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POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Towards Democracy Musharraf-Style

Analysis by Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Nov 19 2007 (IPS) - As President Gen. Pervez Musharraf congratulated the outgoing national assembly for being the first ever in Pakistan’s 60-year history to complete its term (on Nov 15) and swore in a new 24-member caretaker government to supervise general elections in January, the flaws in these ostensibly positive moves towards democracy were glaring.

Musharraf did not take the political parties into confidence on appointing as caretaker prime minister Mohammadmian Soomro, senate chairman and a known Musharraf loyalist. Nor was any consensus sought on the composition of the caretaker cabinet which includes no opposition member. “The caretaker government is an extension of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League,” said twice-elected former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, rejecting the caretaker set up.

The caretaker government is to oversee elections under essentially flawed circumstances: the emergency rule that Musharraf announced on Nov 3, issuing a new Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and in one stroke suspending the Constitution, fundamental rights, the judiciary and media freedom. Since he promulgated the PCO in his capacity as army chief rather than as president, legal experts say it is basically martial law.

The Fair and Free Elections Network (FAFEN) has termed the notion of holding elections under emergency an oxymoron. It raises “serious concerns about the fairness of the electoral process,” said the independent Islamabad-based coalition of 30 leading Pakistani civil society organisations in a Nov. 12 statement.

Being under a state of emergency, Pakistan lacks conditions that are a prerequisite for a free election, said the Network. “The independence of judiciary has been compromised. Fundamental rights of people continue to be suspended. Political activities are banned. Citizens and civil society activists are arrested by security and intelligence agencies. Media is controlled by new laws to restrict its ability to give unbiased information to people.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court – packed with Musharraf’s hand-picked judges and purged of those who refused take oath under his PCO – quickly quashed most of the legal challenges to his reelection as president while in uniform. Musharraf proclaimed emergency when it became apparent that the Supreme Court was unlikely to validate his reelection while still army chief.

There is near unanimous support among Pakistan’s major civil society organisations and political parties for the immediate lifting of the emergency and restoration of the constitution, judiciary and fundamental rights.

“The caretaker government took an oath to protect the Constitution – which does not exist anymore, and the oath was administered by the one who took it away,” said Lala Hasan, a civil rights activist who is involved with the People’s Resistance coalition in Karachi, pointing out the ironies in the situation.

Even Mushahid Hussain, secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), or PML-Q, the party backing Musharraf, has chimed in with demands for an end to the emergency before elections are held. Hussain’s speaking out at this juncture is seen as significant and an indication of the growing unrest with the emergency.

Business consultant Naeem Sadiq termed Soomro as “another illegal care-taker prime minister” who took oath “in front of the army chief, on the orders of the army chief, under a law manufactured by the army chief.” In an open letter pointing out that the Supreme Court had declared the ‘emergency’ illegal and unconstitutional, he contended that by assuming this position, Soomro “blatantly acted against and violated the constitution of Pakistan”.

“You still have time to decline the offer and go play a game of golf, Mr. Soomro,” added Sadiq. The new prime minister has ignored any such advice but some analysts were hopeful that things would soon ease up due to the immense international and domestic pressures on Musharraf. “This situation can’t last,” said lawyer Faisal Siddiqi. “Sooner or later, he has to lift the martial law. The Constitution and the judiciary will be restored, along with all the other fundamental rights and media freedoms.”

Condemnations and protests have poured in from around the world, by governments, bar associations, and human rights organisations. Last Wednesday, over 700 members of the powerful American Bar Association demonstrated in Washington to protest against the mass arrests of Pakistani lawyers opposed to the PCO, and suspension of judges who did not take fresh oath under the PCO.

“There’s no legal uniform in America, but they all wore black coats in solidarity with their Pakistani colleagues,” said lawyer Abira Ashfaq who moved back to Pakistan a year ago from the U.S.

The one pressure that is generally perceived as the most significant does not seem to work – that of the White House. U.S. policy towards Pakistan is centred on fighting terrorism. The realisation that military means alone will not do the trick necessitated taking political forces along and promoting democracy.

It was towards this end that the U.S. has been involved, along with Britain, on negotiating a deal between Musharraf and Bhutto – trying to marry the military and the political elements. Although they have long been anathema to each other, the military ruler and the populist politician had managed to come to a working agreement that enabled Bhutto to return to Pakistan on Oct.18 after over eight years in self-exile.

A cartoon circulated on the internet portrayed Musharraf and Bhutto as a garlanded bride and groom, with a smiling George W. Bush standing behind them as the matchmaker.

While many loudly criticise the extreme compromises the deal entails, others point out that Bhutto was showing how far she is willing to go to make possible a transition from military rule to democracy.

Cracks in the deal began appearing when Musharraf urged Bhutto to delay her arrival in Pakistan. Bhutto refused. The tensions deepened after bomb blasts killed some 150 people in her welcome procession, as she headed into Karachi from the airport. What was left of the agreement fell apart after Musharraf’s emergency proclamation of Nov 3. Rejecting it, Bhutto has called for a restoration of the Constitution, basic rights and the judiciary, as a prerequisite to her cooperation.

Alarmed at these developments, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte flew to Islamabad on Friday, on a brief, self-stated mission to put Pakistan’s ‘derailed’ democracy ‘back on track’. Many expected him to give a rap on Musharraf’s knuckles and get the emergency lifted. There was room for cautious optimism that this would happen soon, when a day ahead of Negroponte’s visit, Musharraf ordered the release of all political prisoners -except a few leaders.

Those still incarcerated include the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Aitzaz Ahsan, currently in solitary confinement, as well as former SCBA presidents Munir A. Malik and Ali Ahmed Kurd. Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry, who led the Supreme Court bench that ruled against the emergency orders, also remains under house arrest along with the other judges of the bench.

Several political prisoners were released from house arrest including Bhutto, prominent human rights advocate Asma Jahangir, and dissenting judges of the High Courts who had refused to take oath under the PCO.

Negroponte telephoned Bhutto the day of her release, Friday, reiterating that “moderate forces” should work together to get Pakistan back to democracy. The day before the national assembly’s term ended, Musharraf vested the powers to lift the emergency in the office of the president which he holds.

Expected to resign from his army post in the next few days but stay on as civilian president, he is clearly working on retaining this power, say analysts.

Defying all the pressures upon him, Musharraf has stated that the country is more important than democracy. “When the nation is about to be declared a failed state, tell me whether the (restoration) of so-called democracy is important or efforts to save the country,” he asked a television interviewer last week. He responded to his own question: “Of course it is important to save the country.”

Musharraf made it clear to Negroponte that he will only lift the emergency once the security situation in Pakistan improves. “He told the envoy that the emergency is meant to reinforce and strengthen the law enforcement apparatus in the fight against militancy and extremism,” said a presidential aide.

More alarmingly, just ahead of his meeting with the U.S. diplomat, Musharraf said in an interview with the BBC Radio Four’s ‘Today’ programme that without him, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. “This really comes as close as you can get to the last bluster over the last drink in Last Chance Saloon,” commented a political researcher in Karachi requesting anonymity. “What a dangerous mind!”

In the interview, Musharraf inadvertently accepted the illegality of his PCO. “Have I done anything constitutionally illegal? Yes, I did it on Nov. 3. But did I do it before? Not once.” In asking the second rhetorical question, critics point out that Musharraf seems to have forgotten that he originally came to power in 1999 through a military coup, suspending the constitution and overthrowing the then elected government.

“There are not too many instances in the world where a head of government openly mentions nuclear proliferation in such stark terms and links it with his own stay in power. Musharraf has made Pakistan the state equivalent of a suicide bomber,” commented the political researcher. “Complex, isn’t it, the business of constructing democracy in a developing, nuclear-armed state.”