July 18, 2008

A Mockery of Democracy

Pakistan is virtually a leaderless state today.
The elections held on February 18 this year, with a lot of fanfare and assurances of the induction of democratic institutions and traditions, have instead brought into being a dysfunctional parliament, a pro forma Prime Minister, a coalition cabinet from which members of the second most important party of the country have been withdrawn, without the party quitting the coalition altogether  – an inane anomaly.
The man who is actually at the top of the political heap is not even a member of the parliament. And, he operates from Dubai or London. The Prime Minister genuflects to him in those foreign climes. The leaders of other parties too accept him as the real decision maker.  That certainly is an enviable attainment for Asif Ali Zardari irrespective of the fact that he has yet to face the electorate.  And, it reflects his virtual ‘supremo’ status despite the absence of any legal locus standi for it.
It must be recalled that he successfully grabbed the mantel of his wife upon her murder, in line with the feudal dynastic system, and has even declared his son the heir apparent of a party that claims its base to be among the masses. No only that, he has managed to have all cases in the domestic and foreign courts withdrawn by the government, and his properties released to him from judicial custody.
He has appointed his close confidant, Rehman Malik, as the interior minister. Mr. Malik is a former police officer with a controversial, if not unsavory, track record. But, he is now probably more important in the bizarre hierarchy than the prime minister.
The PM, Mr. Yousuf Raza Gilani, reigns but it is Mr. Malik who rules.  He is also at the helm of affairs in handling the insurgency in the tribal belt.  When the Afghan President, Mr. Karzai, threatened that he would send his troops into Pakistan to attack the hideouts of Taliban and Al Qaeda, it was not the Foreign Minister but Mr. Malik who went to Kabul to talk to him.
Like Mr. Zardari, Mr. Malik too is not a member of the parliament, nor of the Senate.
Another political luminary, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, whose party, ML (N), has the second highest number of seats in the parliament, is not only not a member of that august body but has been declared by a court of law as unqualified to be a member.
Like a dented gramophone record, he keeps on repeating his chagrin towards President Musharraf. He appears totally obsessed with his emotion of revenge.  He wants to settle scores with Musharraf through Chief Justice Iftikhar M. Chaudhry.
As for President Musharraf, the PPP and PML(N) both agree ostensibly to remove him from office, gracefully or disgracefully. But given the support of the army and of the US and the tacit deal of the PPP leadership with him leading to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that enabled the Bhuttos to enter the country, it has become a case of how to bell the cat.
Musharrraf, though re-elected as President in a dubious manner, claims to be a duly elected President with no intention to quit till the end of his tenure. Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary of State, on his recent visit to Pakistan asserted that “Musharraf was not an issue”.  He expected all leaders of the country to concentrate instead on the insurgency in the tribal areas. President Bush had, some time back, declared that the next attack on the US might be hatched in that area.
The leader of the third biggest party in the Assembly, Altaf Husain, is a British national and lives permanently in London. All major decisions about the areas of the operations of his party, MQM, are taken by him and him alone.
Mr. Shaukat Aziz, the ex-Prime Minister who is now in the US, is reported to be disinclined to return to Pakistan for fear of reprisals over his controversial decisions while in power.
The leaders of all three major parties of the country are abroad and none of them is a member of the National Assembly or of the Senate. But, none of them is willing to part with power in favor of next significant leaders in their respective parties.  What is this, if not a mockery of democracy and its caricature by the very politicians who consistently claimed that the panacea for the nation’s ills lay in the induction of democracy!
No wonder, their surrogates at home have been unable over the past almost four months to take concrete steps for providing any relief from the torture of economic downturn, faltering law and order situation, and the expanding clutches of obscurantist mullahs particularly of the tribal belt and adjoining areas.
As for the economic problems of the country, it does hardly convince the poverty-stricken common man that the fall in his lot is attributable solely to global factors such as the oil and food price hikes on the international market. Some earning members of poor families being unable to provide even two square meals to their dependents found escape in committing suicides.  The super rich Neros living abroad keep playing their fiddles and enjoying the profuse amenities available to them.  The budget presented by their surrogates in the Assembly was a totally lack- luster and perfunctory document that showed a deplorable callousness towards the pressing problems of the common man. If anything, it has added to the bitterness of his cup.
As for the growing influence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal belt and adjoining areas, the ruling oligarchy is averse to the logical course of developing a national consensus through a debate and discussion in the National Assembly. Since the ruling elite is addicted to the American doles, it is reluctant to have the matter debated in the Assembly particularly because of the growing anti-Americanism in the country.
People wonder whose war Pakistan is fighting on its own soil, against its own nationals.  The issue need must be discussed thoroughly in the parliament to bring home to the people the reality behind the menace of militancy in the name of religion. Talibanism is an unmitigated evil and it is being promoted by misguided fanatics who mislabel it as Jihad. Lashkar-I-Islam, for instance, is being led by a totally illiterate former truck driver, Mangal Bagh.  Mr. Rehman Malik’s team has discussed a settlement with him, but is unwilling to discuss it in the ‘graduate’ National Assembly.
Learned Islamic scholars reject the premises of the Taliban as they are abysmally retrogressive and militate against the very modern and progressive ideology that constitutes the raison d’atre of the state.
Islamabad’s myopic view of the Taliban movement saw it, back in 1980s, as providing strategic depth to the country. The peace agreements with the Taliban and/or tribal leaders in 2005 and 2006 collapsed as they smacked of appeasement that gives rise to more aggressive demands.  As the Taliban could never muster enough strength to trump a well-equipped and disciplined army, they excited fanaticism to an extent that it admitted of the recruitment of suicide bombers.  These bombers are like the assassins of Hassan bin Sabbah mesmerized to lay down their lives on the orders of their fanatic leaders.
Since the ruling oligarchy was unwilling to uproot them, they have now sought and gained strategic depth in Pakistan.
Democracy is universally regarded now as the best system for seeking solutions through debate and discussion. One hopes that saner councils will prevail among the ruling elites of the country and they would allow the development of national consensus on religious obscurantism and its Taliban proponents in the elected parliament instead of leaving the decision making to people like Rehman Malik and the corridors of power in the civil and military bureaucracies. Otherwise, the society will witness a cataclysmic eruption in which the nascent democracy will be an early casualty.      arifhussaini@hotmail.com