Pakistan: Now or Never?

Guest contribution-Will Pakistan go the Middle East way?

(The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone. The writer is Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK)

WILL PAKISTAN GO THE MIDDLE EAST WAY?

By Wajid Shamsul Hasan

Some of our analysts are drawing a parallel between the ongoing wave for democracy across the Middle East and hoping that Pakistan might follow suit. In fact they are talking of an impending revolution in Pakistan as well.

In doing so, these doomsayers conveniently ignore differences between the political culture of Pakistan and the Middle East. They forget about the long struggle waged by our political forces against military dictators for decades which was missing in the Middle East. Similarly, the unprecedented role of the media and civil society in helping shape political life in Pakistan has not been taken into account.

Without being judgmental in drawing comparisons, we can safely say that today’s Pakistan is way ahead in political development than say during the past one decade or even the political culture which we followed during the nineties.

Anyone here been to Pakistan and speaks English?

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a rather odd comment during his visit to Pakistan this week.  “We want what you want: a strong, stable, democratic Pakistan,” he told a news conference, according to the Washington Post.  “We wish your success because it’s in our own interest.” 

It was  not that he was wrong to deny accusations that the United States is out to destabilise Pakistan – a conspiracy theory fuelled by confusion over U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, which to many Pakistanis seems so irrational that they assume there must be a darker plan behind it. Nor that he was wrong to promote democracy — although the United States has had a track record of backing military rulers in Pakistan when it suits them.

It was more in the choice of language — not necessarily Biden’s strong point. It left you wondering which audience he was appealing to when he said, “we want what you want”.

To popular sentiment, which at the moment is running high? But it is not about the need for democracy, but about defending the honour of the prophet Mohammed against perceived western-driven attempts to amend provisions in the Pakistan Penal Code imposing the death penalty for anyone believed to have insulted him.  Religious parties have been able to bring thousands out into the streets to defend Pakistan’s so-called blasphemy laws, after the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer by his own security guard over his opposition to these legal provisions.

And while many have rightly pointed out that the religious parties are rarely able to garner more than a few percent of the votes in elections, journalist Mosharraf Zaidi notes that this should not be taken to mean that their views do not enjoy much deeper support in a society which has been becoming increasingly conservative.

“Though the Pakistani right wing is simply instrumentalising Islam, it is tapping into and channelling a political and social force whose appeal and power is unquestionable. Sure, it is unable to translate this appeal into electoral outcomes – but that is because this appeal is not located in the disbursement of patronage, or in administrative prowess. Pakistanis vote for the PPP, the PMLs, the MQM and ANPs because of the certainty that these groups can disburse resources as patronage,”  Zaidi wrote. “In total contrast, it is clear that the religious right wing in Pakistan, while electorally impotent, has tremendous appeal.”

In Pakistan, people are not out demonstrating for democracy — it is too easy for them to blame their democratically elected government for all the ills facing the country from war in Afghanistan to a collapsing economy to devastation wreaked by last summer’s floods. A speech by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, condemning Taseer’s killing and delivered to a packed memorial ceremony in London, caused barely a ripple in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s political crisis

Never in the history of Pakistan has a democratically elected civilian government served out its full term and then been replaced by another one, also through democratic elections. It is that context that makes the latest political crisis in Pakistan so important.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani is scrambling to save his PPP-led government after it lost its parliamentary majority when its coalition partner, the  Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), announced it would go into opposition.  A smaller religious party, the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), already quit the coalition last month.  If the government falls and elections are held ahead of schedule in 2013, the opportunity for Pakistan to have a government which serves its full term will be lost. 

The prevailing view among political analysts appears to be that the government is now less likely to last until 2013, even if it manages to survive in the short term. But given the peculiar nature of Pakistani politics, where the military exerts a powerful role behind the scenes, no one is predicting anything with any certainty.

The main opposition leader, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has shown little enthusiasm for forcing an early election which could propel his Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) into power at a time when the country faces huge economic and security problems. Better to wait it out until an election in 2013 that his PML-N is seen as likely to win. Having been ousted in a coup in 1999, Sharif also remains deeply suspicious of the army, and he has ruled out supporting any moves against the government that might be orchestrated by the military. Giving democracy time to bed down, by allowing the government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to serve its full term, could set a useful precedent for a future PML-N administration. 

The army itself has shown no inclination to run the country directly, and it already controls the issues that matter most to it – foreign and security policy.  It has barely disguised its frustration with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari — who also leads the PPP — particularly after he travelled to France and Britain last summer while the country suffered from devastating floods.  But that does not translate into wanting to see Sharif back in power. According to a U.S. embassy cable released by WikiLeaks,  army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani made it clear to U.S. officials that “regardless of how much he disliked Zardari, he distrusted Nawaz (Sharif) even more”.

Another option, possibly more palatable to the army, would be an alternative coalition of smaller political parties which might be able to challenge both Zardari and Sharif in the next election. But that will take time to fall into place, possibly right up to 2013, if at all.  Don’t rule anybody out, however unlikely they seem now, as part of an alternative coalition. That includes former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who set his sights very firmly on 2013 when he launched his political party in London in October.

A couple of final points. We don’t actually know for sure whether there is a groundswell of popular support in favour of ditching the current government, though there is, as Nadeem Paracha argued in Dawn,  a great deal of populist sloganeering on television channels about the state of the country.  “Akin to a black comedy is the fact that most TV anchors and hosts that go on spouting all these concerns – unemployment, inflation, drone attacks, ‘good governance’, Aafia ki wapsi (jailed Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui)  etc. – are sitting pretty with hefty salaries and perks, and, what some would suggest, an agenda to safeguard the interests of some of the most anti-democracy classes in this country i.e., the military, the mullah and large sections of the upper and middle-classes.”

Pakistan – a list too long

Pakistani journalist Mosharraf Zaidi had a good post up last week attempting to frame the many different challenges Pakistan faces in trying to deal with terrorism.  Definitely worth a read as a counter-balance to the vague “do more” mantra, and as a reminder of how little serious public debate there is out there about the exact nature of the threat posed to a nuclear-armed country of some 180 million people, whose collapse would destabilise the entire region and beyond.

Zaidi has divided the challenges into counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and counter-extremism.

Counter-insurgency is focused on targeting militants holed up in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the border with Afghanistan, with attention directed most recently on U.S. pressure to tackle militant hideouts in North Waziristan.  Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to move faster in launching military operations in North Waziristan, in part because it says it needs time to consolidate gains made elsewhere in FATA — itself possible only if adequate governance can be introduced into areas cleared by the army.

“Thus far, Pakistan has fought the insurgency in FATA and earlier, last year, in Swat, using two instruments: negotiation, and conventional military warfare, including ground troops and aerial strikes. This is not how you fight an insurgency. That is how you fight India. To use a hackneyed and tired metaphor in Islamabad, you can’t keep using a jack hammer to try and kill agile, determined and poisonous flies. The approach to the FATA insurgency is all wrong,” writes Zaidi.

Counter-terrorism covers action to prevent attacks across Pakistan including in its heartland Punjab province. ”Repeated and sustained terrorist attacks in Pakistan suggest that the terrorist enterprise in Pakistan enjoys freedom of movement, freedom of procurement, freedom of training, freedom of information and communication, and, quite disturbingly, freedom from the course of law,” he says.

“The third challenge is an obvious and unchallenged problem of religious extremism. The epicentre of religious extremism is the institution of the political articulation of faith in Pakistan. This means that physically there is no epicentre here. Religious extremism is a national problem, transcending demographics, class and ethnicity. Of the three problems, religious extremism is the one that has been around the longest, the one that has the deepest roots in Pakistani culture, the one that has enjoyed the patronage of the state, the one that has the demonstrated ability to undermine linear and rational public policy, and the one that will – because of all the aforesaid factors, take the longest to unpack and resolve.”

Zaidi’s framework is a strong one to use when trying to understand what is going on in Pakistan.

Pakistan, India and the value of democracy

Of the many comments I heard in Pakistan, one question particularly flummoxed me. Was democracy really the right system for South Asia?  It came, unsurprisingly, from someone sympathetic to the military, and was couched in a comparison between Pakistan and India.

What had India achieved, he asked, with its long years of near-uninterrupted democracy, to reduce the gap between rich and poor?  What of the Maoist rebellion eating away at its heartland? Its desperate poverty? The human rights abuses from Kashmir to Manipur, when Indian forces were called in to quell separatist revolts? Maybe, he said, democracy was just not suited to countries like India and Pakistan.

The question surprised me, in part because I had never really been forced before to defend democracy, possibly because in the West we take it so much for granted that we have forgotten why it matters. It also surprised me for the sheer conviction of the sentiment.

In Pakistan, this is not a mere academic debate. Just last week, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said there was no threat to democracy and the army had no intention of taking power. Yet the very fact he had to say so at all spoke of deep disquiet in the country over the civilian government’s handling of Pakistan’s floods, which with it has brought new mutterings of an eventual return to military rule.

“Why the prime minister needed to hammer this point home once again could be anybody’s guess,” the Daily Times said in an editorial. “The diminishing returns of a corrupt and incompetent democracy are leading to the inescapable suspicion that something is in the air, in the possible shape of an anti-democratic intervention.”

To be clear, there is no sign of an imminent military coup. The army neither wants to, nor needs to take power, since it already calls the shots on the issues that matter to it — foreign and security policy.  But equally, the army’s lead role in flood relief has  increased its clout and encouraged misgivings about the value of democracy which could act as a slow-burning fuse if the civilian government is not able to improve its performance. And according to some, it is a slow-burning fuse lit by the military itself — or by what Dawn columnist Cyril Almedia calls the 800-pound gorilla of Pakistani politics, the army.

Democracy must deliver or else, seems to be the refrain currently gripping Pakistan. So far, however, few have spelled out the value of democracy, nor for that matter said precisely what they mean by  “or else”.

Pakistan’s constitutional democracy and the Pakistan Army

“The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time. The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.” – Field Marshall Sir Philip Chetwode at the inauguration of the Indian Military Academy in 1932

For the first time in the history of Pakistan a civilian government is pushing a comprehensive constitutional reform package through parliament to undo provisions introduced by dictators to tighten their grip on power.  President Asif Ali Zardari urged parliament this week to approve constitutional amendments which will turn him into a titular head of state – and, crucially, remove his right to sack prime ministers which had been used by previous military dictators.

The move is potentially good news for Pakistan, restoring a system of parliamentary democracy that was overturned by the late military ruler President Zia ul-Haq. The amendments also include a change of name for the North West Frontier Province to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, meant to recognise the aspirations of the Pashtun people who live there to have their ethnic identities acknowledged in the same way as those in Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan.

 Juan Cole at Informed Comment describes the constitutional reform package as “an enormous advance toward democratization in the country”.

“During the past 3 years, the Pakistani public has demonstrated repeatedly and on a large scale in favor of the rule of law and the reinstatement of the Supreme Court justices dismissed by dictator Gen. (Pervez) Musharraf,” he writes. ”Mind you, they are making a case for civil law and the civil supreme court, not for sharia or Islamic law. They voted in the center-left Pakistan People’s Party in February 2008, and the return to parliamentary rule ultimately, in August 2008, allowed the political parties to unite to toss out of office Gen. Musharraf, who had had himself declared a civilian ‘president’ and was in danger of being impeached for alleged corruption.”

“That is, the Pakistani public has conducted a ‘color revolution’ of its own, in the teeth of opposition or skittishness in Washington, and managed to overturn a military dictatorship that had been backed to the hilt by Bush-Cheney, restoring parliamentary governance,” he says.

The problem, however, is that this great surge in democracy has been accompanied by the growing role of the Pakistan Army, whose chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, was feted in Washington last month as the real wielder of power in Pakistan.

General Kayani in Washington; Pakistan’s most powerful man

So much for democracy. When Pakistan holds a “strategic dialogue” with the United States in Washington this week, there is little doubt that the leading player in the Pakistani delegation will be its army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani.

We have got so used to Americans dealing with the Pakistan Army in their efforts to end the stalemate in Afghanistan that it does not seem that surprising that the meeting between the United States and Pakistan would be dominated by the military. Nor indeed that Dawn columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee would describe Kayani as the most powerful man in Pakistan. Even the grudging admiration granted in this Times of India profile of Kayani by Indrani Baghchi is in keeping with the current mood.

But before taking it for granted that this is a normal state of affairs, do pause to consider how it might seem if Britain, for example, which has worked closely with the United States on both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, sent a delegation to Washington in which the army chief was expected to call the shots. Also in the interests of keeping everyone honest, remember that it was not actually supposed to be this way.

The United States has always preferred to deal with military rulers in Pakistan, but the forced exit of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2008 and the election of President Barack Obama had raised hopes Washington might be about to turn over a new leaf, with policies which encouraged the development of civilian democracy.  Its preference for military rulers in the past has been partially blamed for suppressing democracy in Pakistan (though others blame either the country’s own hapless politicians or the overweening nature of the army, depending on which side of the argument you sit).

So what happened to the change promised by Obama, which encouraged many Pakistanis to hope that for once Washington would “pour money into democracy as opposed to autocracy“?

Inside Pakistan itself, the political parties have been at loggerheads, leaving Kayani looking like the only national figure who remained above the fray.  In a sense he retained the army’s traditional “parental role”, ready to step in if the fighting between the rival politicians got out of hand. A bruising battle between President Asif Ali Zardari and the judiciary also limited the scope for the government to clip the wings of the powerful military.

Kayani, meanwhile, has both vowed to keep the army out of politics while retaining a tight grip on foreign and security policy. He spoke out fiercely against a reported incursion by U.S. ground troops in 2008 and in 2009 condemned provisions in the Kerry-Lugar U.S. aid package which called for greater civilian oversight of military appointments and promotions.

Pakistan’s political pandemonium

A Supreme Court ruling striking down an amnesty given to politicians and officials by former president Pervez Musharraf has created havoc in Pakistani politics.  Among those affected on a list of 8,000 politicians and bureaucrats who were protected by the amnesty are the interior and defence ministers, who are now no longer allowed to leave the country until they clear their names in court.

“Pakistan’s interior minister today found himself in the unusual position of being asked to bar himself from leaving the country,” wrote Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

The defence minister abruptly cancelled plans to fly to China on an official visit after his name was included on the so-called Exit Control List,  according to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.

Indeed such was the drama of a defence minister being refused permission to leave his own country that Twitter was briefly abuzz with talk of a coup, followed later by one comment which pretty much summed up the prevailing uncertainty:  ”a bad sign when CNN is reporting ‘no coup’ in Pakistan”.

President Asif Ali Zardari had also been covered by the amnesty, or National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), pushed through by Musharraf in an American-backed plan to allow Zardari’s late wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan in what had been supposed to be a power-sharing agreement to provide both stability and democracy. While he is expected to come under pressure to step down, he remains protected by presidential immunity.

The Pakistan blog Deadpan Thoughts captured the immediate reaction to Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling, talking of  people in Karachi closing down their shops, racing home, and swapping notes on the phone as ”vicious rumors circulated of a coup”. 

“The legislative branch of our government has right now with this judgment directed the executive branch to prosecute itself,” it said.  “After all is said and done and we have torn apart this government, gone to mid term elections and arrived at the same crossroads in say another year or two at most, we must ask ourselves is democracy the best system for Pakistan? If it is then why does it never work for us?”

The Pakistan Army and civilian democracy

The Pakistan Army has been getting a lot of flak over the past week or so for its alleged failure to take a tough line against Taliban militants expanding their reach across Pakistan’s north-west.  And although Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani issued a statement promising to fight the militants and security forces began a new offensive, doubts remain about the military’s willingness to take on Islamist groups that it once nurtured as part of its rivalry with India.

Among a spate of articles about Pakistan’s powerful military, Newsweek ran a piece headlined “Pakistan’s Self-Defeating Army”. It argued that far from serving as a bulwark against chaos, the military had helped destabilise Pakistan by undermining the development of a civilian democracy in the decades since the country was founded in 1947.

David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency expert, called during a Congressional hearing for “fundamental, root and branch reform of the Pakistani military, and bringing it firmly under the authority of civilian elected officials”. Arguing that U.S. aid should be channelled into building up the police rather than the military, he said this ”would protect the Pakistani people, improve counterinsurgency performance, enhance the rule of law and weaken the stranglehold of the army over the civilian leadership of Pakistan.”

The arguments in favour of civilian democracy were well rehearsed when President Pervez Musharraf was forced out of office last year, and then endorsed by the administration of President Barack Obama. Kayani himself has so far stressed his commitment to civilian democracy. So to some extent the latest talk about the role of the Pakistan Army is a rehash of old news.

What I have not seen however, is a coherent and clear explanation of how the army is supposed to do more in fighting the Taliban, while also doing less by subsuming its power to that of the civilian government. Were the civilian government determined and united in fighting the Taliban, there would be no contradiction – in a constitutional democracy, the army is supposed to follow the orders of the political leadership. But there seems to be something of a suggestion creeping in that the army should be ready to take the initiative, with or without the backing of the government.

Reforming Pakistan’s security agencies

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has put out a paper on the need to reform Pakistan’s intelligence agencies just as army chief General Ashfaq Kayani is winning much praise for playing what is seen as a decisive role in defusing the country’s latest political crisis and saving democracy.

French scholar Frederic Grare says in the paper the reform and “depoliticisation” of the agencies, in particular the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is imperative.

Grare says there is no magic formula to transform overnight an authoritarian regime into a full-fledged democracy but says there’s no excuse for the government to sit on its hands (“patience should not be an alibi for inaction”).

(more…)