Opinion

If Nawaz Can’t Understand Zardari, What Use Is Friendship?
By Ahmed Quraishi
Islamabad, Pakistan

Building a coalition government is the most democratic thing one can do. Maintaining it requires patience, understanding and expediency.
When in a coalition government, you have to be an opportunist. That’s democracy.
Mr. Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s widow and now the leader of her party, has the tough job of maintaining a coalition government.
This means playing a beleaguered nanny to all the whining, crying babies of Pakistani politics.
He has to tender to the temper tantrums of Mr. Nawaz Sharif, listen to the one-track mind of Asfandyar Wali, address the grievances of Altaf Hussain, put down fires within his party, watch out for senior PPP stalwarts who want him out, resolve disputes across the coalition, ensure a good relationship with the strong Pakistani military, subdue a crafty state bureaucracy, play nice to overbearing Americans and Brits, and think about the energy and inflation crises.
The so-called ‘judicial issue’ seems like a colossal misfit in this collection.
So when Mr. Zardari goes to Mr. Sharif and asks him to resolve this problem so we can put it behind us, Mr. Nawaz Sharif is supposed to show understanding to Mr. Zardari’s compulsions and find ways to resolve the problem, not blackmail him.
Mr. Sharif is basically blackmailing Mr. Zardari on a single point: The biggest prize – the federal government – is in PPP’s hand. Sharif has only Punjab. And that’s too small for him. He fancies himself as Pakistan’s only politician fit to run the country. Sharif has nothing to lose. Zardari has everything to lose.
Mr. Asif Zardari has shown maturity first in constructing a coalition and now in maintaining a spirit of political reconciliation in the country despite the odds.
He is right when he says Pakistan is facing so many challenges that require dedicated problem-solving and that the ‘issue’ of restoring a bunch of noisy, politicized and good-for-nothing former judges is a luxury that Pakistan cannot afford.
Already these judges and the lawyers who support them have caused a huge damage to the country. Thanks to their rowdiness, foreign investors are running away. Courts across Pakistan are blocked and thousands of litigators are clueless.
The entire business of judiciary in Pakistan is at a standstill because a group of politicized lawyers want to play politics.
The ugly street demonstrations by these lawyers have become the single biggest cause for Pakistan’s image of instability over the past year. This mess encouraged terrorists and agents of foreign intelligence agencies to meddle in Pakistani affairs. Washington and London exploited this mess to exert pressure on the Pakistani leadership and the military to extract concessions.
If there was a higher moral principle involved, all Pakistanis would have supported this ‘lawyers’ movement’.
But there isn’t any.
Out of the nearly 17 million Pakistani voters, less than 20% voted for Mr. Sharif’s party, the one party that ran on a platform of restoring the former judges. That’s one out of six or more Pakistani political parties that garnered votes in the Feb. 18 election.
The only two major personalities behind this movement are former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and his attorney-cum-politician Aitzaz Ahsan. Both of them are opportunists, which is fine in Mr. Ahsan’s case but it destroys the case of Mr. Chaudhry.
Justice Chaudhry is a man who gave a big No to President Musharraf not because of any principle. His friends and acquaintances privately acknowledge that Mr. Chaudhry is given to vanity, with a bloated ego and a huge sense of self-importance. This huge mess is really about Mr. Chaudhry putting up a big fight for his job. Nothing else. Another reason for his big No was the fact that he faced serious questions about his personal and professional conduct. To be fair to the man, nothing is proven. But that was exactly the purpose of that eventful meeting Justice Chaudhry had on 9 March 2007 with President Musharraf. The message was: either face the charges or resign gracefully.
President Musharraf’s minions blundered when they mistreated the judge. No questions. But that does not automatically mean that we should close our eyes and brains and do whatever Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan is telling us to do.
His client, Justice Chaudhry, is too politicized now for his own or the judiciary’s good.
As for Mr. Ahsan, the man knows that he squeezed the ‘movement’ to the last drop to build his own political image. Now Mr. Ahsan is desperate to ditch the movement. He wants to do it without damaging his reputation and image. His problem is that Mr. Zardari won’t give him a ticket for a by-election. Mr. Sharif is willing to accept him in his PML-N but Ahsan knows that the crafty Sharif will milk him for political gain to the last drop. Besides, PML-N leaders will never accept him deep in their hearts.
In fact, Mr. Ahsan is so desperate now that he is willing to accept Mr. Zardari’s reform package for future chief justices, which effectively means booting out Justice Chaudhry even if he’s restored, as long as the judges are reinstated first. This would give Mr. Ahsan the much-needed room to wiggle out of the lawyers’ movement.
See this interesting quote in the Dawn newspaper of Sunday, 20 April:
“[Aitzaz] said that lawyers would have no objection to any constitutional package the parliament might announce after reinstating the deposed judges. However, he hastened to add: ‘In principle, we do not have any objection but we will see’.”
The point is: it’s time to wind up this charade. This issue has sapped the nation’s energies and will resolve nothing except satisfy the ego of Mr. Nawaz Sharif for personal revenge against President Musharraf.
That’s the truth, whether you read it in Pakistani newspapers or don’t, and whether you see it on Pakistani television screens or not.
Time now to close this chapter
aq@ahmedquraishi.com

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