nawaz Sharif are demanding President Pervez Musharraf should quit. They say that the people have cast a vote of no-confidence in him and he should respect their verdict. ButPakistan is not an established democracy and he is not a legitimately elected president. So he has refused to oblige. Where do we go from here? One option is to get back into confrontation mode, unite the anti-Musharraf forces in parliament and try to impeach him or strip him of his extraordinary powers. But that is easier said than done. Even a two-thirds majority in the national assembly for a constitutional amendment won’t do the job since the Senate is still controlled by the PMLQ. The other option is to boycott parliament and take to the streets, provoking the army to step in at some ugly stage and “save democracy”, a contradiction in terms that is fraught with problems. The other option is for the pro-democracy forces to forget about overthrowing President Musharraf for the time being and unite to make the system functional and more democratic step by step. This means coalition building everywhere. The PPP can form a provincial government in Sindh but may be advised to get the MQM on board in the interests of stability. In the NWFP, too, the ANP and PPP can form a coalition that is secular and moderate. In Balochistan, thanks to the boycott by the nationalists, the PMLQ is in the driving seat. The real issue is what to do in Islamabad and Punjab. In Islamabad, the PPP is the largest party and should be asked by President Musharraf to form a government. It can do so with the PMLQ, ANP, MQM and everyone else except the PMLN. This PPP-PMLQ formula would work in the 2 Volume: 6: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan under Asif Zardari, 2009-2013 Punjab too because the provincial independents would naturally gravitate towards a dispensation that supplements the one inIslamabad. But the problem with this approach is that Mr Zardari would have to establish a working relationship with the unpopular President Musharraf and risk the ire of many idealistic PPP voters and supporters, including the angry civil society protestors who want Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry restored as CJP, which is not possible with President Musharraf around. The other option is for Mr Zardari to try and include Mr Sharif’s PMLN in coalitions in Islamabad and Punjab and exclude the PMLQ. This would mean two things. First it would be an anti-Musharraf dispensation that is likely to end up in confrontation mode sooner than later and jeopardize the transition to greater democracy. At any rate, any strategy that leads to the overthrow of President Musharraf will automatically lead to the re-unification of the PML under Mr Sharif and swell its ranks to overwhelm the PPP once again. Second, Mr Zardari would have to fork over Punjab to Mr Sharif if he wants to keep Islamabad to himself. But after Mr Sharif gets Punjab with Mr Zardari’s support, he will be able to corral the independents into his camp. Then Mr Zardari would be at his mercy in Punjab and therefore in Islamabad. In the event, Mr Sharif could chose the moment of confrontation with President Musharraf and precipitate a crisis leading to a fresh election in which he would be the biggest beneficiary. Given the longer term divergence of party political interests of the two competitor parties, Mr Zardari must therefore scrutinize this option before succumbing to its emotional “national reconciliation” rhetoric and pull. At the end of the day, the unpopular but pragmatic dialectic which propelled the PPP to choose the electoral route of transiting to democracy in the presence of President Musharraf instead of a boycott and confrontation preferred by Mr Sharif will have to be realistically weighed by Mr Zardari. There will be a time when President Musharraf will definitely be hoist by his own petard but whether the time has come is not certain from the point of view of party political interests. He would certainly hasten it if he continues to throw his weight about, if he manipulates politics via the agencies, and if he doesn’t zip up about people and personalities. Indeed, if the transition to democracy is to succeed in the longer term, Mr Musharraf will have to retreat to the shadows and eventually bow out to redeem himself and the nation. 3 Volume: 6: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan under Asif Zardari, 2009-2013 (February 29 - March 06, 2008, Vol. XX, No. 02) Politics is the art of the possible Well meaning and concerned Pakistanis are sincerely excited about the prospects of principled alliances between and among the newly elected democratic forces of the country which lead to the creation of national reconciliation governments in Islamabad and the provinces. The major consequences of such democratic unity would presumably be the ouster of the unpopular President Pervez Musharraf, the disappearance of the rump PMLQ, the restoration of the independent pre-PCO judges, including the brave former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the granting of full provincial rights to the NWFP and Balochistan, the rupture of the Mush-Bush partnership that has spawned Talibanism and terrorism in the tribal areas, and various other good initiatives in the popular imagination. Certainly, all the principal actors are making the right noises and moves publicly. They have demonstrated their ability to rustle up 171 MNAs in Islamabad, which is a signal to the man on the hill that time is running out for him. We also learn that Ms Nilofar Bakhtiar and five disgruntled members of the PMLQ in the Senate have created a “forward bloc” to lend credibility to this move. Then there are the 22 independent MPAs-elect in the Punjab assembly who dutifully lined up for photographs at the Model Town Lahore residence of Mr Sharif the other day. But to the cynics, this rosy scenario should raise a few hard-nosed questions. Why has Mr Sharif been in such a hurry to capture the provincial independents and stake an exclusive claim to a solely PMLN government in Lahore when Mr Zardari is still insisting on a national unity government which includes the PMLN in Islamabad? Indeed, why is Chaudhry Nisar of the PMLN saying that his party will support Mr Zardari’s government in Islamabad “from the outside” but not accept any cabinet posts in it? Why is Mr Zardari reluctant to commit his party to the restoration of the former chief justice and the impeachment of President Musharraf when Mr Sharif is pressing him to do exactly that? Why has Mr Mushahid Hussain suddenly extolled the cause of the prime ministerial system by announcing that the PMLQ would happily work with the new parliament to get rid of the president’s 58 2B power to sack prime ministers and parliaments? Indeed, what has prompted Ms Nilofer Bakhtiar and others among the PMLQ to create a forward bloc in the Senate to support the anti- establishment struggle for democracy? Why is the Bush administration still insisting on a role for President Musharraf and why has Democrat Senator Joe Biden, who heads the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, sought to explain the meaning of his original remark that 4 Volume: 6: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan under Asif Zardari, 2009-2013 “President Musharraf will go quietly in to the night” as suggesting that he may take a back seat rather than exit from the scene in a hurry? And finally, what is the meaning and significance of the four or five meetings in the last few days between the Chaudhries and President Musharraf? Let us accept some solid party political realities. First, while Mr Sharif and Mr Zardari may share some short term tactical objectives like wanting to weaken the military’s domination of the political system and the removal of 58-2B, their longer term strategic goals differ completely. Mr Sharif would like to see another election soon so that he try to captureIslamabad and become prime minister again. But Mr Zardari would like to rule uninterruptedly in Islamabad and elsewhere in the provinces for a full five years. Second, while Mr Sharif wants to recapture the Q rump of the PML and restore the League as a truly national party, Mr Zardari would like to keep the PML vote-bank divided and hog the status of the only significant national party in the country.