30-07-2013
History`s verdict: President`s election
AS the country`s elected representatives prepare to elect the 12th president of Pakistan today, it is worth reflecting on the office itself and the men who have occupied it since its creation in 1956. The first three presidents were Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. None have been judged kindly by history, and rightly so. Next came Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who inherited the job and a broken country from Yahya Khan. Mr Bhutto was perhaps this country`s greatest politician, but a leader whose flaws unhappily often matched his talents. As far as the presidency is concerned, however, Mr Bhutto was the leader who gave it its present-day shape under the 1973 Constitution. Some historians have suggested that the founder of the PPP preferred some variation of the presidential system he inherited from successive military dictators, but did not find much political support for the idea. Forty years on, there is a nearuniversal consensus among the political class that a parliamentary system is very much the preferred, if not the only workable, model for the country.
Of course, a ceremonial president was a short-lived idea: Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry spent five years in office before Gen Zia gave himself the job and then proceeded to recover all powers, and more, that the presidency held before 1973. Sadly for MrChaudhry, a largely anonymous figure, he was mocked by posterity for being a toothless president particularly the posterity that had vested interests in re-empowering the presidency. After Zia came the era of the superbureaucrat: Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a man who mastered the art of palace intrigue and was convinced that civilian politicians were an inferior class of leader as compared to, for example, himself. Ishaq Khan and the man who came after him, Farooq Leghari, were the 58-2-B presidents, nonmilitary leaders who just could not resist picking sides and staying out of power politics.
Next up was the 13th Amendment president, Rafiq Tarar, symbolising yet another shortlived attempt at reinstating the figurehead presidency. The Musharraf coup deposed the government that had Mr Tarar elected and that essentially guaranteed yet another U-turn ahead for the office of the presidency. All powers arrogated to the presidency once more, it took the 2008 elections and a generous Asif Ali Zardari to allow matters to revert to the 1973 model. And there matters rest today, with Mamnoon Hussain set to become the country`s 12th president. Politically, democratically, the country is stronger today than it was 40 years ago. Perhaps in five years` time, it will be strong enough to have an altogether apolitical president.
No end in sight: Deaths in Egypt
IS Egypt going to become a police state worse than what it was under Hosni Mubarak? Following more than 70 deaths after two days of clashes, President Adly Mansour has authorised Prime Minister Hazem elBeblawi to give army troops powers to arrest civilians. That the army should now get police powers underlines two painful realities for the generals: the Muslim Brotherhood remains defiant and the civilian security establishment is unable to control the bloodshed the coup makers had not foreseen. Concern over the deaths is being voiced across the world. That may not worry army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, because the US has announced aid to Egypt will continue. However, what he should worry about is the trap in which he has landed himself, for the future is going to see the regime getting deeper into the bog. Thousands of ex-president Mohammed Morsi`s supporters and their families have refused to leave Cairo`s Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, and Interior Minister MohammadIbrahim`s claim that the protesters would be dispersed `soon` means a costly crackdown on the mosque camp is likely.
State terror and sophistry are not going to help Egypt. The only way for the army-backed regime to get out of the worsening crisis is to tackle the dissent politically and work sincerely and fast for a transparent election. The anti-Morsi camp`s euphoria was brief, for the generals realised within 24 hours of the coup that they had mistaken the street protest for a mandate to overthrow an elected government. The charges against Mr Morsi have sounded contrived.
True, Mr Morsi`s failings are many, and he arrogated more powers to himself than was necessary. Nevertheless, it should have been left to the people to throw him out at the hustings. Last Wednesday Gen Sisi`s intentions to consolidate power became clear when he asked the Egyptian people to take to the streets in his favour. Unfortunately, this show of strength through street demonstrations has only polarised Egypt further.
Toying with life: Guns in children`s hands
VERSIONS of `cowboys `n Indians` may be amongst the classics in children`s games, but in a place such as Pakistan, awash as it is with weapons, there are strong reasons why it should be discouraged. Yet when pressed by Junior to buy him the latest in plastic replicas of machines designed to deliver death, far too many people will comply. The fact is that guns are such a common accessory in today`s Pakistan that in an odd sort of way, the purpose for which they are designed seems to have been relegated to an afterthought. Children of all backgrounds playing with toy guns and pretending to shoot each other dead is thus a common sight, and why not? They are only indulging in a game that mirrors the realities they see around them the problem, of course, being that in the process, the idea of holding a gun becomes more and morenormalised. Someone who handled toy weapons in childhood may well feel more comfortable with the real thing in adulthood.
Pacifist ideas don`t sit too well in the context of modern Pakistan but, thankfully, they haven`t entirely evaporated yet, as one modest effort to counter the gun culture shows. An organisation that works in Karachi`s Pakhtun slums has initiated a campaign through the social media, radio and posters to persuade people to refrain from giving children Eid gifts in the form of toy guns. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas, where weapons are carried as a cultural norm, are being targeted in particular. It is a drop in the ocean, true, but every effort has to begin somewhere. Wringing one`s hands over the fact that the gun culture is entrenched in Pakistan and leaving it at that is hardly a viable course of action