South Asia Program
Pakistan’s
Brighter Future: The View from the Ground
By Amit Pandya
November 26, 2007
When I returned from Pakistan
to the United States
this week I was met with a widespread perception among US observers that there
has been little mass resistance to the state of emergency declared by General
Musharraf. This is simply inaccurate. For their part US policy elites assume that
US
diplomacy will make a significant difference to the course of events. This too
is a dubious proposition. Musharraf feels insecure enough to crack down on
perceived threats to his rule. There is a palpable sense in Pakistan that
the country is at a historic juncture.
The momentum of events in Pakistan
is outside the control of the US
government, and resentment against us is high in all political quarters. About
the only difference that US
policy will make is to the perception of the US among Pakistanis. If we
understand and support what the people of Pakistan are demanding, we may
salvage some goodwill. Most Pakistanis assume that the Musharraf era is coming
to an end, and that there will be a change that will have to reflect the
political re-empowerment of Pakistani society.
While not unimportant to Pakistanis, the principal demands
of the US
government are less important than the longer term political developments in
the society. The elections to be held in a little over a month are not
considered significant. Whether the General retires as Army Chief and serves as
a civilian President has also become entirely unimportant. The key issue is
whether he leads the country, and the actual role of the Army in the
government.
There have been daily demonstrations throughout the country
of lawyers, journalists and political parties against the state of emergency,
and these have routinely been met with police violence and mass arrests. Aitzaz
Ahsan, the country’s preeminent lawyer who successfully won reinstatement of
the Chief Justice, only to see his client summarily dismissed by Musharraf from
the bench, also remains in detention. Notwithstanding the recent releases of
many political prisoners, many yet remain in custody, and the regime has
threatened to re-arrest anyone it chooses.
The independent broadcast press is back on the air, but the
regime dangles the sword of Damocles over the press through its failure to renounce
peremptory powers over the press and its “advice” to some channels to refrain
from broadcasting.
Yet, as one speaks to Pakistanis, it is hard to avoid the widespread
sentiment that a new energy and awareness among its citizens presages a
brighter future.
The sense of promise is entirely surprising. Observers have
long noted the anomaly between the sophistication of Pakistan’s intelligentsia and its difficulty
in shaking off the curses of military rule and corrupt civilian politics. Just
a few weeks ago it seemed that there was little alternative to a shotgun
marriage (with Uncle Sam wielding the gun) between the praetorian state and one
of the two major political parties, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
There was much to dread in such a political convergence.
The army remains indispensable to any future political order
because of the tenacious hold that it has now established in the national
economy, and because Pakistan, under any government however democratic, will
face armed challenges from within or without. However, there has also been a
widespread and growing sense that its long and repeated interference in
politics has harmed both the political development of Pakistan and
the integrity of its principal mission of national defense against the
country’s enemies.
The main political parties, those with sufficient support to be political players in their own right, offered a poor alternative. Widely discredited by their tenures in government in the 1990s, both the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (PML(N)), were viewed askance by many Pakistanis of democratic conviction. Indeed, many considered the Musharraf regime’s survival a result of the public’s distrust of the large political parties.
Today, the rule of law has become the most powerful
organizing principle, and has acted to bring together disparate elements of the
Pakistani polity.
This should have been apparent to the regime, when its
suspension of the Chief Justice in March was met by a protest movement that
catalyzed a precipitous fall in General Musharraf’s public support. The
judiciary, historically not a beacon of independence from the executive, was
increasingly challenging the regime’s peremptory detention, and even
“disappearance”, of ordinary Pakistanis. It had also developed a jurisdictional
jurisprudence, seen in India
a couple of decades ago under then Chief Justice Bhagwati, of considering
public interest matters on its own motion. What this did was to give poor and
unlettered Pakistanis access to redress of grievances without the need for the
expense and sophistication usually required of litigants. The Courts therefore
became the last resort of the poor in a political system that was otherwise
distinctly unconcerned with their interests. Recent events offer evidence of
the empowerment through law that has emerged as a prominent theme: lawyers, on
strike to protest the attack on the judiciary, have instructed their clients in
law, so that they may safeguard their own legal interests in the interim.
The rule of law and judicial independence have become
central to the calculations of the politicians. After originally making no
reference to the issue in her list of demands, Benazir Bhutto has come around
to including it. Nawaz Sharif for his part has sought to make restoration of
the judges and the independence of the judiciary the central plank for broad
opposition unity.
Of the established political leaders, Nawaz seems to have
gained the most from recent events. His popularity has risen precisely because,
unlike Benazir, he has been untainted by negotiations with General Musharraf.
His skillful positioning as champion of judicial independence has burnished his
image. Benazir has seemed at a disadvantage, following trends rather than
guiding them.
The redressing of the balance between the major political
parties, to a position of near parity, has compelled them to cooperate with
each other. Because their stock remains low, even when combined, as a result of
their past abuses of power, they are also compelled to collaborate with other
smaller political parties. Indeed, there is consensus across the political
spectrum that only a broad and united opposition movement can act to force a
transition to democracy.
The outstanding issue between the PPP and the PML(N) is that
of how broad a unity they envision. Nawaz has insisted that all parties be
included, including the Islamists. Benazir has so far looked to a unity of the
non-Islamist parties, perhaps reflecting the preferences of the United States,
whose support has been important to her so far. The approach of Nawaz and the
PML(N) is the preferable one. It is essential that the broadest range of
political forces be gathered. Apart from the deleterious effects of disunity on
the delicate task of transition, there is a significant danger in exclusion of
Islamist parties. They can play the part of spoilers if given no stake in the
process. They have reason to play a constructive role if included. Some of
them, as I was repeatedly reminded by secular Pakistanis, have democratic
instincts, such as the Jamiat Ulama e Islam (Fazlur Rahman), and others whose democratic
instincts may be debated, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, nonetheless remain
committed to constitutional political action. In general, while they have often
maintained respectful dialogue with more radical elements, the established
Islamist political parties feel competition for their political base from those
more radical elements that are taking up arms against the government. They are
keen to see a national consensus on social and security policy to address the
various insurgencies. Certainly, the Islamist political parties have
historically prospered under military rule, and have cooperated even with the
Musharraf regime. Nonetheless, they see the current regime as unviable, and are
keen to cut their losses and end their association with it.
Indeed, so broad a consensus will be needed to consolidate a political transition in Pakistan’s difficult social, political and security conditions, that participation of all elements of society in the political transition will be needed. This includes the armed forces. It’s simply that General Musharraf, once significantly more popular, has now become a liability: to democracy, to the Army and to Pakistan.
photo credit: Sajjad Ali Qureshi, Flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com/photos/34015932@N00/2057683190/)
Amit Pandya directs the Regional Voices: Transnational Challenges project at the Henry L. Stimson Center