The Day Of All Days

Feroz R Khan
Sep 9, 2002
Elections in Pakistan: A day of burial or a day of resurrection?

October 10, 2002 will be remembered as a historic day in the long drawn out and tragic saga of Pakistani politics. After nearly three years of a rule, will re-take its first fledging steps towards , as will be held to determine the new landscape of Pakistani politics. The question posed, which the October will seek to settle, is not whether can thrive in , but whether this political “experiment” by the will be ranked as just another landmark failure in the history of . The process of instituting , in , in the past has always been stunted. seems like a dream in , because the Pakistani political tradition dislikes a plurality of opinions – a sine qua non for a successful democratic tradition in . Historically, has failed in because Pakistani politics have been unable to institutionalize dissent in the political arena. The failure of the democratic tradition in has been a testament to the non-cooperative attitude of the , which are more willing to compromise in order to deny power to their rivals than they are willing to share power with each other.

It was this autocratic impulse, on the part of the last prime minister of , Nawaz Sharif, that allowed the to intervene in Pakistani politics for the third time and implement a “politically correct” martial in the country. Even though Nawaz Sharif was democratically elected, his policies were more aimed at silencing dissent against his authoritarian rule masked by a democratic façade. In a similar sense, Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister of before Sharif, considered as a political veil to hide the true nature of her personalized rule; a rule, which was more interested in the principle of denying power than in sharing it. The so-called “Decade of ” in (1988-1999) in which both Nawaz Sharif and Benzair Bhutto were twice elected as prime ministers of (and twice dismissed by the president) was nothing more than a series of personalized autocracies legitimized under, and by, a prostituted process of in .

What ended the “Decade of ” in was the political gambit, which Sharif undertook to deny power to a political institution that had always considered itself as primus inter pares in Pakistani politics: the Army. In ordering the dismissal of , the Chief of Army Staff, Sharif was hoping to curtail the powers of the army in and in the process end the army’s influence in politics. His fatal miscalculation in this matter was that the Pakistani army preferred denying power to others, but did not like power being denied to itself. The army’s response was swift and it removed Sharif in a bloodless d’ état and took over the reins of power in . Since that day in October 1999, the present interregnum has been attempting to institutionalize the role of the armed forces in the Pakistani politics. The ’s attempt to institutionalize a role for itself is an admission to a reality in Pakistani politics. The has always acted as the bridge, in the politics, which has facilitated the transfer of power from one political party to another. Hence, in the present scenario, the wishes to legalize its role in politics as the fulcrum of the political balance of power in and an institution, which is capable of managing a sanitized and legalized form of political power in .

Consequently, the political landscape that will emerge after the October 2002 will mirror this reality of the Pakistani politics. The role of the in Pakistani politics, though it has always been a historic disaster for , cannot be avoided, due to the lack of a viable mechanism in politics, which allows peaceful transfers of power. The sad irony of the Pakistani political experience is that the democratically elected parties of are loath to transfer power democratically to another political party. Due to this inability of to transfer power peacefully and legally, the is forced to intervene and end the political gridlock, which usually results as the country has to endure periods of political instability and political crisis resulting from the refusal to share power in a democratic manner. Hence, the ’s aim in the , and in its immediate aftermath, is to create a political system in the country, which gives the the legal ability to transfer power in politics. Thus, avoid the usual political infightings that results each time there is a change of power in .

It is this reality of the Pakistani politics, which the constitutional reforms of the present are specifically designed for - to give a dejure status and a political-legal cover to the ’s new role in Pakistani power politics. This in turn raises the question, whether the constitutional reforms undertaken by the are designed with the intention to restore a semblance of in or they are fashioned with the traditional Machiavellian aim, in Pakistani politics, to monopolize power. The prima facie utility of the constitutional reforms would suggest that they were introduced and the was amended to strengthen the process of in and prevent the process of from being abused for aggrandizement of personal power.

However, in an Orwellian sense, the suggested constitutional reforms of the , under the assumption of increasing the resilience of in , will only make matters worse by weakening the process of in . This process, undertaken by the present , will just end up aggrandizing power in the hands of one person and one institution at expense of other political institutions in the country. In doing so, it will merely make the distinction between the self-styled democratic and the past democratic dictators of an opaque irony.

Though the idea of these reforms may be beneficial, it still does not answer the question how these reforms are going to help the process of political plurality in . This is a critical question, which demands an immediate answer. There is an urgent need to address this question, because it would seem that end result of these reforms would be to institute an autocracy in in the name of a . Under the newly envisaged reforms, would end up as being the most powerful autocrat in the history of the nation. In a pragmatic sense, these constitutional reforms seem destined to be prelude for another intervention in Pakistani politics. By consecrating power in the person of Musharraf himself, they will invariably set the stage for another political power struggle to fill the vacuum that would be created, when Musharraf would eventually leave politics.

Granted that there is validity to the argument that power will only be concentrated with a single person, Musharraf, for a certain period. According to this argument, Musharraf will be an all-powerful leader of for a limited time. The argument suggests, that once the “true essence” of has devolved and permeated to the political grass root levels in , Musharraf will hand over power to the duly elected representatives and thus, will emerge in , paradoxically, from within an autocratic system of governance. This in turn raises two more questions. One; will power be transferred from Musharraf to the elected representatives in a peaceful manner and secondly, will Musharraf trust the judgement of the electorate if it goes against his own judgement. A major perceptional problem, with the constitutional reforms, is they are more than likely to harm the democratic process by creating political uncertainty in .

However, if the intention of the present is to exploit this uncertainty, then these reforms are enacted more with the intention of denying power than sharing power – a necessary pre-condition towards a successful implementation of in .

The consequences of this could prove to be disastrous for , because it would be merely repeating the past history of . In fact, it would be responsible for institutionalizing the past political mistakes in the country instead of correcting them, as argued by the . Another consequence of these constitutional reforms would be that instead of altering and amending the flawed system of politics in , they would be simply reinforcing failure. has never been able to thrive in , because the centralized nature of power discourages a plurality of expression and the concentration of power, autocratically in , is always pregnant with the possibility of a potential power struggle. Political power struggles are endemic in , because by depositing power exclusively with one person, has never been able to articulate a system of transferring, or sharing, power peacefully. In this sense, the politics in have always been prone to confrontations over the issues of political power and its equitable distributions.

cannot evolve in unless the political system in learns to devolve power and accepts the fact that political orthodoxy and centralized authority does not engender democratic norms. can only flourish in , when the politics in the country are liberalized and favor a plurality of dissenting opinions in the political discourse of the nation. Plurality of political opinion implies that state exhibits a high degree of tolerance towards dissent and more importantly, considers itself politically secure enough to allow political dissent. It has been the bane of ’s history that most of its political problems have originated from its conservative interpretation of centralized power structures and their political utility in the terms of perpetuating oligarchies of power. Due to this reason, has suffered politically and will continue to suffer accordingly until it, as a state, is willing to decentralize power and starts to question the conflicting nature of its political orthodoxy.

In this sense, the debate in over the introduction of political “checks and balances” is an academic one. The reason being that in a realistic sense, a credible system of political checks and balances is based on the institutional independence and integrity of a nation’s political institutions and not on the issues of individualism. Unfortunately, Musharraf, by devolving the majority of powers to himself, is undermining the very legitimacy of political accountability, which he had promised to introduce in the Pakistani politics. In the present political scenario the nature of political accountability, by the virtue of being concentrated in one person, has created an impression of a political immunity. This will, rightly or wrongly, in the long run merely reinforce the perception that the hallmark of Pakistani politics is not a willingness to tolerate plurality, but to institute regimentation in the political discourse.

The concentration of power also implies that the present constitutional and economic reforms’ longevity is directly proportional to Musharraf’s political tenure. If this were true, it would suggest dire consequences for . It would mean that after Musharraf’s exist from politics, not only will find itself embroiled in another power struggle, but also the reforms of the might be reversed. In a more critical sense would be, politically speaking, exactly where it was on October 12, 1999. In other words, three years of political experimentation would have ended without having progressed towards a more democratically sustainable political system. This in turn would suggest Pakistani politics reverting to their traditionally antagonistic power denial struggles. Hence, creating the political conditions for the armed forces continual involvement in Pakistani politics at the cost of the democratic process in the country.

The only logical way out of this cul-de-sac would be the eventual process of devolution of power in and empowerment of non-traditional areas of politics in the Pakistani society. One of methodologies of political empowerment in is economic de-centralization and de-nationalization of owned institutions. The realm of economics, like everything else in , is a state owned monopoly, which is prone to a serious misallocation of national resources. Accordingly, the in suffers from a serious mismanagement and an absence of economic foresight. The nature of Pakistani ; its ability to adapt and evolve with the changing market forces, both in a regional and a global sense, is heavily straitjacketed by the bureaucratic control exerted over it that, in many ways, its resembles the command economies of the communist era. This bureaucratic rigidity and the centralized nature of the Pakistani has, as a proportional response to this economic myopia, created a parallel in , which is capitalistic and driven by the exigencies of the market forces.

The existence of two parallel economies in has greatly aided in the fissuring and polarization of the society. Thus, the issues of social ; of crime and punishment and of and wealth are so stark that Pakistani societal are more identifiable by their social inequalities rather than their equalities. This mutated division of economic wealth in , with increasing and a limited section of the controlling the economics of the nation has weakened the political fabric of the Pakistani society and has created a political rift within the society itself. The emerging economic situation of and not the constitutional and political reforms of devolution of power are the keys towards enabling a sustainable culture of in . Political power, in the modern terminology, is the translation of economic wealth into political influence and without an economic base, political power is shallow and weak. Political devolution of power in is meaningless unless it is accompanied by economic empowerment of the economically unrepresentative segments of the Pakistani and they are effectively integrated into the economic life of the nation.

Since the issue of constitutional reforms and political “checks and balances” in are being undertaken without any corresponding economic reforms, it suggests that the new political culture in will be more timocratic and timocracy will underline the new orthodoxy of Pakistani political reality. Due to this, the interaction of centralized and autocratic political power coupled with economically dominated oligarchies will isolate vast sections of the Pakistani society. This , based on the interpretation of a culture of political and economic apartheid, will reinforce resentment, because of its policies of denial and ostracism making it very difficult to inoculate a democratic political and/or economic consensus in the country.

In order to avoid this situation from developing, power has to be economically devolved in and the constitutional reforms should be undertaken with the express intent of making the political discourse in more inclusive towards the dissenting opinions. Economic allocation of wealth in has to be distributed in a manner, which causes the economic empowerment of the people and not only this, but this distribution of wealth gives them the plurality of political representation, which ensures their economic within the Pakistani society.

Presently, there is no political mechanism in the country, which would facilitate this metamorphoses of the Pakistani politics and thus, this process is the sine qua non of a sustainable system of political representation in , without which will continually flounder in . To attain this end, needs a stable, enduring period of political transition from its past traditions of political and economic egoism to a system of political and economic altruism. The present is ideally suited for this task and it can implement this aim, if it has the foresight and the wisdom to look beyond its own interests of political insularity. Hence, the present and this interlude in Pakistani politics has the potential to end up being worth while if, in a Machiavellian dictum, it has the political will to make its ends justify its intended means.

If the end of this political experiment is a workable concept of in , then the is excused, but not necessarily condoned, to undertake those political and economic reforms, which are sorely needed. It should refrain from undertaking those political actions, which are expedient because political expediency in the final analysis only helps in fostering political mistakes and no longer has the luxury, after 55 years, to indulge in or afford any more political mistakes. The first step in this process, to bring about a sustainable democratic form of in , is political compromise and not political confrontations. This and its package of political, constitutional, and economic reforms will end up as a failure unless it includes the in the process of deliberating upon the nature of problems and challenges facing .

Furthermore, this can aid the democratic process in the country by making the act of participation in the politics easier and not difficult. More than anything else, this should shun the advice, which encourages believe in its own infallibility and disabuse itself from the notion that it has the monopoly and knows what is the correct solution to ’s myriad political problems.
This should realize that it cannot solve all of ’s problems by itself, but can help in the process if it is willing to listen, learn and accept help from other participants in the Pakistani political discourse.

October 10, 2002 will be the answer to the question if can be resurrected in or whether this political experiment of engineering a democratic process will only be prelude to another political experiment to correct the flaws of a previously failed political experiment. October 10, 2002 will also be the final vote, in a manner of speaking, which will decide as to who has the wisdom to conduct the future political experiments. It is sincerely hoped that the people of conduct the next political experiment in . It is hoped that the results of the October 10, 2002 will be allowed to evolve democratically and will not be aborted once again and the people of should be the final judges of this experiment, which will start after October 10, 2002 in .

Can this be wished in ?

The past history of the nation would suggest otherwise. If the past is bleek and the present is uncertain, with the prospects of a questionalble future, then the only salvation is to against the odds. Hoping against the odds is what the Pakistanis have to look forward to after October 2002 and since they have no influence over their own destinies, what else can they for?