Is the ‘Get Zardari’ campaign democratic?
December 11th, 2011
President Asif Ali Zardari got sick and had to go to the UAE to get medically looked after. The media began to talk most blatantly about his ‘exit’ from Pakistan without realising what it would look like to anyone looking in from outside the country. The visceral, non-intellectual approach to the issue of the president’s illness conveyed the extent of degradation Pakistan has allowed itself when it comes to democracy. It recalled the ‘escape’ from the political system by two former prime ministers: Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif. The quality of comment assumed that not only was the exit of President Zardari welcome as a step towards ‘cleansing’ the system from corruption but, also, that the earlier departures of the two prime ministers were good for Pakistan.
From the nature and quality of discussion in the country, it appears that there is a consensus against the democratic process and there is subliminal support for any unconstitutional replacement that may be in the offing. No one cares for the Constitution because the reflex of ignoring it in favour of military intervention is highly developed. Public statements after the memogate affair are worshipful of the Pakistan Army and accusations of ‘treason’ are being directed at an elected government. (It would be a first in the history of democracy if treason is presented as a crime aimed against the army.) No one is thinking of the constitutional way of changing the government — that of challenging it to show majority in parliament or waiting till the next elections in 2013 and defeating it at the polls. President Zardari has to be removed because the next elections may not be ‘fair’ under him. No one thinks of what the Constitution says.
Governance in Pakistan was never exemplary and now that the situation of law and order has become this bad — because of al Qaeda and sundry other state-supported non-state actors — it is possible that it would be even more abysmal under any post-PPP government. Politicians who would remove President Zardari seem to have a worldview which sees nothing wrong with reconciling with non-state actors who commit acts of terrorism and militancy. There are cases being heard by the Supreme Court involving the PPP government and President Zardari, but no one makes any pretence of remaining impartial till the honourable court has delivered its verdict. It appears as if the accused is being prejudged and as if a groundswell of ‘national consensus’ is perhaps guiding the honourable court.
Pretend to be a non-Pakistani for a moment and one will see that that there is a collective tendency for self-destruction in all this. Intense politicians looking for populist acclaim repeat that President Zardari is partisan and that, somehow, it is not right that he is president and leader of the party at the same time. The truth is, the Constitution is silent on the matter and a future legislature must amend it to disallow a party leader becoming president. Innovative legalist thinking expects that where the Constitution is silent, the Supreme Court will somehow stretch its activist agenda and remove this constitutional grey area. Instead of doing all this, why not wait till the next elections and force the PPP government to meet its comeuppance? If corruption has become a national crisis and there is no way out left but to kick out an elected government prematurely, again the Constitution will need to be amended if the PPP’s majority in the National Assembly can’t be broken.
It doesn’t look nice that the people of Pakistan are currently giving the impression of ganging up against their own elected government and that even the Supreme Court is being made to look like the bellwether of the march in all this. The media and the politicians are their visceral worst, if for nothing else, than for the crime of consolidating the traditional supremacy of the army. The PPP government’s mode of survival, given these circumstances, is to blindly follow the lead of the military. Surely, it needs to assert itself and, for this, its biggest strength would be its electorate and no other institution.
War of words with the US
December 11th, 2011
Thus far, the US, a few unguarded moments of intemperance aside, has kept private its growing anger and disappointment at the unravelling relations with Pakistan, preferring instead to go the indirect route to make plain its position. All that might be about to change. At a press conference in Washington DC, the US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, made plain his, and by extension his government’s, anger at Pakistan in the wake of the Nato attack that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers. Leaving aside the chutzpah of Dempsey for using an incident where the US attacked Pakistani soldiers to launch verbal volleys in our direction, we have to pay close attention to his words and try to stem the growing anger on both sides. One of the first things both countries can do is keep plain-speaking military men far away from microphones. Dempsey’s angry and defensive press conference, where he asserted that the US did not need Pakistan as a route for Nato supplies and that they didn’t care about burned Nato trucks since they didn’t pay for the fuel until it reached them, has only matched in tone and rhetoric what Major-General Ishfaq Nadeem, the director general of military operations, told journalists in a briefing soon after the Nato attack. Nadeem’s insistence that the attack was a deliberate one, before an investigation into the incident even had time to start, publicly provoked the US at a time when quiet diplomacy was needed.
As the junior partner in this alliance, it is unfortunately incumbent on Pakistan to take most of the steps required to bring things back on track. It should start by agreeing to be a part of the joint investigation into the Nato attack. If the findings of that investigation show, as the US claims, that the attack was accidental, it will then be time to reopen supply routes for Nato trucks. The only other alternative is to go it alone. That wouldn’t mean an end to US military incursions in our territory and drone attacks on suspected militants based in the tribal areas since the US has never needed anyone’s acquiescence to guard its interests. It would simply mean that we wouldn’t be given the aid that keeps our treasury afloat. Once we are ready to do that, we can feel free to engage in an escalating war of words with the Americans.