Adil Najam
For a while now we have been carrying links in our middle column to what was featured at ATP a year ago and two years ago. If you look at the headlines for today, you will note that exactly one year ago today the lead story at Pakistaniat.com was Uncertainty Rules Pakistan and two years ago it was a post about the then-recent sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and a video of the then-living poet Ahmad Faraz’s Mohassra. It seems that nothing much ever changes in Pakistan politics. Except, maybe, to get progressively worse.
I had started my post exactly a year ago, about Pakistan’s political uncertainty, with the following words:
Explaining what is happening in Pakistan, and why, is never easy. Never has it been more difficult than it is now.
I may have been wrong. It seems even more difficult today than it did a year ago.
The talk then was about Gen. Musharraf calling a session of the Assembly, the supposed agreement between Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif on Gen. Musharraf but the lingering questions about who would be Prime Minister and about what will happen to the deposed judges. Today, the question seem to be even more confounding:
- Would the ‘Long March’ of the lawyers movement be able to start, as it is supposed to, tomorrow? The Punjab government and some major PPP voices seems bent on not letting it happen. News suggests mass arrests as well as strong statements. Oddly, the questions that come to mind are: Would the lawyers’ movement actually be strengthened if it is somehow stopped from happening? And, if it did happen would the results be any different from the last ‘Long March’?
- Would the real – and really dangerous – battle now between the PPP and the PML(N), whose Punjab government was recently ousted, has this ‘Long March’ now really been co-opted by the Sharif brothers and is more about vindicating their cause than the original lawyer’s movement?
- Even if not, what is to become of the Punjab government fiasco? Everyone seems to be escalating the game with every move in what seems to be a rather silly game of ‘Chicken’ being played by our politicians as the nation sits and waits – knowing that no matter who blinks it is they who will be pushed over the ravine, especially if nobody blinks!
- What will happen to the very future of the PPP as Asif Ali Zardari takes one big gamble after the other? Another major leader of the PPP old-guard – Raza Rabbani – has resigned after being overlooked for the Senate Chairman’s position. The handling of the Punjab government has been obviously bungled. Even Prime Minister Gillani seems to be getting impatient. And so much more is going so very wrong in so many ways.
- One wonders, also, if Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani just made the speech of his life? Or was he merely conveying the deal already made? One refers, of course, to the speech he just made saying that he will advise the President to call a session of the Punjab Assembly to select a leader and also on ways to resolve the judicial crisis. Is he sending Asif Ali Zardari a message? Or is he conveying Asif Ali Zardari’s message to the rest of us?
- And what about the Pakistan military in all of this? This being Pakistan, they seem to be all over all of these stories, and yet no where to be found. Given our history, that is ominous in itself.
Too many questions. Each central to Pakistan’s political future. No answers in sight. Uncertainty can kill. And it may well do just that to Pakistan politics.
The scariest part for me is the fact, that calling names on active judges has become a fashion. Even with our troubled political history, it used a really disgusting act. Now you are free to call names on judges you don’t like.
I wont be surprised if\when restored Iftikhar Chudhry be given a really hard time just like CJ Dogar.
I think you guys are being harsh on ‘Wishful Thinker’ who is raising a general point about need to be careful on this. I want the CJ restored, but I want the stability of Pakistan even more.
I like that Adil Najam used the word ‘Game of Chicken’. That is what is going on. Everyone is sticking to their maximum position and waiting for others to give in. While ordinary Pakistanis suffer. What is a practical and viable way forward that does not make things worse overall by solving one problem.
Some sort of way has to be found to restore the sanctity of institution including the judiciary but also the elected government so that military does not mess with government and government not with judiciary. I am afraid everyone has made this an ana ka masla rather than an issue about future of Pakistan politics.
And the funny thing is CJ Iftikhar became
“Sharif needs to realise that the thoroughly politicised Iftikhar Chaudhry
Taking a step back from the details of right now, we need both the political parties if democracy has to have any hope of surviving and evolving in Pakistan. The fact that we have had two large political parties, both nationalistic in outlook and mainstream, is what has kept forcing even the military dictators to keep pretending to be well wishers or ‘facilitators’ of ‘true’ democracy. The military keeps having to return to civilian rule unlike Egypt (no real political party) and Syria (single party) where they have decades of continuous dictatorship.
In the first decade or so of Pakistan, the bureaucracy-military-feudel establishment decimated, hijacked and perverted Jinnah’s Muslim League. The process was complete with the disqualification of H.S.Suhrawardy from politics by Ayub Khan. Bhutto might have been the bright spark of Ayub’s King’s party – the Conventional Muslim League, but it was very fortunate for the future of Pakistani democracy that he made a second, national political party in Pakistan – the PPP.
Both parties enjoy genuine grass roots support. Without either one of them, future prospects of democracy would suffer gravely, if not fatally. I am not necessarily arguing for anything like a national government. Democracy finds it impossible to survive without the presence of a viable opposition. Although, we do need a single-issue bi-partisan solidarity against the religious militants and terrorsists.
The Army would be very reluctant to return so soon after Musharraf, like Zia and Ayub/Yahya before him, exhausted all good will towards Pak Army. It would rather give the civilians a decade to exhaust theirs. Except, people are running out of patience much sooner. So a repeat of the General Kakar type of arrangement may be possible. Will Zardari still have a role, depends on whether both his party and his son (young as he is) are ready to ditch him or not. Otherwise, post arrangement Sharif vs Zardari will still be just as acrimonious. In case of a Punjab vs Sindh tussle over Zardari within the PPP, will the sindhis choose Zardari or the PPP? Again, Bilawal may hold the deciding vote (which might well be in dad’s favour). Not being a politician in his own right, Zardari is the weakest link. He might do well to remember that. Except, it might already be too late.
Sharif needs to realise that the thoroughly politicised Iftikhar Chaudhry’s return would be just as controversial as Dogar continuing. With the NRO, the ‘deal’, its guarantors, and the other party in the ‘deal’ being the army, Chaudhry cannot return. A rational and honest step towards an independent judiciary would be: completely new faces in the supreme court. It’d be nice if the newly inducted jayalas can also be kicked out of the senior judiciary. I guess, anything useful I wished to contribute, I said it in the first paragraph. Apologies for the next four.