April 3, 2012
Midhat Kazim

The current standoff between the prime minister and the Supreme Court is in fact a pointer to a basic shortcoming in our constitution and in our constitutional practices. It can perhaps best and permanently be resolved through a constitutional amendment, which would make much sense and would at the same time strengthen our judiciary.

The Supreme Court maintains that since they had ordered the government — rightly or wrongly — to write to the Swiss authorities to proceed against Asif Ali Zardari in the matter of his corruption cases and the resultant foreign bank balances in Switzerland, and the government did not do so, therefore the prime minister is in contempt of the Supreme Court. The prime minister contends that a constitutional clause grants the president of the country immunity against all sorts of prosecution, therefore the government cannot, in violation of our own constitution, write to a foreign government to proceed against our president; and that if this was feasible the Supreme Court would easily order prosecution against him inside the country.

So far we have not heard the Supreme Court rule that the president does not possess any immunity from prosecution. If that had been the case, parliament would have overturned such a ruling through legislation immediately. All that the Supreme Court is doing is that it is insisting that there has been a contempt of the court’s order. They refuse to address the question of how the hurdle of the constitutional immunity can be overcome so as to enable obedience to the order. Thus there is an impasse. Apparently, there is no way forward toward resolution of the matter. All that is being made clear is that the Supreme Court is independent.

Some observers believe that what is going on is a make-believe wrestling match (noora khushti) whose purpose is to stage a mela (show), as a counter-poise to some very real and painful national problems. And it is also to help the government complete its term, as well as appear to be a victim at least on one count even if it is believed to be corrupt and anti-national on fifty other counts.

Another group of observers is now taking a lead from a statement of the Lahore High Court Chief Justice and they would like to suggest that the current on and off status is, in fact, based upon a questionable judicial formalism. It is being suggested that the real malaise was recently highlighted when the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court commented to the effect that courts have no policies, they only go by the letter of the law. That appears to be a very laudable attitude on the part of the judges, and probably welcome.

Two things have to be noted in this regard. First, all laws are the expression of some policy or the other that had been preferred and favoured by parliament. As such, being somewhat aware of the policy that created a particular law is always very helpful in correctly interpreting that law. Second, at the very highest echelons of the judicial hierarchy, it is absolutely essential that not only the judge be very just and honest, he must also have a full understanding of the policies that underlie a legal system and each and every law within it.

This is the reason why in Britain the Supreme Court is ‘not’ supreme, but the House of Lords, which is a part of parliament in Britain, is the real supreme arbiter of justice and the interpreter of British laws. Similarly, in the US, while the Senate has not itself taken over as the supra-Supreme Court of the land, what it has done is that it has taken full control over the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court. This appointment is done very openly, on the basis of the candidate’s politics or rather his commitment to one type of policies or another.

Indeed, far from being a bad word, it is openly stated that the superior judiciary cannot be superior, and be capable of accurately interpreting laws and indeed the constitution itself, unless they are well versed in and in agreement with the policies that have given birth to these legislations and that continue to inform them. Anything else would amount to misinterpretation of laws and hence change the intention of the legislature. And upholding the true intention of the legislature is absolutely vital because anything else would mean defeating the public will and stabbing the democratic order in the back. Legislators are supposed to vote inside parliament as their constituents had desired them to vote at the time of their public election.

But there is also another very pertinent reason why the courts must interpret laws in accordance with the policies which gave them birth, as these were expressed by parliamentarians through their speeches and their votes, all of which was done at the behest of and with the backing of the popular vote. The fundamental, and indeed impeccable rule or dictum is saluspopuli est suprema lex.

This dictum cannot be violated except at the heavy cost of the breakdown of the entire state system, or at least the redundancy of the errant part of the state’s machinery or apparatus. This is no mean matter. Such things can not only destroy single institutions, they can go further and cause deep destruction more comprehensively. Imagine, for example, a Supreme Court in a country passing orders which no one, not even the people are willing to back up, then what will happen? The court’s orders are reduced to rubbish by popular opinion. But more than that, the entire judicial hierarchy becomes compromised and hence dysfunctional. That in itself could blow a society toward a bloody revolution.

Perhaps the best answer to this entire situation is that the government should bring in a constitutional amendment providing for the setting up of a final court of the Senate. That would be the final court of appeal, and would be sensitive to the policies and directions in keeping with the popular will, so that judicial decisions will always have the requisite sanction behind them, and the judiciary therefore will never have to face a crisis of redundancy.

Our constitutional practice in the matter of appointment of judges of the superior courts also needs to be altered to read that the appointment has to be made by the president who shall be free to choose a name out of a suggested panel of five names. This is not a new practice and nor should there be any harm even in making it a part of our written constitution since we tend to play around with unwritten practices too much.

The writer is a freelance journalist
-Daily Times

By Dr Niaz Murtaza
April 4, 2012

Against the backdrop of allegations of corruption against many leading Pakistani politicians, Imran Khan’s emergence on the political front has generated significant excitement among people who are fed up with corrupt politicians. At last, there is a leader who will do something for Pakistan rather than just fill his own pockets, his supporters claim. There is little doubt that Imran has a clean financial past, even though both sports and philanthropy
provide ample opportunities for financial impropriety.

However, it may be worthwhile to delve a bit more deeply into whether Imran would be Pakistan’s first clean leader if his party registers a win in the general elections. In addition, we also need to ponder on the questions of whether a leader’s personal honesty guarantees that he will not harm the country, and whether the most serious problems that Pakistan has faced since 1947 stem from political corruption or not. A quick glance through the annals of Pakistan’s political history reveals that the answer to all these questions is a big no.

Surprising though it may seem in view of popular beliefs to the contrary, for most of its history Pakistan has been ruled by relatively honest leaders who were not associated with major corruption the way leaders of today are. Even more surprising is the fact that most of Pakistan’s biggest problems have occurred under financially untainted leaders, rather than under corrupt ones.

The founding fathers, Ghulam Mohammed, Iskander Mirza, Yahya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf, were all leaders largely untainted by accusations of serious corruption. The sum total of their rule accounts for almost 40 out of Pakistan’s 65 years as an independent nation. However, the founding fathers apart, these leaders still managed to inflict major harm upon the country through their misguided social, economic and political policies. The credit for undermining democracy during the 1950s and sowing the seeds of discontent among the Bengalis goes to Ghulam Mohammed and Iskander Mirza. The responsibility for the 1971 tragedy lies largely with Yahya and Bhutto. The blame for deliberately encouraging violent sectarian groups goes to Zia, while the blame for allowing terrorist groups to flourish in the country after 9/11 goes to Musharraf. The blame for stoking unrest in Balochistan lies with both Bhutto and Musharraf.

In contrast, the leaders most often accused of financial improprieties, i.e., Benazir Bhutto/Asif Ali Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, and to a lesser extent Ayub Khan, have merely ruled for a total of 25 years. Even here, the real damage caused by Ayub stemmed not from his financial improprieties but from his elitist and dictatorial economic and political policies, which stoked unrest among the Bengalis and the Baloch and increased economic inequality within the country. Thus, while corruption by politicians has clearly caused untold harm to Pakistan, the impact of the bad policies of the financially untainted leaders has caused as much, and perhaps, even more damage. As such, while personal honesty is a highly desirable quality in a leader, it is clearly not a guarantee that the leader will not harm the country.

This, of course, does not mean that one should automatically reject an emerging honest politician just because of the bad experiences with other financially untainted leaders in the past. However, it does mean that one should look closely at the proposed policies, pronouncements and worldviews of emerging politicians, rather than focusing on their personal integrity alone. It is here that one starts getting concerned with many of Imran’s pronouncements. His failure to condemn the Taliban unequivocally, his shifting positions on the role of religion in politics, his desire to tackle Pakistan’s educational mess with the help of obscurantist maulvis (as narrated by Pervez Hoodbhoy in his article “Education: The PTI’s false promises won’t help” published in The Express Tribune on February 8) and the shallowness of his policy positions makes one wonder, whether despite his honesty, he would be like the others on the long list of financially untainted leaders who still managed to inflict harm on Pakistan.

Nontheless, this does not mean that one should prefer Zardari or Sharif over Imran, for both of them have perception issues and baggage. It just means that like the other two, Imran is another Pakistani politician who fails to measure up to the task at hand.

The Express Tribune

April 6, 2012
Shahid Javed Burki

Pakistan is undergoing three transitions simultaneously. How they unfold matters not only for Pakistan, but also for much of the Muslim world, particularly as the Arab Spring forces change upon governments across the wider Middle East.

Most Muslim countries were governed for decades by autocrats who had either emerged directly from the armed forces, or had strong “khaki” support. That was the case in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and, of course, Pakistan.

The Arab Spring drained away whatever spurious legitimacy that style of governance ever had. But, in Pakistan, delegitimation of military rule had actually occurred three years earlier, and the pressure for change came from much the same source – a restive and mobilised new middle class.

Several decades ago, the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that economic prosperity in developing countries with weak governing institutions would not necessarily lead to political stability. On the contrary, economic growth in such contexts can be – and often is – politically destabilising.

That proved to be the case in Turkey and Pakistan in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, and later in much of the Arab world. Indeed, the rising aspirations of Arab youth in Egypt and Tunisia, the wellspring of the Arab Spring, followed impressive economic growth that had failed to trickle down. And such rising expectations have been visible in all large Muslim countries.

As Huntington suggested, when young people see their economies grow, they begin to demand participation in decisions that affect all aspects of their lives, not just their economic well-being. Military-dominated political systems precluded such participation, so, with economic growth, demilitarisation of politics became a rallying cry in all large military-led Muslim states, from Indonesia to the Mediterranean coast. Even Iran, where the Revolutionary Guards control roughly one-third of the economy, was affected when the result of the presidential election in 2009 triggered large anti-government protests in Teheran and other major cities.

But demilitarisation means more than transferring power and policymaking from the armed forces to elected parliaments. In their recent book Why Nations Fail, the economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson suggest that elections – even those that are free and fair – do not necessarily move societies from what they call “extractive” to “inclusive” systems. Indeed, extraction of a country’s wealth for use by the elite can occur even in democratic societies when those who dominate the political system face no constraints other than periodic elections.

This is where the effort to devise institutional mechanisms to check and balance elite behaviour enters the picture. Indeed, the search for such mechanisms is precisely what is now underway in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, a discredited military was forced by public opinion to withdraw from power, creating political space for elected representatives. They assumed control (though not over the military), but did not govern wisely. While their personal wealth increased, living standards for everyone else either stagnated or, for lower-income groups, declined. So, as Pakistan negotiated its political transition, it experienced significant economic decline.

As a result, Pakistan’s judiciary, media, and many civil-society organisations are now engaged in attempts not only to keep the soldiers in their barracks, but also to constrain the political establishment’s rapacious behaviour.

Three cases before the country’s increasingly assertive Supreme Court promise to take Pakistan from the phase of demilitarisation to a system in which meaningful checks can be exercised on those who wield power. One case is an attempt to force Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s administration to reopen proceedings in a Swiss court that were examining charges of money-laundering and misuse of public funds by President Asif Ali Zardari. The Swiss proceedings were stopped at the request of the Pakistani government when Zardari became president. In the second case, the Supreme Court wants Pakistan’s military intelligence agencies to account for hundreds, if not thousands, of missing people who were detained as part of the agencies’ campaign to contain the rise of Islamic extremism, or to undermine separatist aspirations in restive Balochistan.

The third case opened an old complaint lodged by a politician decades ago against the “troika” – composed of the president, the prime minister, and the chief of army staff – that then governed Pakistan. The plaintiff alleged that large amounts of funds were channeled to the troika’s favoured candidates to contest the 1990 general election, in which Nawaz Sharif’s party won a big victory over Benazir Bhutto’s Peoples’ Party.

Finally, Pakistan is undergoing a transition in which power is moving from the central administration to sub-national governments. The 18th amendment to the constitution, adopted in 2010, does precisely that, but implementation is being delayed by parties that prefer a highly centralised political structure.

If Pakistan’s transformation of its political system succeeds, it could serve as a model for other Muslim countries that are attempting to move from extractive to inclusive systems of governance. Turkey has already travelled some distance along this path. If Pakistan also advances, demilitarisation of politics elsewhere in the Islamic world might not be far behind.

Shahid Javed Burki, former finance minister of Pakistan and vice president of the World Bank, is currently chairman of the Institute of Public Policy in Lahore

© Project Syndicate
source: Khaleej Times

Report By Zia Ur Rehman

On March 23, when the entire country was celebrating the 72nd anniversary of the Pakistan Resolution, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) - a Sindhi nationalist party led by Bashir Khan Qureshi - staged a rally in Karachi for 'the independence of Sindh'.

A similar call for Sindh's independence was made by another ethnic party - the Jeay Sindh Tehrik (JST) headed by Dr Safdar Sarki - at a similar rally held at the same venue on March 15.

Although leaders at the two rallies demanded freedom for Sindh, political analysts say they were meant to show the strength of these parties in Karachi.

"In general, ethnic parties are becoming very popular in Sindh," said Imdad Soomro, a senior Sindhi journalist. "The important thing is that the number of people who attend such rallies is increasing exponentially in Karachi."

"It is not only because of the failure of the Pakistan People's Party-led government to address the issues of Sindhis," he added. "The groups have gained strength after they began to oppose demands for a separate Mohajir province in Sindh."

The demand of a Mohajir province has been made time and again in the past, but it had so far not been seen as a serious threat by the Sindhi ethnic groups.

Although the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a party seen as representing Mohajirs, has denied supporting the demand in the past, a two-page pamphlet distributed by mourners at the March 31 funeral of MQM activists killed in the recent political violence in Karachi called for a new Mohajir province.

Before that, the Mohajir Sooba Tehreek, a little known group, held a rally at the Karachi Press Club on March 6. It sent out emails to news organizations and wrote slogans on the city's walls.

On March 9, the Sindh Assembly unanimously passed a resolution condemning the campaign for the Mohajir province and asked the government to find out who was behind it.

Days later, five members of the provincial assembly who had been particularly critical of the campaign received threatening letters from a previously unknown 'Mohajir Sooba Liberation Army'. All of the legislators belonged to the PPP and one of them was a provincial minister.

MQM leaders, especially its chief Altaf Hussain, have repeatedly stated that they have nothing to do with the campaign and do not want the division of Sindh. "The abhorrent wall chalking demanding a Mohajir province is not the issue of Urdu speaking people," said Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, chief of Sindh United Party and grandson of prominent political leader GM Syed. "It is a matter of the PPP and MQM trying to blackmail each other."

Ayaz Latif Palijo, head of the Awami Tehrik, accused the MQM of wanting to separate Karachi from the rest of the province at the behest of the US. "The city occupies a strategic position on the Arabian Sea and serves as the gateway to Afghanistan and Russia," he said. "After handing over of Hong Kong to China and closing of Bandar Abbass port by the Iranian regime, the United States is eyeing the Karachi port for access to the natural resources of Afghanistan and Central Asia and for controlling the region."

In a video message on March 29, Altaf Hussain criticized Sindhi ethnic leaders for making provocative statements against Mohajirs and warned them of the consequences.

Some Sindhi ethnic groups fear large-scale migration of internally displaced people from the northwest into Karachi had disturbed the ethnic balance of the city.

"Sindh has become an international orphanage where refugees not only from within the country but also from the neighboring countries including India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Burma are coming to settle. Because of that, Sindhis are on the verge of turning into a minority in their own province," said Afzal Chandio, a participant of the March 23 JSQM rally.

In 1947, Sindhis were 60% of Karachi's population, but are now no more than seven percent. "At that time of partition, a majority of the migrants settled in Sindh and that has changed the demography of the province. Resultantly, the land which did not see any riots during partition is in the grip of violence," said Chandio, who is also a student leader at Sindh University.

Sindhi student organizations complain students from rural Sindh are not admitted to Karachi's main academic institutions, especially Karachi University. PPP MPA Humaira Alvani told the Sindh Assembly on February 22 that admissions were denied to Sindhi students because KU only admits students who either belong to Karachi or have studied in the city before.

Sindhi parties have concentrated their political activities in Karachi's Sindhi dominated areas. Karachi Sindhi Shehri Ittehad, a city-level political alliance, was formed on March 31. "Sindhis are the indigenous people of the city and it is high time Sindhi leaders come out and focus on Karachi," said Ali Hassan Chandio, who heads Sindh National Movement. A large number of Sindhis whose permanent address was in Karachi were missing from the city's voter lists, he complained. Other leaders complain Sindhis are politically underrepresented, or have been deliberately kept backwards by the MQM-run city government.

The recent floods in the province and lack of employment opportunities have compelled a large number of rural Sindhis to move to Karachi, and that has changed the political reality in the city.

Sindhi ethnic parties have also announced they will contest the next elections from all over Sindh from the platform of Sindh Progressive Nationalist Alliance. Palijo said the aim was to send middleclass grassroots leaders to the parliament.

Since the parties generally represent the middle class, analysts say the decision would affect the coming elections.

"They have no representation in the parliament because they didn't believe in parliamentary politics in the past," Soomro said, "but the entire province comes to a standstill when they call a strike."

Friday Times

April 8, 2012
By:Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Turkish politicians have succeeded in an area where their Pakistani counterparts have singularly failed: reining in the army. For one, unlike Pakistani politicians, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had no skeletons of financial scams rattling in the cupboards. What is equally important is the fantastic improvement of the national economy, domestic law and order and the rise of Turkish prestige in the region and the world at large under the rule of the Justice and Development Party.

Unlike Zardari, Erdogan had inherited no political mantle. Unlike the Sharifs, he owned no factories or lands. What is more, he did not enjoy the support of any of the mainstream political parties. It was through a realistic vision supported by sheer hard work that this graduate from Marmara University’s Faculty of Economic and Commercial Sciences got himself elected Mayor of Istanbul, the economic and social capital of Turkey, in 1994. He had a brief stint in jail towards the fag end of his tenure. Within three years of his release, he founded the Justice and Development Party in 2001. The party contested the elections next year and assumed power with nearly two thirds majority in Parliament in 2003.

Erdogan single-mindedly set himself on two tracks: improvement of the economy and turning Turkey into a genuinely democratic country. The first step towards the goal posts was setting up a clean government, which has never been a hallmark of the successive governments in Pakistan. He brought no relatives or cronies into the cabinet nor did he promote any blue eyed boys in bureaucracy. His two successive tenures were totally scam free. The same is true about the recently begun third tenure.

The generals had dominated politics since 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, assumed power. Till 1946, the country had a single party system alien to democracy. Even the late introduction of the multiparty system was looked at with distrust by the generals who staged three military coups, executing one prime minister in the process. During the last military coup in 1980 alone, fifty people were executed and half a million arrested, hundreds died in jail, and many more disappeared in three years of the military rule. The natural growth of the political system was thus stunted. The parties who came to power often ruled through unstable alliances. Both under the military rule and political governments, the economy suffered and jails were filled with dissenters.

Erdogan had to work hard to prove that his policies and style of governance could deliver where the generals and rival politicians had failed the nation. Only then could he challenge the generals. By the time Erdogan contested for the third time he had emerged on the scene as the most powerful Turkish leader since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Erodogan’s trump card is the management of the economy. Up till a decade ago, the country lurched from one crisis to another, with sky-high inflation and interest rates and a feeble currency. Under Erdogan, the Turkish economy has tripled in size since he took over in 2002, the largest economic growth in Turkish history. Today, Turkey enjoys economic growth rates close to China’s, its companies competing successfully in the EU, the Middle East and increasingly further afield, in Africa and Central Asia.

Turkey’s independent foreign policy now has provided it a higher profile on the international stage. Turkey is creating a place for itself in the Middle East through vigorous engagement with its immediate neighbours. It is also hosting the Pak-Afghan dialogue. Its economic performance is the envy of the European Union which had rejected Turkey’s overtures of join it.

Erdogan did not, therefore, bat an eye when the chief of Turkish armed forces along with heads of ground, naval and air force offered to resign last year. On Wednesday, retired General Kenan Evren, along with a former airforce chief, the main surviving architects of the last military coup in 1980, have been put on trial. A decade ago, the actions would have been enough provocation for the army to step in.

The Turkish army has enjoyed enormous prestige due to its leading part in the creation of modern Turkey. With the exception of Musharraf, the Pakistani generals who staged coups were on the other hand the products of the colonial British army. Keeping these dictators in mind, the much decorated Pakistani General Tajammul Hussain reminisced, “We were all trained as real mercenaries who were only concerned with their own bread and butter. It was regarded as none of our business to think about what happened to the rest of the country. Our job was solely to protect the British Empire and to stand to attention every evening when retreat was sounded and the Union Jack was brought down from the official buildings, or the regimental band played to the British Empire Anthem ‘God Save the King’.”

It would have been easier to bring the army under control if the Pakistani politicians had acted honestly and wisely. The Turkish Spring which has arrived after more than eight decades of cold winter brings with it the message that it is never too late for the politicians to set their house in order to able to rein in the army.

The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.
-Pakistan Today

April 9, 2012
By: Jalees Hazir

Addressing members of the PPP Punjab Executive Council at the Governor’s House in Lahore last week, the party’s Co-Chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, declared the Sharif brothers as mohajirs. His line of reasoning was that since their family had migrated from the Indian side of Punjab at the time of independence, the PML-N leaders were not fit to lead the province. Belittling their support in Lahore, he said that the Sharifs could not gather enough people at their father’s funeral. Zardari’s comments are a reflection of his petty feudal mind and members of any political party that calls itself democratic would be ashamed of such utterings by their leader. But trust the PPP wallahs to come up with the most outlandish justifications to defend the indefensible when it comes to their big boss. The problem is that the PPP Co-Chairman also happens to be the President of Pakistan.

While the Sharif brothers, their party PML-N and their government in Punjab, have all been criticised for a number of valid reasons, Zardari’s distorted framework is far more worrisome than any failings on their part. Would he apply the same logic of immigrants being somewhat less deserving of leadership to his coalition partners from Karachi? Where is our so-called President coming from? Does he not know the repercussions of hurling such nonsense amidst an already fragmented polity? Is he blinded by his unscrupulous lust for power, so blinded that he cannot see beyond his survival in power? Is this divisive rhetoric just a lack of vision on his part or is it an integral part of a well considered agenda that he is implementing with Rehman Malik on the behest of his imperialist masters?

This is not the first time that he has chosen to couch his political diatribes in ethnically-charged terminology. In fact, his incoherent and paradoxical political narrative often resorts to ethnic-labelling, stirring emotions of victimisation among Sindhis on several occasions and pointing fingers at privileged Punjabis on several others. When he talks about a new province for Southern Punjab, he makes it a point to give it an ethnic colour. Even the PPP’s war on the independent judiciary has been painted in ethnic shades, accusing the courts of prejudice against Sindhi leaders and being soft on leaders from Punjab. The heir to the PPP throne, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, parroted his father’s devious logic recently when he asked the present Supreme Court to apologise for the mistrial of his grandfather more than 30 years ago.

This divisive framework has been adopted by the serf-like partymen populating Bhutto dynasty’s PPP, partymen who otherwise loudly and incessantly claim that their party is the chain that links all provinces. The party no longer speaks of the problems of the downtrodden, the workers and peasants, something that cuts across ethnic divisions. As a party with representatives from all provinces of Pakistan, it refuses to fulfil its responsibility of creating a vision that would unite the people. Instead, under Zardari, the party seems to have taken upon itself the task of exacerbating divisions within the society. As PPP Co-Chairman, Zardari has every right to set whatever direction he chooses for his party, no matter how politically unsound or devious it is. As the President of Pakistan, the symbol of our federation, such behaviour is inexcusable.

President Musharraf was severely criticised by the PPP for being partisan and chairing meetings of his PML-Q at the presidency. Where does it stand today on the issue? Is it alright for the President to be partisan and to chair meetings of his party at the presidency if he belongs to PPP? In fact, Zardari has blemished the office of the President even further by speaking of the nation he heads in divisive ethnic terms. He is praised by his partymen for transferring presidential powers to Parliament through the 18th Amendment. It does not seem to matter that he continues to call the shots from the presidency and has the remote of the government in his control. It does not seem to matter that he is actively involved in the affairs of the government, whether it is about writing to the Swiss authorities, gas pipelines or foreign affairs.

Zardari’s political chicanery is obvious to everyone other than his darbar of serf-like PPP wallahs. He has consistently worked to reverse the gains made by the nation through the rule of law movement. After he failed to stop the restoration of judiciary despite his untiring efforts and deceptive tactics, he has been on a crusade to make it ineffective and controversial. Against the momentum of public opinion seeking a new political culture where no one is above the law and those in positions of power are accountable, he has reinforced the traditional circus of patronage and special privilege under the garb of his much touted policy of reconciliation. Against the overwhelming public support for ending our cooperation with the US in its war against the Afghan people, he has consistently tried to please his imperialist masters.

The first thing the PPP Co-Chairman did after his party won the last elections was to pay homage to the American Embassy in Islamabad. He had much to thank his American friends for. After all, the NRO was facilitated by them. Though he was not the President of Pakistan then, it was a bad omen for the nation. Once he occupied the presidency through deceit and corruption, we have seen the hell break loose, bit by bit. Every challenge faced by the nation has become more grave, every problem bigger. There is tension in places that were peaceful and places that were tense have become unmanageable. The divisions are deeper and the poor have been further impoverished. A democratic government would have healed the wounds and made things better. Zardari’s reign has delivered what his masters ordered.

n The writer is a freelance columnist.

Email: hazirjalees@hotmail.com
-The Nation

April 14, 2012
By: Tallat Azim

It has been extremely painful to hear of the massive avalanche in Gyari that buried a whole battalion of the Pakistan Army along with some civilians. The desperate rescue efforts have not been able to yield any results so far, with hopes now almost diminished for any survivors. For us, in Islamabad, it brought back the agonising memories of the 2005 earthquake, which brought down the Margalla Towers and so many days were spent in waiting, praying and looking for survivors.

It has also brought into sharp focus the difficulty of waging a war in the world’s highest combat zone at nearly 20,000ft in Siachen. It was begun by India when, as the aggressor in 1984, it opted to occupy the key areas and Pakistan had to respond by deploying its own forces. The conflict stems from incomplete demarcation of boundary as well as long festering hatred and resentment. With 28 years having gone by since 1984 and subjecting of troops on both sides to this extremely inhospitable and frozen landscape is a sad reflection on the leadership of both countries. Nobody is interested it seems in solutions. As a columnist put it so well, “the block of ice called Siachen is symbolic of the reactive relationship between India and Pakistan – hard, cold and uncompromising.”

All this in the background of enhancing trade relations, the promise of an impending visit by the Indian PM and the recent private trip by the President to the shrine of Hazrat Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer. Everything will remain cosmetic, unless positive and concrete steps are taken by both countries to de-escalate and withdraw troops from Siachen, particularly in the aftermath of this biggest loss of life to the army by a natural disaster. This one incident has also shown how the army, when it stays within its own domain, is so revered and admired by the common Pakistani.

There are no two opinions about the role of the army in this country, but the mockery of democracy and the games being played by the current elected is a sight to behold too! It is quite shocking how the Executive is using its powers of removing and reposting people who seem to have independent opinions. The cute-looking Ali Musa Gilani has flown the nest to safer climes, as the ANF investigation gets hotter on how the granting of quota to two pharmaceutical companies took place. While the PM is trying to play this and other similar cases as a vilification campaign against him and his family, the facts are something else. But facts, as we have seen in the past four years, never seem to deter anybody in power from pleading innocence. It has been common knowledge that the PM’s family was willing to grant favours to those who would reciprocate in kind. Apparently, the High Commissioner to South Africa, where Ali Musa currently resides, owes his job to the very same Musa’s influence. The innocence image of the government takes a huge PR beating when its important officers openly threaten and browbeat those who dare to state facts as they know them! We are also witnessing the whole change in the government’s legal team, including the change of Attorney General and the grant of a plot to Chairman NAB, all of which will go towards buying more time for the cases being heard these days. Despite the fact that the majority of Pakistanis want the democratic system to work and succeed, all the responses the government makes in connection with the allegations against it, it manages to confuse and mislead thoroughly.

The media is often under fire for inciting and reporting lopsidedly by the powers that be; there is also a new and deliberate effort to downplay any jalsa or statements by PTI’s Imran Khan by the media. I wonder how that happened! Is there anybody left about whom it can be categorically said that they are not buyable? In the ultimate analysis, it won’t be good or bad media coverage that will decide who gets elected in the next polls; it will be whoever can be a better agent of change.

Postscript: The stories of happy endings and patronage do not ever seem to end for some lucky people. While most people long for one small break, there are others whose breaks beget more breaks and become a cycle of advantages.

There is a popular restaurant in the capital in which one of our fetching female ministers has a business stake. It is only a medium-sized restaurant, but now manages to get catering orders from a lot of people, including the fetching minister’s ministry as well as from the exclusive Diplomatic Enclave. It is rumoured that there are never any negotiations for lowering the prices and the restaurant gets paid for whatever it asks. Talk about making it big at all ends. It is disappointing in that because the mentioned minister is otherwise a well educated and intelligent person, who one would have thought would have preferred to do things differently from the way they have always been done by a generation previous to her. But sometimes, even the best education cannot change one’s genetic behaviour patterns or the wish of making money while fortune smiles to keep for leaner times. It is also so ironic what the definition of ‘lean times’ is for the different segments of Pakistanis.

The writer is a public relations and event management professional based in Islamabad.
Email: tallatazim@yahoo.com
-The Nation

April 15, 2012
By Farhan Bokhari

As a crisis unfolded last week for Pakistan’s army troops deployed across the country’s northern Siachen region bordering India, the glaring gap between Pakistan’s ruling class and the reality on the ground came to light.

The incident involved the lives of 135 Pakistani soldiers, buried under more than 20 metres of snow after a major avalanche struck the region.

Rescue efforts launched almost instantly in the aftermath of this calamity,were still ongoing several days later without any success in sight.

The incident is one of the worst of its kind ever to hit Pakistan’s army in one of the world’s most inhospitable terrains, made worse by terrible weather conditions.

It also came as a powerful reminder of a futile conflict which began in the 1980s. More than two decades later, the conflict on the heights of Siachen has become widely known as the highest altitude battlefield of its kind, without the possibility of an early end in sight.

But the difficult dynamics of this battle which stared Pakistanis in the face yet again in the past week, also abundantly illustrate a gap surrounding the country’s internal ruling structure.

As Pakistanis reacted in ways ranging from intense prayers for the safe return of the soldiers to simply awaiting news of rescue efforts, President Asif Ali Zardari, the head of state, was once again absent from the front line.

For Pakistanis familiar with Zardari’s history, this was not the first time that he had kept away in the face of adversity.

Four years after Zardari became Pakistan’s president — a position which by default makes him the supreme commander of the armed forces — his reaction to this latest episode was almost predictable. In the absence of Pakistan’s president from Siachen’s frontline, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the army’s chief of staff, led the rescue efforts.

Likewise too, for those who have followed the Pakistan army’s continuing battle against Taliban and Al Qaida militants across the country’s tribal areas along the Afghan border, Zardari’s absence should hardly be surprising. To date, he has not shown up anywhere on the front lines where the battle involves a literally eyeball-to-eyeball conflict between Pakistan’s forces and militants in the tribal areas.

As Pakistanis awaited news of the Siachen soldiers, Zardari spent part of the past week seeking to buttress the position of his widely unpopular government. Nothing could have been a more telling description of where the government’s primary interest lies than Friday’s expansion of Pakistan’s cabinet.

Public apathy

Some of the country’s former ministers who previously served under the regime of Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) found themselves returning to the cabinet. The expansion, in a likely election year, said much about the motivation of the country’s ruling class.

In sharp contrast to the popular preoccupation, the news from Siachen, Islamabad’s ruling politicians instead appeared to have their attention squarely diverted towards the political future of the country particularly in relation to their own future.

Going forward no one should be surprised over the widespread public apathy across Pakistan towards the way their country is ruled. With a set of top rulers who are simply too detached from the most important affairs of the state, it’s no surprise that most Pakistanis feel deeply neglected and therefore disillusioned. For a country where politicians have seldom had opportunities of unfettered civilian rule as witnessed by Zardari and the PPP in the past few years, Pakistan is truly confronted with the tragic writing on the wall.

Ironically, it was the PPP under the rule of the late Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister and Zardari’s wife, which was widely seen as promoting the cause of democracy. But the party’s dismal performance in overseeing an improvement in living conditions has only made it increasingly unpopular under Zardari’s leadership in the past four years.

The decision to expand the cabinet may well be a desperate effort to win back some of the PPP’s popular support that has been squarely lost. But such patchwork can simply not be a substitute for popular support earned through hardwork and performance.

It is no surprise that many Pakistanis are asking; “Where is the government?” Others, having seen Zardari’s absence from Siachen in the past week, may well be pushed to ask the question; “Where is the president?”

Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.

Source: Gulf News

April 16, 2012
Moeed Yusuf

PAKISTAN’S civil-military landscape has begun to change quite significantly. The independent media, judicial activism, the military’s preoccupation with the fight against terrorism, and geopolitical developments had already set the ball rolling.

But a number of embarrassing developments for the military in 2011 have ended up opening up unprecedented space for the civilians in the national security and foreign policy arena.

The trend is nascent but not to be ignored. Most countries that have managed to correct civil-military imbalances start off with incremental steps and are often helped along by unplanned and unexpected developments that incentivise new behaviour patterns on the part of the militaries and greater responsibility by the civilian authorities.

Of course, not all manage this feat. There is voluminous literature attempting to identify the key factors that determine whether a country is able to redress civil-military imbalances. And while evidence shows that a host of complex factors tend to align before this paradigm shift takes place, one of the most critical happens to be the ability of the civilians to prove their capacity and competence by outperforming the militaries.

In cases where civilians have managed to use the space available to them to produce impressive outputs, the chances of a permanent correction in the institutional imbalance are much greater.

The past weeks have provided us with an opportunity to see the Pakistani civilian enclave take charge of one of the most critical foreign policy issues: the relationship with the US.

The development was entirely positive as it allowed a civilian-led process to take precedence over ad hoc, non-transparent decision-making by a handful of individuals that had otherwise been the norm in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the outcome has left much to be desired.

For one, the review process was dragged on for far too long. The upper hand — in terms of the US being on the back foot after Salala — that Pakistan went into the review with has been lost. In fact, as I discussed in a recent column in this space, the lack of closure on the review forced the US to consider alternatives, however imperfect, more seriously. Going forward, this experience will only lead Washington to reinforce channels that tend to reduce reliance on Pakistan.

But let us set aside this brinkmanship game.

The real issue is that if Pakistan is committed to peace in Afghanistan and wants to play a major role in the reconciliation process next door, it needed to re-engage swiftly. By dragging out the process, while it has certainly hurt the US agenda, it has not done itself any favours. The more time the two sides lose in terms of working together on Afghanistan, the lesser the likelihood of a sustainable deal and the greater the possibility of the dreaded civil war. Nothing could be worse from Pakistan’s perspective.

There is no better indicator of the problems with the review process than the fact that the civilian and military authorities themselves opened up parallel tracks to reinitiate interaction with US officials much before parliament approved the recommendations. This was contrary to the initial stance of ‘no contact’ till parliament agreed on a new course for the relationship. Heads of government have met; so have the Pakistani foreign minister and US secretary of state; as have the top military officials. Indeed, smart statecraft demanded this move. But it also undermined the sanctity of the review process.

Second, the very tenor of the debate, underpinned by emotive rhetoric rather than sound policy thinking bodes ill for parliament’s efforts to claim its right to oversee this business in the future.

Behind closed doors, some within the executive branch were wondering days ago how long the debate on the floor could continue before the executive would simply have to push for a closure to the debate and then determine a realistic set of final conditions for the relationship’s reset even at the cost of defying the mood in parliament.

This is still likely since in terms of the substance of the recommendations, the review has failed to balance politicking with the necessities of statecraft. The hawkish line has been pushed too far — to the point that the Pakistani position has been boxed in by rather dogmatic conditions. Some of parliament’s demands are ones that the civilian and military authorities themselves may be both unwilling and unable to implement.

The most obvious example is drones. It is not at all clear if the military is as opposed to selective drone strikes as it portrays in public and it is fairly obvious that there is little it can do should the strikes continue. Consider Pakistan’s options upon the next drone strike: will the state remain mum and thereby defy parliament, or will it respond harshly and create a fresh crisis in the bilateral relationship? Other recommendations like disallowing weapons to pass through the Nato supply route may also be impossible to implement.

Looking to the days ahead, the state machinery will inevitably end up bypassing or disregarding some of recommendations in the interest of keeping the relationship going. But since this would be done in defiance of parliament’s verdict, it would potentially widen the intra-civilian (government versus opposition) and civil-military divides.

Corollary: we are likely to witness far more politically motivated mudslinging on this issue among the civilians and between them and the military in the days ahead. The right-wing rhetoric is likely to gain further as it bashes the authorities for having disregarded parliament to appease the US.

The parliamentary review was a great opportunity for the civilians to begin claiming back more of their rightful space in decision-making on security/foreign policy issues. But what could have been a precedent-setting event may now be seen as a reason not to try the parliamentary channel next time round.

As unfair as this outcome may be given that Pakistani politicians have never had a real chance to develop collective thinking on these issues and that much of the problems that beset the US-Pakistan relationship originated under the military regime of Gen Musharraf, empirical evidence from elsewhere nonetheless holds out a staunch warning for troubled democracies whose civilian enclaves miss such opportunities to impress too often. The odds are stacked against them and in favour of the status quo power institutions — the military. This is just the reality of it.

The writer is South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.
-Dawn

April 17, 2012
By Rasul Bakhsh Rais

When the present coalition government in Islamabad had barely completed its first two years in office, demands for early elections began to emerge from some opposition parties. The same parties, time and again, have continued to insist that fresh elections are required for pulling the country out of the present situation where it faces a poor economy, bad governance, violence and chronic power shortages.

We have seen in the past that while in opposition, opposition parties have always found enough political arsenal to attack the parties in power, even when those in power have done better than many preceding governments. It is true that the role of the opposition is to criticise the government — its policies, actions and even philosophy. At the same time, however, the opposition cannot escape its own responsibility to provide the people with an alternative vision, agenda and plans that must be practical and go beyond the usual political rhetoric that we see on display on a regular basis.

In any democracy — particularly in a parliamentary one — the opposition’s role is that of a government-in-waiting. Not that the major opposition parties — the PML-N and the PTI — don’t have any plans for the country, but they need to hone them in the light of the experience of the present government, and work out the alternatives in order to usher genuine reforms in the main areas of national life. I am not sure that they are doing their homework to the best of their abilities in the face of the many challenges that Pakistan faces today.

Besides creating a legitimate government, provide a mandate for reform to those who have been elected. This mandate does not provide them with the right to rule arbitrarily. Instead, it enables them with substantive support from the general public to implement their reforms. Another fallacy that has been spread by the political executive — both provincial and federal — is that they have been elected for five years. In parliamentary systems, the executive is formed and retains power for as long as it enjoys a majority in parliament. It can lose power when it loses this majority. Practically it might be difficult for it to lose its majority because the powers and resources that is at its disposal, helps it survive the worst of crises.

The present opposition doesn’t have the numbers to dislodge the coalition at the centre. The opposition’s position is weak when we look at its representation in provinces other than Punjab. In principle, the PML-N and the PTI can demand fresh elections, with some of their critique of the federal government quite justified.

However, there are two points that they must consider. Firstly, going into elections without a viable agenda of reform will produce the same results with very little gain. Secondly, the reality is that the present political fragmentation in the country may not give any party a simple majority. A lot may happen between now and whenever elections are held, but given the present political facts, we will see a coalition government coming into power after the next elections.

For this reason alone, political parties need to think collectively in order to address national issues that are structurally complex and may require hard decisions, sacrifices and good political conduct. The demand for fresh elections without offering practical solutions to issues like water and power shortage, corruption and bad governance, may perhaps change political faces, but not our fate.

The Express Tribune