If Musharraf
Steps down
By Ahmed Quraishi
Islamabad, Pakistan
A decision by Pakistani strongman
Pervez Musharraf to abdicate his military office
will revive a flawed version of democracy with
inept and dangerous political parties. These parties
have a track record of creating chronic instability
and a weak Pakistani state.
President Musharraf’s mandate in 1999 was
to change the system, not perpetuate it. That’s
the message the Pakistani public opinion sent
to the general as it accorded his military takeover
an unexpectedly enthusiastic welcome. Pakistanis
were ready for drastic changes in their system
of government.
But instead of breaking the destructive cycle
of Pakistani politics, the Musharraf administration
chose to tolerate a sick political culture, restoring
in 2002 a premature democracy and empowering the
same discredited political elite. Today, this
warped political culture is coming back to haunt
Mr. Musharraf.
Yet it’s not late for him to heed that message.
He needs to assert power, push for drastic changes
in the constitution to allow a presidential form
of government, increase the administrative units
of Pakistan beyond the existing four provinces,
and reform Pakistani politics to weed out the
deadwood.
The Pakistani military institution must act as
a backer and a guarantor for this ambitious reform
agenda. This is imperative if we are to ensure
the emergence of a strong, stable, and growing
Pakistan in this century.
President Musharraf will also have to change his
message amid all this noise about a ‘judicial
crisis’. Frankly, who cares if the presidential
reference was right or wrong?
Seen in its right perspective, this is a battle
for the future of Pakistan, led by special interest
groups, where some liberal and extremist politicians
are allied for expediency, aiming at perpetuating
failed politics and a weak Pakistani state, pitched
against those who want to see a strong Pakistan
where economic growth and nation-building take
precedence over politics.
Regardless of how honorable the intentions of
Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry are, his case
has been hijacked now by an opportunistic political
class struggling to reclaim power and perpetuate
its brand of failed politics. This is not about
democracy. This is about an inept political class
using any excuse to rebel against the upright
reform-minded policies of a military-led administration.
Slogans such as restoring democracy and fighting
a dictatorship will appeal to idealists. But the
Pakistani parliament is no House of Commons, and
we don’t have John McCains or Robert Kennedys
who can elevate a political process to an art
form.
What we have in Pakistan is a political class
whose competence and democratic credentials are
questionable at best.
None of the major Pakistani political parties
allow fair and free vote within their parties.
In fact, one political party that claims to represent
liberal Pakistanis has voted its chairman for
a lifetime party presidency, yet has the audacity
to question the presidency of Gen. Musharraf.
The visible deformities inside the Pakistani political
culture make it probably one of the worst in the
world.
Politicians who ordered supporters in the past
to storm the building of the Supreme Court of
Pakistan to coerce the judiciary are today re-marketing
themselves as champions of law and reason.
Pakistani politicians observe no rules in the
game. Since 12 May, our politicians are working
overtime to spark an ethnic confrontation where
none exists, giving an ethnic color to a dirty
political squabble, just to complicate matters
for the President and his allies.
In Karachi, the nation’s business artery,
our politicians sent their armed cadres to fight
pitched battles with a government ally but are
out now to blame one party, forgetting their own
culpability in continuing this culture of violence,
where party leaders maintain armed militias specifically
for such occasions.
And just when one thought Pakistani politics couldn’t
stoop any lower, the president of the Supreme
Court Bar Association threatened the government
of a “law and order problem” on the
streets of Islamabad if the embattled honorable
chief justice failed to deliver a speech on 26
May.
In other words, a bar association is openly saying
it has no problem in using the tactics of political
parties – street agitation – in a
matter that is the exclusive business of the honorable
judges of the Supreme Court and involves one of
their own, the honorable chief justice.
Let there be no ambiguity here: This is an ailing
political culture that needs to be reformed. We’ve
seen this before, an entire decade – 1989
to 1999 – go down the drain because of squabbling
politicians when the rest of the world was busy
consolidating their economies after the end of
the cold war.
We don’t want to see a weakened Pakistan
again. For this reason, an enlightened and open-minded
military-led administration is far better than
the flawed democracy promised by our politicians.
(Mr. Quraishi is a Pakistani public affairs professional.
He is currently based in Islamabad where he produces
and hosts the weekly foreign policy show Worldview
From Islamabad for PTV Network. ahmed-quraishi@myway.com)
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