Sunday, December 29th, 2024

 

A Two-Party System to Create Stability
By Ahmed Quraishi
Islamabad


To move from one era to another, a change of faces is not enough. The language also has to change. There should be a new vocabulary, new catchphrases and buzzwords that reflect the new thinking.

Have you noticed how there’s only legal jargon and no visionary talk every time we hear some government spokesperson explaining why Mr Musharraf should continue as a military president. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is probably the only other person left, apart from the President, who infuses some vision in his statements. The rest of what we hear from the government side is dry and unattractive legal defense that is of no concern to the ordinary ears.

This unimaginative approach is not good for the image of the Musharraf administration. The reasons for Mr Musharraf’s need to stay at the helm and to continue as a military president must be rooted in the language of vision, not just the language of law.

I don’t understand why someone with a great idea and plan would undersell his genius. President Musharraf has a superior product to anyone or anything on offer on Pakistan’s political scene today. He is like a founding father to a new Pakistan that is robust and confident, that realizes the full capabilities of its people and that forges ahead as a player on the world stage.

That’s why it beats me why the mouthpieces of the administration would churn out tenuous explanations on why he needs to continue as both president and army chief when better reasons and arguments exist that also are more convincing than all that constitutional language we hear everyday.

Hiding behind the constitution, the law and the war on terror - though legitimate and true - is the wrong reason for why we want to see Musharraf continuing as both army chief and president.

The right reason is bolder and more convincing: We need the continuation of the massive and visionary project of nation-building that Musharraf administration is executing today to erect a confident, prosperous, and strong Pakistan. We need to continue the tough work of creating the conditions for the emergence of fresh future political leadership and culture, and break the cycle of failed civilian politics. We need to erect a system with well-defined rules of the political game that no one can breach, where the interests of the Pakistani nation are respected by all players.
We need to continue with the disciplined leadership that has brought the nation to a takeoff position and is capable of creating a reasonable grassroots economic turnaround in coming years. And finally, we need to continue with strengthening the national defense to secure regional peace.

To ensure the success of this nation-building project in Pakistan, the power of the military institution is crucial, and this power must be brought to the presidency. As the visionary and the executer of this makeover in Pakistan’s internal and external politics, Mr Musharraf needs to have the power of the two offices of President and Army Chief. His colleagues in the military are his best allies in this effort. And his project is the best chance we have to ensure a vibrant and stable democracy in Pakistan.

This is the right justification for having this military president and not the overwrought legal talk that government spokespersons routinely churn out inside the parliament. We understand why the military-led administration had to rely on the failed political class to execute its agenda. But members of this class seem to be unable to reflect any ‘vision’ when defending administration policy. The only way to overcome this problem is by indoctrinating them in the vision that guides the administration so that they don’t sound repulsive and boring when speaking for the government. Their failures are reflecting poorly on an otherwise progressive administration.

The constitution and the law are abstracts that cannot reason with something intangible like vision. That’s why an exclusive reliance on law books to explain a military president will always sound weak, despite being in line with the law. Instead of seeking too many justifications based on the constitution, the Pakistani president should also seek strength and guidance from the words and passions that he showed in his early days in office.

Those words, actions and plans remain the foundation for his agenda in reality. But the perception now is that the legal and constitutional language has taken their place. The current constitution itself is part of an ailing Pakistani political culture, not its remedy.

That’s why in purely public opinion perceptions, the reasons for Musharraf’s need to stay at the helm and to continue as a military president must be rooted in the language of vision, not just the language of law.

This is what true wellwishers of Pakistan need to understand as well. We’ve seen an eminent diplomat such as Mr Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary General, insisting that the Constitution and the Parliament be the final arbiters on the debate on a military president. It is wrong for him to insist that an ailing political system be the final judge on the vision and leadership of a president who is trying to change and reform this very system.

The current system in Pakistan is rotten to the core. It is resistant to reforms and continues, for example, to try to scuttle the local governments. The failure of the current system was amply demonstrated by the recent circus inside the Parliament, where politicians, especially those in the opposition, were simply unable to change their old ways of disruptive politics. And the solution here is not to replace one set of politicians - those in the government - with another set of politicians - those sitting in the opposition, since both of them are faces of the same coin.

Some of our partisan commentators say that one solution lies in inducting the Benazir Bhutto-led faction of Pakistan People’s Party in the Musharraf administration because its ideology and vision correspond to that of Musharraf’s. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The PPP faction led by the former premier is a false prophet of modernism. Its democratic deficit is astounding: A supposed ‘liberal democratic’ party where the principal members shamelessly voted their former premier head to lifelong chairmanship. And the chairperson not only accepted it but won’t allow any real internal elections.

We don’t need a ‘national reconciliation’ - an abused phrase that has become synonymous now with attempts to revive and continue the old failed political system of the country. What we need is a fresh look at the whole system. If a complete revamping of this system was not possible back in 1999-2000 because it was not wise back then to expose the country to the shock of a major internal shakeup, it should be possible now.

It is time now for the military-led administration to begin the phase II of its rebuilding agenda: Accelerating the emergence of a new political order and giving it permanence to last for a couple of decades at least in which a gradual transition to democracy will go hand in hand with empowering and educating the voting public and help in creating new political leadership models.

One of the areas where a major change is required is the multiparty system. Pakistan should abandon this failed model in favor of a two-party system. This new system should become the pivot of our political order and introduce issues-based politics instead of the current order that revolves around personality cults. The law must be amended to enforce regular elections within the parties.

Smaller, district-level parties can exist in this new system but should not have much bearing on the political order. This system can be established in Pakistan and may require some goading and engineering by the military-led administration in the beginning, which should not be a problem.

This change has become inevitable. If elections were held now, our current multiparty system will lead once again to failed politics. We saw a glimpse of that between 1950 and 1958 when we had seven prime ministers in eight years. The stalemate then was one of the reasons that led to the first military intervention in politics. That military government accomplished more for the country during the following one decade than anything the multiparty system did in the preceding decade.

A Pakistani analyst, Mr Hussain Zaidi, has written recently: "The multiparty system has been partly responsible for the country’s political instability. In such a system, no party has a clear majority in the legislature. Therefore, no party is in a position to form the government on its own. Hence, coalitions have to be formed which are inherently instable."

The two-party system is working in the world’s two major democracies, the US and the UK. Someone might argue that multiparty system works in India. That’s fine because it suits India. But Pakistan and India are not only two different nations but have two very different temperaments, cultures and histories. Our system has to suit us, not copy someone else’s.

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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