In Pursuit of Security, Prosperity & Democracy
By By Farhana Mohamed, PhD
California, USA
The historic “Murree Summit Declaration” signed on March 7 by the leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League –N (PML-N) and later logistic negotiations have paved way for sharing power between the former arch rivals - PPP and PML-N. This agreement, according to PML-N Chief Mian Nawaz Sharif, is a step forward and continuation of the Charter of Democracy signed in 2006 between him and the deceased Chairperson of PPP, Benazir Bhutto.
This positive step towards stabilizing democracy in Pakistan comes in the backdrop of a significant victory for the PPP, which captured 35% of the 342 National Assembly seats with an impressive showing in all the four provinces, and PML-N with 26% share in the national parliament. However, the latter failed to show strength in Sindh and Balochistan.
These results of parliamentary elections held on February 18 are even more surprising, considering that both the charismatic leaders of PPP and PML-N got only a few weeks to hold public rallies to gain popular support for their manifestos. Bhutto and Sharif were not allowed to return to their own homeland until the last quarter of 2008 due to concerted efforts made by General (ret) Musharraf and his PML-Q League stalwarts. The state-sponsored game plan to discredit Bhutto and Sharif actually backfired. It’s not that these two leaders were not flawed but the Musharraf government greatly discredited itself for trying to control the fates of the deposed leaders rather than leaving it to the electorate.
As for the alleged rigging during the February 18 elections, Michael Gahler, Chief Observor of the European Union Election Observation Mission, which covered 65% of the constituencies during the elections, stated, “A level playing field was not provided to the competitors with the authorities favoring Pakistan Muslim League (Q)… Involvement of the authorities included a multi-fold clout of institution, including the local government nazims.”
Despite the reported polling irregularities and state-sponsored favoritism towards PML-Q, one should give some credit to General (retd.) Musharraf for not allowing “over-rigging” of the electoral process and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani’s resolution not to muddle army into politics. This process set a precedent in Pakistan’s history where a sitting parliamentary government was “voted” out by people and not dismantled by the sitting president by virtue of the Eighth Amendment to the 1973 Constitution, or even unconstitutionally by some of the military leaders too eager to derail the democratic process.
There were several reasons for the humbling defeat of General (ret) Musharraf and his Q League. On the economic front, the government strongly focused on improvement of short-term macroeconomic indicators such as stabilizing currency, enhancing federal reserves, and boosting stock market performance through a bag of un-sifted investments. However, it blundered on not strengthening microeconomic indicators such as increasing worker productivity through education and training, fostering competitiveness, investing in poverty alleviation, and encouraging infrastructure development - especially in the power sector. This, coupled with widespread corruption at mostly upper levels, resulted in high trade deficit, soaring prices of commodities, chronic power shortage, and massive scarcity of staple crops in an agri-based economy.
On the executive and security front, the government fared even worse. The questionable deposing of chief justice and additional 60 senior judges to silence independent judiciary, execution of notorious 2007 Amendment to PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) Ordinance to control free media, and imposition of November 3 emergency on dubious grounds, all added fuel to the fire.
On the security front, Pakistan wisely decided to ally with the United States in its war to combat terrorism and as a result some military casualties were expected. However, since 2002, the security situation in Pakistan has greatly deteriorated owing to poor policies. As alleged by one of the opposition leaders “indiscriminate operations in the tribal areas that have opened new fault lines in Pakistani society,” were also enhanced by inconsistency in diplomacy in engaging the local tribal leaders to expel the foreign terrorist elements and contain the conflict. One of the worst incidents catapulting violence was the unscrupulous quashing of the Red Mosque rebellion last July, which unfortunately was instrumental in penetrating suicide attacks within the large Pakistani cities.
According to a report published by Dawn, as a result of barrage of suicide attacks, 1,100 people (including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto) died in 2007 and over 265 people have perished during the first quarter of 2008. This is happening while General (ret) Musharraf continues to make statements to “fight the scourge of terrorism with full force.”
After the landslide victory of the opposition parties and their resolution to jointly work toward the betterment of Pakistan on all fronts, and acceptance of the people’s mandate by the Q-League and General (retd.) Musharraf is quite encouraging. The country cannot afford anymore crisis. It is contingent on both the winners and losers of these landmark elections not to go after personal agendas but to focus on amicable and non-confrontational solutions of plethora of security, governance, judicial, and economic issues buckling the country.
