A roller-coaster year
By Raza Rumi
Nearly three years after the restoration of civilian rule, the most pertinent question would be the fate of Pakistan’s democratisation and how far has it progressed. There can be no simple answers to this question given that Pakistan is in the midst of a war next door and battling against homegrown extremists.
The conflict and 2010’s natural disaster in the shape of floods have adversely impacted the economy. Whilst the passage of 18th and 19th Amendment to the much mutilated Constitution have heralded political reforms, sadly, a comprehensive institutional reform agenda is nowhere in sight. At the end of 2010, we find ourselves facing the prospect of political instability due to a weak and opportunistic coalition and unresolved issues of civil-military imbalance.
The year started with increased pressure by the opposition for constitutional amendments, which were agreed in 2008 to restore parliamentary form of government. It was feared that the Pakistan People’s Party was not serious in giving up Presidential powers. However, public pressure dictated that a compromise be effected soon. Thus, the highlight, and perhaps the best development of 2010 was the unanimous passage of the 18th amendment which is a historic agreement inasmuch as it tries to devolve power to the provinces and rectify the long-standing issues of federalism. Its implementation is being managed by a central commission headed by Senator Raza Rabbani who played a central role in forging a consensus on this Amendment.
But the implementation snags and pitfalls define the inherent contradictions of Pakistan’s governance crisis. The postcolonial state remains centralised and is wary of sharing power at the provincial and local levels. At the same time, it has decentralised the monopoly of violence, voluntarily or by default, to armed militias found across the country. Thus the transition will take longer than two years and requires continuity of the current quasi-civilian set-up. Similarly, while the ruling coalition is willing to devolve ministries it is also beefing up vertical programmes and institutions such as the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) which is not strictly in line with the principles of federalism.
In the first phase of devolution under 18th Amendment, it was announced on December 1, that the ministries of special initiative, Zakat and Ushr, population welfare, youth affairs and local government, and rural development would be devolved. It was decided that economic affairs division would see international agreements of such ministries and the planning process would be handed over to planning and development division. The head of the Implementation Commission dismissed the fears of retrenching employees or offering them golden handshakes. According to Rabbani, in the first phase a total of 3,769 employees would be affected. The government plans to accommodate most of these employees in the vacancies (currently over 900) in other ministries.
In the second phase, five more ministries will be devolved by February 2011. The process of devolution would be completed till June. In the second phase, it is planned that the ministries of tourism, social welfare and special education, culture, education and health would be devolved affecting 44,001 numbers of employees in total. Immediately after announcing it in the parliamentary commission, the government deferred the devolution of health ministry owing to the threat to sustainability of ‘international aid agreements’. Livestock ministry was then added as the fifth ministry in the phase II.
Concerns have been expressed also over the devolution of education ministry and the National Assembly Standing Committee on Education decided to speak against the proposed devolution. Zubaida Jalal, one committee member, termed the plan as a ‘threat to federation’ when no one would be able to come up with uniform syllabus and history. However, it is intriguing that Jalal, hailing from a smaller province (Balochistan), is opposing more autonomy to the provinces. Politics is a strange game.
The devolution of federal powers and functions comes at a difficult time. Provincial governments are already bankrupt and heavily dependent on the federal revenues, find it difficult to accommodate the staff of the ten ministries to be devolved. At the same time, doubts about the longevity of the democratic order exist as always, thereby making the future path quite uncertain.
However, 18th Amendment cannot be implemented in its entirety without corresponding institutional reforms. Most notably, Pakistan’s civil service is in a dire need of restructuring. There are no signs of this happening at the national level. Federal civil servants will continue to hold key offices in the provincial bureaucracies and the mismatch between the competence and career paths of provincial and federal civil service will continue, thereby making the realignment more and more difficult.
In the past few years, Pakistan’s power equation has changed and there were visible manifestations of this new development. The judiciary is now an independent power broker; and the [electronic and print] media has also entered the power matrix with a stake. Therefore, Pakistan’s civilian governance is no longer an executive driven enterprise. The friction between the different power wielders continues and will take time to settle.
There were several instances when the government-judiciary collision was predicted but it did not happen as both the sides preferred to backtrack when things became heated. The judiciary, for instance, did not agree with the way 18th Amendment set a new procedure for appointment of judges. It gave an interim verdict without answering many questions raised in the court. However, the Parliament was quick to respond and the passage of 19th Amendment last week displayed that a rule-based accommodation of competing interests was possible within the parliamentary framework.
The media, on the other hand, has emerged more powerful and effective in holding the ruling coalitions at the centre and the province to account. With increased public outreach and power, the issue of media responsibility also gained attention in the preceding year. The media is yet to develop a self-regulation regime and its conduct in many respects was questionable. The most pertinent example is when unconfirmed news report on government’s alleged move to identify sitting judges created a furore and twenty four hours of uncertainty. A Supreme Court bench took notice of the news report and directed the Prime Minister to submit a written response that the executive had no such intentions. This was unprecedented even by the Third World standards. Similarly, reports of media-persons engaging with extremists and fanning prejudice against minorities also came under public spotlight. Therefore, issues of media accountability continue to afflict the freedom.
In this process of power-tussle, the Parliament emerged to be an ineffectual player often criticised by the public and media as disengaged. Pakistan’s decision-making process has traditionally kept the parliamentary institutions on the margins. The quality of legislators and lack of experience is a major bottleneck. Perhaps the thorniest issues are centralised leadership style, lack of regular elections within parties and dynastic mode of intra-party governance. These render the parliamentary parties pretty powerless and shift the key powers to unelected and influential party stalwarts. Pakistan’s political elites continue to elude this reality and have, in fact, reinforced these patterns by adding a clause to the 18th Amendment whereby party leaders are supreme.
The most disappointing aspect of the year was the manner in which the security establishment remained a continuous player in domestic politics as well as policymaking process. The ascendancy of the military over the civilian was also testified by the WikiLeaks cables, which showed who called the shots in Pakistan, particularly with respect to foreign and security policies. Politicians remain divided and squabble with each other while the unelected power centre displays discipline and unity of command and action. The Afghanistan war and the war against extremists is pretty much driven and managed by the Army (though it has the political support of most of the coalition parties).
Furthermore, the credibility, or lack thereof, of the political class complicates the matters. In this context, the flood relief efforts of 2010 were viewed and mostly, thanks to the media spin, as a contest between the efficiency of the Army versus the ineptitude of the civilian leaders. The truth is that Pakistan’s politicians are yet to adjust their style of working to the fast-changing structure of power as well as social movements. Their business-as-usual approach lands them in trouble time and again. This is why the major stories on corruption this year dealt with the way politicians have been rewarding their cronies. The most glaring case was that of the Chairman Oil and Gas Development Corporation where a ‘friend’ of the Prime Minister was appointed only to be removed after a Supreme Court order. With a free media and a pro-active (some say hyper-active) judiciary, old model of patronage distribution is not going to work.
Coming back to the civilian-military imbalance and lack of trust (once again, howsoever flawed, WikiLeaks’ cables on Pakistan can be referred to as the closest of documentary record) between the two power centres, political instability is a challenge and there seems to be no escape from it. The sad part is that the political elites are also not interested in making a concerted effort to undo this imbalance as gaining and exercising a power-sharing formula is what they aspire for in the first place.
Having said that, the year 2010 was promising as the major opposition party, PML-N, refused to be part of any ‘unconstitutional’ move for a regime change. This is why many analysts have held that Nawaz Sharif’s support to the democratic order has been the best of things about the post-Musharraf Pakistan. By default, President Zardari has gained, as no major player of the game wants to upset the current arrangements at the centre and the provinces. However, this does not mean that Pakistan is moving towards a more embedded democracy.
Four challenges at the end of year 2010 are worth-noting. First, the inability and lack of a strategy of the political parties to make the parliamentary system work and bring the all-powerful invisible agencies under civilian control is missing.
Second, the rise of extremism despite the various swings of public opinion continues unabated. Al Qaeda, many analysts have noted, is getting more entrenched in Pakistan’s major cities and towns due to the relentless drone strikes in the northwest. Al Qaeda’s agenda cannot be fulfilled without removing the elements of political class that are ideologically positioned against extremism. This spells doom for the Pakistan People’s Party, the Awami National Party, and the Muttihada Qaumi Movement, which incidentally are pitted against each other in Karachi. Therefore, patronage (including that handed out to the criminal elements) politics remains a major issue in the face of a rising Al Qaeda.
Thirdly, Pakistan’s security establishment, which is outside the civilian ambit, is not willing to think out of the box on the Afghanistan imbroglio. The start of US troops’ pullout in 2011 and the deals with the Taliban are going to impact the way Pakistan is governed and who is the proxy on this side of the Durand line.
Finally, the economic downturn with continued stagflation and lack of jobs for a huge number of youth are going to lead to social unrest in the short to medium term. On the economy, there is no consensus among the political parties as the recent battles over Reformed General Sales Tax Bill shows. Unless there is an agreement to bring about structural changes to the economy, we are going to remain in doldrums running from one life support mechanism to another. Inflation and unemployment are going to affect the credibility of the quasi-democracy whether we like it or not.
The writer is editor and policy adviser based in Lahore. He blogs at
www.razarumi.com and also edits
www.pakteahouse.net