The Gaza Strip

Hamas's battle for hearts and minds

Mar 27th 2008 | GAZA
From The Economist print edition

How Palestine's Islamists are working to consolidate their support

ATTEMPTS at a rapprochement between the Palestinian Islamist party, Hamas, and its more secular rival, Fatah, faltered this week almost as soon as they had begun. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and head of Fatah, quickly disowned an agreement that his negotiator had signed after talks with Hamas representatives in Yemen.

The fact that America's vice-president, Dick Cheney, was visiting him at the time may have helped put the already reluctant Mr Abbas off the deal. Since Hamas won PA parliamentary elections in 2006, Fatah, with the help of much of the Western and Arab world, has been trying to dislodge it. After Hamas's bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip last June left Mr Abbas in control of only the West Bank, the West and Israel talked about making the West Bank a shining example of what Gazans could aspire to—if they got rid of Hamas.

But that scheme is failing. In the West Bank, Israel has done nothing to ease the maze of checkpoints and roadblocks that cripple the economy, and its talks with Mr Abbas on a Palestinian state are yielding no visible progress. A blockade it imposed on Gaza backfired in January when militants broke through Gaza's southern wall bordering Egypt, briefly letting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians replenish their stores. The constant exchange of Palestinian rockets and Israeli air raids escalated a month ago into a battle that killed two Israeli troops and well over 100 Gazans, many of them children.

Yet not even this death toll doused Hamas's claims of victory. A survey earlier this month by the West Bank-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research gave Fatah 42% of Palestinian support and Hamas 35%, a far smaller gap than two months ago. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's leader in Gaza (and, until Mr Abbas sacked him in June, the PA prime minister), would also beat Mr Abbas for the presidency, albeit by a whisker, for the first time ever. The presidential poll is nine months away.

Now Hamas is using a relative lull since the battle to consolidate its support. It is paying people who have lost homes or breadwinners in the clashes and ensuring that Islamic charities look after the wounded. Donations from the rest of the Muslim world have increased.

But it is not as much as Hamas needs to meet the growing demands on its own charities, which are supported by members paying 2% from their withering incomes. “The youth are very pessimistic because there is no hope,” says a relatively moderate member of Hamas's secretive governing council, the Shura. “Girls and boys are coming to my door to be suicide-bombers. I try to convince them to go and live their lives.”

Older recruits are not turned away. They have flooded to Hamas's armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The brigades are master suicide-bombers, but are becoming an increasingly regular military force. This boosts Hamas's confidence that it can control rival militias, which launch most of the rockets at Israel, should it succeed in turning the current lull into a formal ceasefire.

A network of Hamas members reports weekly to senior leaders to discuss community sentiment. They alerted the movement to its plummeting popularity in the wake of its brutal takeover of Gaza last year. It responded by clamping down on clan violence and instructing its own militia to be kinder to the public.

However, Hamas is now attempting to sell the virtues of a ceasefire to a battered people accustomed to talk of “steadfastness” and “resistance”. A group of leading thinkers is to visit universities and hold symposia to convince Gazans that a period of calm will help lift the siege and rebuild their disappearing economy. Meanwhile Hamas continues broadcasting messages about the worthlessness of Mr Abbas's negotiations with the Israelis.

Yet for Palestinians on Gaza's front-line, Hamas is less impressive. In the border towns, which get hardest hit when Israel invades, Fatah support is much higher than in Gaza City, according to al-Mustaqbal, a polling firm with ties to Hamas. And when Palestinians swept Hamas to power in 2006, they believed the Islamists would clean up the corruption-riddled PA and bring social and economic progress, not turn Gaza into a war zone.

So now it is trying to return to its election mandate. Tucked away in desk drawers are plans to attract foreign investment, build factories to replace goods imported from Israel, create jobs, provide public land to farmers with cheap loans and send Gaza's fishing fleet back to sea. But Hamas has limited options. Its leaders privately concede they are desperate to end the siege. “All the leaders are interested in a ceasefire,” says a member close to Mr Haniyeh. “Israel has more weapons and can cause more damage.”

Hamas also admits that hitting more Israeli civilians, especially with the longer-range Katyusha rockets it fired earlier this month at the city of Ashkelon, may come at too high a price. “If you hit the heart of Ashkelon it will give them an excuse to hit Gaza and kill 2,000 people and the world will say nothing,” says Hamas's foreign-affairs spokesman, Ahmed Yusuf.

So Hamas has a lot riding on Egyptian efforts to find a longer-term solution. Israel says it wants Egypt to stop arms smuggling through tunnels under its border with Gaza before a ceasefire can be discussed. Hamas says it will accept members of Mr Abbas's presidential guard and the restoration of EU monitors on the Gaza-Egypt border, along the lines of an agreement that Israel and the PA struck before Hamas's election. But Hamas still shows no interest in giving up stockpiling armaments.

For now, therefore, Hamas's strategy depends on the acquiescence of Fatah and Israel, neither of which wants the Islamists to develop as a political force. This means all it has left is the threat of crisis. “If this ceasefire doesn't work, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all other military factions won't surrender, there will be a massive reaction to end the siege. Creating crisis might help create opportunity,” says Mr Yusuf.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

Apr 3rd 2008 | PESHAWAR
From The Economist print edition




THE battle against al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters on Pakistan's borders, says Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, and leader of her ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), “is as much Pakistan's war as anybody else's”. But following his pledge to talk to such groups, America seems to doubt his commitment. Its secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, recalled that President Pervez Musharraf had also made an ineffective pact with the militants. The head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, was blunter. That “disastrous” deal, he said, had allowed terrorists a “free rein”. He added that America, which has stepped up missile strikes in the tribal areas where both groups have their strongholds, was “interested” in further attacks there.

Since Mr Musharraf's supporters were beaten in February's parliamentary election, the president's influence has been waning. His support for America has been extremely unpopular in Pakistan. But Mr Zardari's shift of the government's stance will have to be subtle, not least because economic troubles loom and America has offered more financial inducements in return for co-operation.

The new coalition government of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) condemned Mr Hayden's remarks. Asfandyar Wali Khan, who leads the Awami National Party, the Pushtun-nationalist party that heads the coalition, says he is in contact with “some Taliban”. He is confident of winning over local militants, starting in the district of Swat where two pro-government tribal elders were killed this week. Mr Wali Khan has been cheered that Pakistan's army has closed several terrorist training-camps. On a grander scale, he wants to build on a cross-border jirga, or council, held last year, by bringing the “conflicting parties”—including America—to the negotiating table. “Let America defend its position in public,” he declares.

Policymakers and spooks are once again grappling with the intractable problems of governing the tribal areas. Pakistan inherited what the British had created as a buffer zone where, in the words of one historian, “tribesmen were like tigers in a national park” and omnipotent political agents acted as gamekeepers.

Pakistan's new prime minister, the PPP's Yousaf Raza Gillani, said he would abolish the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). This is a barbaric colonial-era law, ruling the tribal areas through the threat of collective punishment, on which their autonomy is based. A pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose party has joined Mr Gillani's coalition, threatened a tribal uprising if it was axed. An hour later the proposal was under review.

A poll published this year found that 39% of tribesmen wanted the FCR to be amended and 31% want it abolished. Nobody is clear what should replace it but over half of the tribesmen want Islamic sharia law. Karim Mehsud, who is part of a tribal-area lobby group, wants an autonomous council or government.

Weak administrative structures have allowed violent groups to flourish. Waziristan has become home to Afghan warlords, feral Uzbeks and assorted local thugs guilty of atrocities against Pakistani troops and civilians. This week a man and a woman were stoned to death for adultery.

Kamran Khan, the 25-year-old member of parliament for North Waziristan, says there will be fighting as long as American troops remain next door in Afghanistan. His constituents are not averse to America's plans to pump $750m into development in the tribal areas. But they think this is peanuts. “We need billions,” he says.

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Marwatone.

Baluchistan

Let them eat mud

Apr 17th 2008 | QUETTA
From The Economist print edition

No end in sight to the rebellion

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, Pakistan's president, has expressed regret at bombing ethnic-Pushtun tribal areas to attack armed extremists. He has shown no such remorse for doing the same in Baluchistan. And few Baluchis expect their new government to end the army's campaign against a nationalist insurgency.

Mohammed Hussain, a 70-year-old Marri tribesman, has lived with his family in a straw hut outside Dera Murad Jamali for two years, since the Pakistani army killed his livestock and looted and destroyed his house. He is one of 50,000-60,000 refugees from the Bugti and Marri tribes who have fled the bombardment of their mountain homes and scattered.

A low-intensity conflict with secular Baluchi nationalists flared in 2000 over the government's attempts to extend its writ in the sparsely populated, poor, but mineral-rich province. The government has halted deliveries of aid to the refugees and tried to impose an information blackout on the area. Mr Hussain is angry: “We are not snakes that can eat mud.”

National and provincial elections in Pakistan in February led to the weakening of Mr Musharraf and the formation of a new coalition federal government. Led by the Pakistan's People's Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto, an assassinated former prime minister, it has promised to halt the army's campaign in Baluchistan, free some 4,000 “disappeared” Baluchis and discuss demands for greater provincial autonomy.

The province is believed by NATO commanders to be a sanctuary for the Taliban leadership. Military-intelligence officers call the shots and few expect the new government to keep its promises. It includes many of those who supported the army operation. And there is only one person sitting on the opposition benches of the provincial assembly. The majority of Baluchi- and Pushtun-nationalist parties boycotted the poll, fearing rigging. Turnout was as low as 2.8% in some districts of Makran. In Dera Bugti the official turnout was 40%. Observers and the one opposition candidate were barred from the area. Mr Musharraf's political ally, the Pakistan's Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) won the most seats, 20, compared with the PPP's 11 in the 65-seat assembly. However, with the PPP in power at the centre, the entire provincial PML-Q stampeded to a broad-based PPP-led coalition. The solitary opposition member is Yar Mohammed Rind, a tribal chief who has a blood feud dating back to the 1980s with the PPP's chief minister, Nawab Aslam Raisani, which has claimed over 200 lives.

Prospects for peace are further dimmed by the intransigence of some of the Baluchi tribal leaders. And the Baluch Liberation Army, a shadowy terrorist group, said by the army to be financed by India, may refuse to negotiate. It has murdered political opponents, policemen, journalists and Punjabis. Mr Musharraf's high-handedness has won radical separatists more sympathy. “Death to Pakistan” graffiti has appeared on Quetta's walls.

Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, an 80-year-old tribal leader, describes Mr Musharraf as a “gangster with an ego”. And he dismisses the apology Bhutto's widower, Asif Zardari, offered for the way Baluchis have been treated, calling the PPP “machiavellian”. One of his sons, who led fighters in the hills, was killed last year by Pakistani forces. Another has been arrested on terrorism charges in London, part of a secretive deal in which Britain hoped to win the extradition of a terrorist suspect, Rashid Rauf. (Mr Rauf miraculously escaped from Pakistani custody.)

General Abdul Qadir Baloch, a former provincial governor and army commander in Quetta, believes reports that hundreds of Baluchis have been stripped naked, hung upside down, electrocuted, dunked in wells or killed. The army's campaign, he says, is “unwarranted”. Mr Raisani has asked for an end to “meddling” by military intelligence in Baluchistan. The habit will be hard to kick.

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Marwatone.

Iraq and the United Nations

A Kurdish conundrum

Apr 17th 2008 | KIRKUK
From The Economist print edition

Can the United Nations help solve a perennially bitter territorial dispute?

AFTER Saddam Hussein's fall five years ago, there were high hopes for the northern city of Kirkuk. It is surrounded by some of Iraq's most fertile land—and lies above a huge underground lake of oil. Its ethnic and religious mélange of Sunni and Shia Arabs, Christians, Kurds and Turkomans seemed fairly harmonious. Yet the future status of both the city and the province around it remains hotly and sometimes violently disputed. In the past two years, the level of violence in the city has sometimes been higher even than in Baghdad. Reconstruction has stalled. Now, however, there is a glimmer—if only a glimmer—of hope that the United Nations may persuade enough of its inhabitants to forge a compromise.

Broadly speaking, there are four choices. If a promised referendum is held at the end of June and the majority of voters so wish, the province of Kirkuk could join the self-ruling block of three northern provinces already run by the Kurdistan Regional Government. Or it could become a self-ruling entity of its own, as some Turkoman groups propose. Or it could remain under the administration of the central government in Baghdad, as many Arabs prefer. Or the province could be divided, so that those districts voting to stay under Baghdad's control would be able to do so, while those that want to be run by Kurds join the Kurdish region.

But if the various groups refuse to compromise, Kirkuk is a powder-keg that could blow up. If wholesale violence broke out between the main groups (Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans), then Iraq's neighbours, in particular Turkey, could be drawn in.

Article 140 of Iraq's constitution provides a clear road map for settling the issue of Kirkuk and other disputed territories in the north, all of which were affected by a ruthless campaign of gerrymandering and ethnic cleansing under Mr Hussein and his Baathists, in order to Arabise the region. Kurds want to right what they see as historic wrongs—and take Kirkuk into their region. Arabs and Turkomans vehemently disagree, fearing they would be marginalised under Kurdish rule. So far, nobody has found a workable compromise—and the problem has festered. “The trouble is,” says a Western diplomat, “doing nothing in Kirkuk is almost as bad as doing something.”

So the UN is having a go. At the end of last year its special representative in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, helped persuade the Kurds to accept a six-month delay in holding a controversial referendum on whether people in Kirkuk and other areas wanted to join the Kurdistan region. Now he is trying to find a formula to settle boundary disputes in other slightly less tricky areas in the north, in the hope of creating a model for a future deal for Kirkuk itself—without having a referendum that many analysts think would certainly cause bloodshed. Mr de Mistura admits that Kirkuk is “the mother of all issues”.

The city is just one of the disputed areas addressed by Article 140 that form an arc running about 450km (280 miles) from Sinjar in Iraq's north-west corner to the province of Diyala in the east. So far, the officially demarcated Kurdish region covers only the three northern provinces: Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. But the de facto Kurdish region, which the Kurdish government claims and currently controls, spills over into parts of the provinces of Nineveh, Saladin, Kirkuk (also called Tamim by the Arabs) and Diyala.

Mr de Mistura says he will table a clutch of suggestions by May 15th for Iraqi leaders to decide under which authority to put four or five disputed areas as the first of three phases for settling the status of areas on the edge of the officially recognised Kurdish region. He has not publicly identified these areas but Kurdish officials say they may include Makhmour, south-west of Erbil; Qaraqosh, east of Mosul; an area near Akre populated largely by members of the Yazidi sect; and Barderash, north-west of Erbil. These all have mainly Kurdish populations that could join the Kurdish region immediately without too much fuss. A second phase could include territorial adjustments near Sinjar in the north-west; Altun Kupri, south-east of Erbil on the road to Kirkuk; and Khanaquin and even Mandali, near the border with Iran. Some areas could peel away from de facto Kurdish control. For instance, the Sunni stronghold of Hawija, where al-Qaeda has been active, could be taken out of Kirkuk province and transferred to Saladin.

The stage would then be set for dealing with Kirkuk itself, though nobody has suggested a timetable. The idea, says Mr de Mistura, is to consider “objective criteria”, such as the results of the elections in December 2005, the gerrymandering of provincial boundaries under Mr Hussein, and how well minority rights and the sharing of resources in the disputed areas are respected. A referendum could perhaps eventually be held at the end of the process, with luck merely confirming territorial deals previously struck.

Last week the UN man took his proposals, which are still being honed, to EU and NATO leaders in Brussels. Before he left Iraq he stopped off to talk to Kurdish leaders in Erbil, who have angrily accused Nuri al-Maliki's government in Baghdad of dithering over Article 140. But the Kurds have themselves so far failed to persuade Arabs and Turkomans in the disputed areas that they would be better off in a Kurdish-ruled region. The Turkomans would, for instance, have a much larger proportion of seats in a Kurdish regional assembly than they now do in the federal parliament in Baghdad.

Publicly, the Kurdish leaders still insist on a referendum by the end of June, as promised by the Iraqi government. Privately, however, they have given Mr de Mistura's ideas a cautious welcome. Apart from a referendum, he says, his is “the only plan on the table”. If it worked, it would be a huge breakthrough towards a stable, federal Iraq. But it is a long shot.

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Marwatone.

Pakistan's tribal areas

Dangerous deals

May 1st 2008 | PESHAWAR
From The Economist print edition




AS THE snows melt in Afghanistan, the fighting season beckons; across the border in Pakistan, however, it is the season for making peace deals. After winning an election in February the coalition government, led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), announced plans to talk to militants. Talks have indeed taken place, to the chagrin of the American administration. But the civilians had little to do with them.

The PPP and its main coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, have been far too busy for duty in the “war on terror”. They have been bickering instead over their unfulfilled pledge to reinstate judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf. On the frontier, Mr Musharraf, army chief until November 2007, still calls the shots. It was he who signed a 15-point peace plan cobbled together by a military-intelligence agency and the governor of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) before the election, and approved by the new civilian government last month.

The army and the militants, both badly bruised from vicious fighting, have observed an unofficial ceasefire for more than a month while officials attempt to string a series of “secret” deals together across the lawless tribal agencies. They are close to signing a deal with tribal elders acting for Baitullah Mehsud, the overall leader of the assorted Pakistani Taliban outfits. The CIA has named Mr Mehsud as the prime suspect in the murder last December of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister. It accuses him of training suicide-bombers. On April 25th he distributed fliers ordering supporters to end hostilities or be “hung upside down in public”.

The deal stipulates an end to militant activity, the expulsion of foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and the gradual withdrawal of the army from South Waziristan. But similar deals have foundered in the past. In North Waziristan, for example, a 2006 agreement led to a tripling of cross-border infiltration. Officials say the new pact ties in more tribes. In South Waziristan the methods for dealing with “violations” have been tightened.

But the flaws are obvious: the draft is silent about militants' cross-border forays into Afghanistan; and it is not clear how ineffective tribal elders can wield influence over well-armed militants. Western diplomats say that infiltration has doubled over the past month compared with the same time last year, and is a particular problem from Bajaur.

According to a senior Western diplomat, there is a lingering attachment between elements of Pakistan's establishment and Mr Mehsud and other leading Islamist extremists. The militants holding Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who was kidnapped in February in the Khyber Pass, say that in return for freeing him they want the release of three suspects accused of murdering Benazir Bhutto and a former Taliban defence minister, Mullah Obaidullah.

The secular party that governs the North-West Frontier Province, the Awami National Party, is trying to pacify its own area. It has released a senior pro-Taliban Pakistani militant, Sufi Mohammad, whose banned faction has pledged to renounce violence. Khalid Aziz, a retired senior bureaucrat, has helped draw up a plan that includes boosting the province's police force by 14,000 officers and rehabilitating 12,000 former militants. But he says NWFP's success is greatly dependent on the tribal areas. Aftab Sherpao, a former interior minister who has survived two suicide-attacks, says that no plan can work unless it is linked to agreements in Afghanistan. To some observers, including the Americans, it all has an air of inevitable failure.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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Marwatone.

Pakistan
Three-way struggle

May 8th 2008 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition

After a brief lull, Pakistani politics is in turmoil again

LESS than three months after surprisingly free general elections on February 18th and the smooth formation of coalition governments across the country, Pakistan is in a mess again. It is teetering on the brink of food riots, industrial lay-offs and strikes against daily 12-hour nationwide power cuts. The economy is slipping. Capital flight has taken nearly 5% off the value of the rupee against the dollar in the past few weeks. The war against extremists in the tribal badlands is going nowhere.

Instability has returned to haunt politics. The new coalition government, led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Asif Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, is besieged by the press and a relentless lawyers' movement. They demand the restoration of the senior judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last November. The PPP's main partner in the federal and Punjab-provincial governments, the Pakistan Muslim League, or PML(N) of Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, is threatening to quit the coalition if it does not honour its pledge to reinstate the judges. The two agreed in March that they would do so by April 30th but later squabbled over how to go about it. The latest deadline is May 12th.

The two parties have agreed on the wording of a parliamentary resolution to bring the judges back. Mr Sharif insists that once it is passed the government should simply issue an order. But Mr Zardari wants a constitutional amendment. He fears that the incumbent Supreme Court judges, appointed by Mr Musharraf and due to lose their jobs if the deposed judges are reinstated, will strike down an executive order and ask Mr Musharraf and the army to protect them, bringing a confrontation with the government. As the constitution amended by Mr Musharraf stands, the appointment of senior judges is the task of the president and the chief justice of the Supreme Court can ask any organ of the state to protect and defend it.

The constitutional niceties mask a political power struggle. Those who want the old judges restored by a stroke of the executive pen also want to see the back of President Musharraf immediately. They expect the restored old judges, infuriated by the president's high-handed treatment of them, to overthrow him, declaring his election and all his edicts illegal. For its part the press was angered by a crackdown by Mr Musharraf last year. He shut down the leading television channels and banned some outspoken anchors who were supporters of the lawyers' movement. And Mr Sharif sees the ousting of the man who overthrew him in 1999 as the first step in his bid to reclaim the prime ministership.

Mr Zardari, however, believes any confrontation with the president, army and judiciary would play into the hands of his political opponents. That means, above all, his coalition partner, the PML(N), which is hoping for a new general election sooner rather than later. He also thinks that Mr Musharraf should be weakened politically but not eliminated at once. He argues that the economy would suffer if he goes, because American annoyance and doubts about Pakistan's commitment to fighting extremism would damage confidence. Civilian governments, sensitive to popular opinion, may find it hard to take tough decisions involving the continued use of force. So Mr Zardari wants a constitutional amendment that would accommodate both old and new judges while clipping Mr Musharraf's power to sack the government and parliament at will.

But the political scene gets murkier by the day. In a shocking move on May 5th the Election Commission postponed by-elections for 30 provincial and eight federal parliamentary seats from June 18th to August 18th. It cited rising security concerns in the North-West Frontier Province, which is badly hit by Taliban militancy. It later relented and set a new date of June 26th. The PPP had strongly condemned the delay, but it emerged that the initiative came in fact from Mr Zardari's aide, Rehman Malik, who is also the de-facto home minister. The signal was clear enough: if the PML(N) doesn't play ball with the PPP and leaves the coalition, the PPP would have no option but to ally with the “king's party” of Mr Musharraf. This would enhance Mr Musharraf's role, annoy most Pakistanis and erode popular goodwill for Mr Zardari. But with deadlock over the judges looming, Mr Zardari has few appealing options. Nor does Pakistan.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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Marwatone.

Pakistan
The coalition collapses

May 15th 2008 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition


THE spectre of instability haunting Pakistan will not go away. On May 13th the fledgling governing coalition of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by Asif Zardari, widower of a former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML-N, headed by another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, fell apart. Mr Sharif pulled out of the federal cabinet over “fundamental disagreements” on how to restore 60 senior judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf during martial law last year. Not surprisingly, this raised fears of a yet another round of confrontation and instability. But all may not yet be lost.

Mr Sharif's party says it does not want to destabilise the PPP government and will not vote with the opposition. To do so, it suggests, would play into the hands of the “anti-democratic conspirators”—meaning Mr Musharraf and the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid), or PML-Q, better known as the king's party, which is waiting in the wings to offer its coalition services to Mr Zardari. The coalition between the PPP and the PML-N in the critical province of Punjab is still hobbling along. And on May 15th, the Electoral Commission unexpectedly allowed Mr Sharif to contest a by-election, raising the possibility of his re-entering Parliament (previously, his election papers had been rejected). Pundits saw this as a sign that a deal may be in the works with Mr Zardari to keep the coalition going.

The stumbling block is the so-called “judges issue”. Mr Sharif's party insists that the judges removed by Mr Musharraf should be restored by an executive order based on a parliamentary resolution. Mr Zardari's party claims that this would be unconstitutional, would lead to a clash with the president and current Supreme Court and that the army could be dragged in, with disastrous results. He wants a constitutional amendment that restores the judges without provoking a wider clash. Behind the legal sparring is hard politics, much of it personal.

Mr Sharif and his supporters want the old judges to return to throw out Mr Musharraf by declaring his presidential election last November unconstitutional. Mr Sharif would also like the judges to strike down his personal conviction for terrorism and kidnapping in 2000 which stands in the way of his seeking a parliamentary seat. In fact, he would like them to strike down pretty much everything Mr Musharraf did in his capacity as army chief and president—including the ban (enshrined in the constitution) on anyone serving as prime minister for a third term. The ban affects Mr Sharif who has been prime minister twice. But it would not affect Mr Zardari.

For his part, Mr Zardari has little reason to warm to the old Supreme Court judges. He served eight years in prison on charges of corruption and murder which were originally slapped on him by the government of Mr Sharif in 1997, though he was never convicted. By decree, Mr Musharraf exonerated both him and Ms Bhutto from criminal charges. The old judges struck down that decree. The new ones who replaced them upheld it. Mr Zardari therefore wants the new judges to stay on even after the old ones are reinstated. That would require the Supreme Court to be restructured by a constitutional amendment, with the aim of producing a balance of power between pro-Sharif old judges and pro-Zardari new ones.

At the moment, there is an impasse, The coalition in Islamabad has split. Yet if Mr Sharif is ensconced in Parliament soon, things may be patched up. Most Pakistanis want the coalition to survive in order to address pressing issues such as inflation, food subsidies, unemployment, power shortages and capital flight. America is also desperate to have a stable, legitimate government with which it can talk about terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. None of these worthy objectives would be met if the PPP and PML-N split apart, Mr Zardari cobbles together a coalition with the PML-Q—and the government is then besieged by political activists, lawyers and the stridently anti-Musharraf media.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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Marwatone.

India and Pakistan

Lost momentum

May 22nd 2008 | ISLAMABAD AND MUZAFFARABAD
From The Economist print edition

Talks resume, but get nowhere

WHEN Pranab Mukherjee, India's foreign minister, met Pakistan's leaders this week he may well have been wondering who was in charge. It was the first high-level meeting India has had with Pakistan's new civilian government. The balance of power between it, President Pervez Musharraf and the army he used to head remains murky.

Talks between India and Pakistan stalled last year, when months of political turmoil followed President Musharraf's sacking of the judiciary. Their resumption in Islamabad now, in the fourth round of foreign-ministerial talks since 2004, when the two nuclear-armed neighbours agreed to a “composite dialogue”, achieved little. The talks went ahead despite bomb blasts last week in Jaipur in northern India, which killed 61 people. India refrained from the Pakistan-bashing that usually follows such terrorist attacks.

On the table in Islamabad, in theory, were some bold Pakistani initiatives to resolve the 60-year-old Kashmir dispute. This Pakistani flexibility may soon vanish, if Mr Musharraf, and just as important, Tariq Aziz, his chief aide, soon leave the scene. Elections in February weakened the president and produced a shaky coalition government. Asif Zardari, the co-chairman of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, said that better relations with India should not be held hostage to Kashmir.

India, which could accept the status quo there, has the upper hand. Its government faces elections in the next year, and is in no mood to make any big concessions. Nor was any headway made on issues such as the confrontation on Siachen glacier or the maritime border dispute over the Sir Creek estuary in the Arabian Sea.

The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, may soon visit Pakistan. But for Kashmiris, many of whom want to be shot of both India and Pakistan, all this is too slow. They hoped for an easing of travel restrictions across the ceasefire line. Cumbersome security checks have prevented more than a few thousand passengers using a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad that started three years ago.

Kashmiri political leaders on both sides see the talks as merely serving the two states' interests. Violence is sharply reduced, but still nearly 800 people were killed last year in a revolt against Indian rule that broke out in 1989 and has killed tens of thousands. India's security forces claim that local support for the militants has dwindled and only some 600 remain active. But in Islamabad India complained that infiltration of fighters from Pakistan has increased in the past two months.

Last week the Indian army said that, despite a 2003 ceasefire, which has mostly been honoured, it had lost a soldier due to shooting across the “line of control” that divides Kashmir. Pakistan-based militant groups are resurfacing. In April Syed Salahuddin, chairman of the militant coalition, the United Jihad Council, held an open meeting in Muzaffarabad. Analysts say the militants are taking advantage of the government's disarray to regroup.

Terrorism investigations in Britain of young British Kashmiris suggest that militant training camps still exist in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. So what used to be an Indian and Pakistani problem also affects Britain. Tanvir ul-Islam, a retired militant commander, says that peaceful resolution of the conflict would reduce international security risks. He says Pakistan-controlled Kashmir does not want to become a “nursery for mushrooming jihadis”.

But Sardar Ejaz Afzal Khan, a leader of Jamaat-I-Islami, an Islamist party, supports the armed struggle, calling talks futile. He echoes the views of separatists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, that Kashmir is not a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, but one for Kashmiris. President George Bush said this month the time was ripe for a solution on Kashmir. It is hard to find the evidence for that assertion.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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Marwatone.

Nepal

Goodbye to all that

May 29th 2008 | KATHMANDU
From The Economist print edition

The abolition of the monarchy may be the easy part for Nepal's government

AT 6:15pm the fountains were switched on. The water danced. The white-clad military band stood to attention. And waited. And waited. After 239 years of rule by the Shah royal dynasty, perhaps it was inevitable that the last few hours of waiting for the monarchy to be abolished and a republic set up should also be long and drawn-out. When the announcement came, it was greeted with cheers. Three bombs had gone off earlier in the day. Yet all things considered, the decision, momentous as it was, sparked neither bitter complaint nor intense celebration.

Perhaps the long period of violence and uncertainty beforehand had something to do with it. Nepal has seen a decade-long civil war; two postponed elections; a massacre of the royal family; the grabbing of absolute power by the king and the handing back of it again; and most recently, victory in elections by Maoist former guerrillas. Nepalis could be forgiven for being uncertain of what lies in store.

The country's constituent assembly voted to abolish King Gyanendra's house by 560 votes to 4. The king's unpopularity, among assembly members and the ordinary Nepalis who elected them in April, was well earned. In 1990, his brother, King Birendra, bowed to popular demands and became a constitutional monarch, attaining respect and affection as a result.

When the Maoists began their insurrection in the western hills in 1996, getting rid of the crown was not on their agenda. Yet Gyanendra alienated supporters by grabbing dictatorial powers in 2005, only to be forced to hand them back again after a clumsy attempted crackdown turned peaceful protests into nationwide strikes. Most Nepalis believe—without any evidence—that Gyanendra and his unpopular playboy son, Paras, were involved in the royal massacre of 2001 when Crown Prince Dipendra killed his immediate family, several other relatives and himself.

The royal family was once revered as the reincarnation of Hindu gods. But the massacre undermined faith in the monarchy in general, and turned Nepalis against this king in particular. Before he ascended the throne, Gyanendra had been a successful businessman. He will be allowed to stay in Nepal and return to commerce. His palace will become a museum.

But for the man who engineered the king's departure, tougher choices lie ahead. This is the leader of Nepal's Maoists, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, which means “awesome”. Prachanda has long said he would become the first president of a Nepalese republic. He stands on the brink of achieving that ambition. His problems start then.

The Maoists are the biggest party, but do not have a majority. Nepal is led by a fractious coalition, which the Maoists want to widen by including regional parties from the south and south-east. That may make managing the coalition trickier.

The abolition of the monarchy is a first step in a much wider reform. Laws and even customs deemed to go against the country's status as a republic are to be repealed. Many politicians who supported Prachanda's demand to abolish the monarchy will not necessarily back proposals for what should replace it. For example, the parties of the south and south-east want extensive regional autonomy. Prachanda seems unlikely to give it to them.

He will also have to get to grips with the aftermath of the civil war. The former royal army is 90,000-strong. Nepal also has 23,000 Maoist ex-combatants kicking their heels in temporary camps. The Maoists want to merge the two forces. The army's high command is reluctant.

Then there are economic and social promises to fulfil. The Maoists want to push through land reform, emancipate the lower castes and seek foreign investment. With growth slowing, that would be hard enough by itself. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown—and the breast that sports a presidential sash.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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Marwatone.

Pakistan

Going, maybe

Jun 5th 2008 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition



MANY Pakistanis think that Pervez Musharraf's days as their president are numbered. They may be right. On June 4th a senior adviser to the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which heads the two-month old coalition government, said Mr Musharraf was “reconciled” to stepping down, and that the PPP wanted a “dignified” exit. It is certainly a slow one.

At the end of last month Pakistan was abuzz with rumours that he would throw in the towel and hop on a plane to a safe haven abroad. This followed reports of a late-night meeting when the army chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, had leaned on the president to quit. It was also reported that the Musharraf appointee leading the crack “111” army brigade, whose remit traditionally includes coup-making, had been replaced by a Kiyani loyalist.

All this was provoked by an unexpectedly strong statement by Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower and successor as PPP leader, calling the president “a relic of the past”, who could be impeached if he did not quit. Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML(N), the other big anti-Musharraf party, followed up with a blistering attack on Mr Musharraf.

But then the tension abated. The presidency swatted away the speculation and said Mr Musharraf was staying put. One army spokesman called the meeting with General Kiyani and the change in the command of the 111 brigade “routine”. Another denied there were any differences between the president and army chief. George Bush weighed in with words of support for his beleaguered friend.

Mr Musharraf made himself hugely unpopular when he sacked the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, in March 2007. He was humiliated when the judiciary banded together to reinstate Mr Chaudhry. To make matters worse, he imposed a mini-martial law last November. And, when Mr Chaudhry threatened to block him from a second term as president, he sacked all the troublesome judges. Then he was accused of complicity in Benazir Bhutto's murder in December—she had pointed a finger at the presidency as a den of conspirators.

The anti-Musharraf mood was reflected in February's election, which swept the PPP to power and all but wiped out the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), or PML(Q), the Musharraf loyalists known as the “king's party”. Since then Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif have united to try to strip him of his powers and force him to quit.

To impeach the president, or take away his powers, the PPP and PML(N) would need to pass a constitutional amendment, requiring a two-thirds majority in parliament, which they cannot muster. An alternative way to oust him would be to restore the sacked judges by an executive order, assuming they would go on to rule his presidential election unconstitutional.

That was the implied threat that may have provoked the reported showdown with General Kiyani. Mr Zardari wants to restore the sacked judges—but only if he can weaken their power to rock his boat. For this he needs a constitutional amendment, not an executive order. But he also wants to strip Mr Musharraf of all his powers, turning him into a lame duck.

This is partly because two previous PPP governments were sacked by powerful presidents. But it is also because it is a precondition set by Mr Sharif, who wants revenge for his toppling by Mr Musharraf in a 1999 coup and his subsequent exile. Mr Sharif says he will not support any constitutional amendment that stops the judges from turfing Mr Musharraf out, let alone one allowing him to keep most of his powers. So Mr Zardari is hoping to press Mr Musharraf into quitting. He would then bring the king's party into the coalition and pass a constitutional amendment incorporating reforms that clip the wings of the judiciary.

With one rumoured crisis over, a more serious one may erupt on June 10th, when angry lawyers demanding a restoration of the judges and the sacking of Mr Musharraf start a “long march” from all over the country to converge on Parliament in Islamabad and the president's temporary army house in nearby Rawalpindi. The federal PPP government has said it will call out paramilitary troops that day to deal with possible law-and-order problems. The constitutional wrangle may be about to take to the streets, and turn ugly.

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Marwatone.