A Vote for
Military Rule?
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
Can a majority vote to not
vote? That is precisely what six out of ten Pakistanis
did recently in a widely-cited poll of South Asian
voter preferences.
On the surface, this result is at odds with a
survey conducted four years ago jointly by the
Universities of Faisalabad and Michigan. Eighty-eight
percent of those surveyed said democracy was a
good or fairly good political system. Eighty-two
percent said that democracy, despite its problems,
was better than other political systems. And only
four percent thought that army rule was very good
or fairly good.
However, on a deeper examination, a similar theme
emerges from both polls. In the first poll, only
eight percent said they were happy with the country’s
political system and only twenty-eight percent
had confidence in the political parties. At the
same time, fifty percent expressed their confidence
in the civil services and eighty-six percent in
the armed forces. A very large number, eighty-nine
percent, said that the country was run by big
interest groups who looked out for themselves.
More pessimism emerges in subsequent questions.
When asked to specify what they would like to
see happen in the future, only four percent wanted
to have more say in government decision-making
versus fifty-seven percent who wanted improvements
in the law and order situation and seventy-six
percent who wanted higher economic growth.
Pakistanis are deeply skeptical about the country’s
political process and do not believe that political
parties can govern effectively. Thus, they are
willing to forgo their constitutional right to
choose their own leader because they think the
“man on horseback” rather than a leader
who emerges from an electoral process would be
a superior ruler.
In most other countries, military rule has yielded
to democratic rule. Why not in Pakistan? Once
the Quaid passed away, the elected officials,
who were mostly feudal lords, made such a hash
of things in the following decade that the common
man was happy to see the military take over. The
first few years of Ayub’s rule were well
received but things started going downhill after
the war with India. Corruption and nepotism became
rampant, income inequalities grew and the eastern
province felt left out of the picture. Ayub was
pushed out by a street revolt.
A second round of military rule ensued, which
ended abruptly when the military bungled the civil
war in East Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had
a golden opportunity to set a new pace. But his
feudal ego could brook no rivals, in or out of
uniform. His governance ended when a street revolt
triggered yet another round of military rule.
That ended eleven years later with a still-mysterious
plane crash. This was followed by a decade of
civilian rule that was just about as bad as that
seen in the decade after the Quaid’s death
and led to the fourth and ongoing round of military
rule.
In Pakistan’s political history, personalities
have overwhelmed institutions. This has been true
regardless of whether the rulers have been in
or out of uniform. Institutional development has
only received lip service from the rulers who
have craved “unity of command,” a
concept that predates General Musharraf’s
articulation of that term.
All Pakistani heads of government have relished
absolute control over the institutions of state.
They have violated the constitutionally mandated
separation of powers doctrine. To quote Lord Action,
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Nepotism, corruption and incompetence are the
logical outcome.
These problems were not unique to the tenure of
the last two civilian rulers, Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif but it is their misrule that colors
the political memory of most Pakistanis alive
today. And since these two were democratically
elected, this seems to have heavily distorted
people’s impressions of democracy.
Thus, the distaste for democracy stems not from
an inherent dislike for the democratic process
but from the results that it has produced. But
such thinking is strategically myopic, as wise
as “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
A vote for military rule is doomed to be a self-fulfilling
prophecy. If the military continues to seize power
every time there is a political crisis, how will
effective civilian institutions ever develop?
To survive, Pakistan has to develop self-correcting
mechanisms in its polity.
Oxford’s Samuel Finer, who coined the term,
“man on horseback,” wrote that armies
dominated primitive societies because they were
able to deliver law and order and provide educational,
social and economic development services. However,
as societies advanced, armies had to cede control
to civilians, not because they could no longer
provide such services but because their lack of
moral authority to govern became apparent.
Declaring that he was destined to “save
the people from themselves,” Ayub abolished
all political parties. His paternalistic formulation
of Basic Democracy was designed to bring real
democracy to Pakistan 40 years later. Yahya held
elections but did not honor them, hoping to avoid
the very dismemberment of the nation that he was
fated to preside over. Stating that the future
of Pakistan lay “in democracy and in democracy
alone,” Zia continued to deny democracy
as long as he lived. Musharraf sings from the
same song book. By giving himself an indefinite
tenure as the absolute ruler, he hides behind
a democratic façade.
Pakistan’s “four horsemen” have
condemned it to a state of political infancy.
Every mother who has held her toddler’s
hand to teach him how to walk knows that one day
she will have to let go off the hand or her child
will be crippled for life. Any father who has
put training wheels on his daughter’s bike
knows that one day he will have to remove those
wheels or she will never ride the bike on her
own. How could it be any different in politics?
It is not surprising that, when given two bad
choices – with one being to elect civilians
who have proven to be corrupt and incompetent
and the other one being to accept being ruled
by whoever commands the loyalty of the Corps Commanders
— Pakistanis have shown a strong preference
for the latter.
By surrendering their constitutional right to
vote, the people have enrolled in a game of Russian
roulette. There is no guarantee that the next
military ruler will be a liberal and tolerant
one. Nor is there any guarantee that Musharraf,
who views the world through rose-colored glasses,
will step down from office when things falls apart.
Modifying one of Shakespeare’s most frequently
quoted verses, one might ask:
What’s in a name?
That which we call military rule
By any other name would smell as bad.
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