Pakistan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

[HASEEB ANSARI]

By Jahanzeb Aslam

It arrived three weeks later than the Mayans predicted, but for Pakistan, the last week has seemed like the apocalypse. On January 10, following the country's worst-ever sectarian attack, which killed 92 Shias in Baluchistan, protestors nation wide organized sit-ins to demand a greater security presence in the province and a dissolution of the provincial government, which had dragged its feet on curbing violence despite the deaths of some 100 Shia in 2012. Several days later, on the 14th, Islamabad met both of those demands but refused to take action against the extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

The following day started with an early-morning scuffle between protesters and the police in Islamabad, leaving eight injured. Just as things seemed to calm down, thousands began to gather for an afternoon rally in which the country's latest self-appointed savior -- the Canadian-Pakistani cleric Muhammed Tahir ul-Qadri -- promised to unveil his manifesto. Capitalizing on the still-tense situation, Qadri descended on the capital with a convoy of thousands. Police were on alert, and a bulletproof box awaited the speaker.

In his oration, Qadri demanded the dissolution of the entire Pakistani parliament and all its provincial assemblies, the announcement of a new caretaker government, and the introduction of electoral reforms, including the creation of an independent election commission that would ensure free and fair elections. In a terrifying display of his strength, Qadri ordered his followers to push aside barriers surrounding D-Chowk, the square in front of the parliament, and set up camp in what he designated "Pakistan's Tahrir Square." As Pakistanis held their breath for his next move, the Supreme Court struck.

As part of a seemingly endless corruption case that had been percolating through the court since last March, the court ordered Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to arrest any politician who had been implicated. This included Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, who had been Pakistan's water and power minister when the cases were first brought to the court's attention. Although he had been questioned by NAB and was found to be uninvolved, he was still a person of interest and, more than that, was reviled nationwide for his role in an energy crisis that has crippled the country in recent years. All that was enough for the court to demand that the NAB chairman issue a warrant for his arrest as well.

Back in D-Chowk, Qadri took the opportunity to announce to a joyous audience that the Supreme Court had met one of his key demands. Cheering crowds in Islamabad readied themselves for a bigger battle, pledging to stay in place until the rest of their claims were met. In response, the benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange 100 index fell by more than 500 points between 2:25 and 2:40 that afternoon and trading ground to a halt. Supporters of the government in Sindh province, where the exchange is located, took to the streets in their own protests, demanding that the Supreme Court rescind its orders.

Reactions across the country have ranged from apathy -- the sense that these events will prove a mild hiccup with no long term effect on the country -- to panic -- that this will be a catastrophe that could kill the still-fledgling Pakistani democracy.

What explains this sudden implosion? A majority of the political class seems to agree that Qadri is not acting on his own but is funded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which hopes to send the civilian government into crisis. Qadri, the founder of the Minhaj-ul-Quran Trust International, is a renowned moderate Muslim scholar and served as a member of Pakistan's National Assembly in 1990. In the past two months, he has spent billions of rupees on his campaign for electoral reform, including on a massive media blitz. In Pakistan, such unexplained windfalls are usually thought to be related to the ISI.

The Supreme Court's entrance into the fray, meanwhile, has raised questions of whether the military and the judiciary are in cahoots. That too, has its precedents in Pakistani history. The judiciary has in the past used its power to constitutionally legitimize military coups. In 1979, it even sentenced to death one deposed prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at the request of a new military dictator, General Muhammed Zia-ul-Haq. And the judiciary today has its own axe to grind with the federal government. The tension stems from a personal enmity between the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, and President Asif Ali Zardari. If the judiciary and the military were allied during against the civilian government during this week's confusion, they might be planning to appoint a technocratic caretaker government, sidelining Pakistan's democratically elected politicians.

In truth, though, it is unlikely that the judges and the generals are acting together. As irksome as the Supreme Court has been for the civilians, it has also been less than kind to the army in the past two years. It has heard contentious cases involving missing persons -- people detained by intelligence agencies without due process -- and forced the military to acknowledge its past human rights abuses. Chaudhry has also demanded more oversight over the military and has publically denounced military coups and pledged to ensure that the democratic process continues unimpeded.

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