I hesitate to disagree with Juan Cole, one of the few genuine experts posting regularly on Islam and the politics of the Middle East and South Asia.
However, I do take issue with his most recent post on the burgeoning crisis in Pakistan.
The lawyers are marching, Nawaz Sharif is piggybacking his political struggle with Asif Zardari on top of the movement, the government is arresting activists and mobilizing to block the march, and everything is building toward a confrontation if and when the marchers reach Islamabad.
A genuine crisis is burgeoning in Pakistan and responsibility for mismanaging Pakistan's transition to civilian rule can, in my opinion, be laid firmly at the feet of President (and co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party or PPP), Asif Zardari.
Cole, while recounting some of Zardari’s sins, seems to reserve the bulk of his grumbling for Nawaz Sharif:
On the other hand, Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif, who spent nearly a decade in exile in Saudi Arabia, seems to me to have gone round the bend. He has been threatening a rebellion and a revolution against the elected government, which which he had initially been allied. Now he is more or less accusing his PPP rivals of planning to whack him.
Sharif's incendiary rhetoric about a revolution and raising the standard of rebellion appears to have provoked the government to invoke section 144. If he had instead pledged a non-violent protest, perhaps it could have gone forward.
The ability to lose an election gracefully and to act as a loyal opposition is a key prerequisite for a party to participate in parliamentary democracy. The Muslim League is signally failing in that regard. Nawaz Sharif has long had dictatorial tendencies, and when he was last prime minister in the mid- to late-1990s, he started closing down newspapers, jailing journalists and editors, and stacking the decks against other parties.
As for the issue of the deposed supreme court, I don't understand why parliament could not simply pass legislation for a one-time measure to retire the justices appointed by the dictatorship and to appoint new ones, who would have legitimacy since they would be appointees of a popularly elected government. Iftikhar Chaudhury was brave to stand up to Musharraf in 2007, but he did validate Musharraf's coup, and Musharraf made him chief justice, in 2005. So you could argue that his original appointment was the fruit of a poisoned tree. It is odd that Sharif is so insistent on his return to the bench, since Chaudhury helped prolong Sharif's exile and justified the 1999 coup against him.
I would argue that the salient points of the current crisis are these.
Zardari is unpopular inside Pakistan, personally and because of his alliance with the United States.
He knows he’s unpopular. The ghost of Benazir Bhutto won the general election for the PPP, not Asif Zardari. And everything he’s done since the election has made him more unpopular. Zardari’s numbers are now somewhere in the teens, where Musharraf was just before he left office.
Instead of trying to adopt more popular policies, Zardari decided to leverage his position at the head of the PPP party and government to eliminate political rivals, while presenting himself to the United States as, if not the indispensable man, someone who is useful and tractable.
Soon after the general elections, Zardari moved against the PPP’s old guard, which never accepted him and considered him a corrupt and feckless interloper.
Then, by reneging on the agreement to reinstate the Supreme Court justices, he pushed Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N party out of the cabinet (until recently, the PML-N had agreed to vote with the PPP government) and worked to undercut the PML-N led government in the Sharif brothers’ political base of Punjab.
Zardari also made the distasteful and dangerous decision to ally, for the purposes of his government’s parliamentary majority, both with the PML-Q (the despised “king’s party” created by Musharraf out of the ruins of the PML after he deposed Sharif) and the MQM, the violent, thuggish party that controls Karachi and draws its power from its willingness (unmatched by any other mainstream party) to deploy goons for riot, mayhem, and murder against the enemies of the MQM and its allies.
Zardari mounted a concerted but largely unsuccessful campaign to blacken the reputation and undercut the political strength of the lawyer’s movement. In the midst of a fracas late last year that looks to have been a PPP provocation, MQM “lawyers” obligingly killed five genuine lawyers during a riot in Karachi.
Given Zardari’s unpopularity and the unpopularity of his alliance with the United States, his best hope for continued political ascendancy lay in neutralizing Sharif, which he apparently did through the mechanism of the Supreme Court ruling banning the Sharif brothers from elected office.
Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, has played his political cards with a great deal more acumen.
Derided in the West as a dull and doughy opportunist on the strength of his undistinguished Prime Ministership in the 1990s, Sharif re-invented himself during his exile in Saudi Arabia. On the superficial level, he invested in hair plugs and honed his public style to compete with the charismatic politics of Benazir Bhutto. On the tactical level, he re-invented the PML-N as an issues-based popular party in contrast with the PPP, which traffics in the more traditional politics of Sindh chauvinism and ward-heeling.
The issues that Sharif has seized upon are the primacy of civil society over military rule, democracy, and restoration of the judiciary that Musharraf deposed. He has eschewed an overt alliance with the United States in favor of a more conciliatory attitude toward Islamicism.
As a result, Sharif is very popular.
Very, very popular.
The latest polling from the Institute for a Terror Free Tomorrow (despite its Orwellian name, TFT is the absolute gold standard for polling in Pakistan, far outperforming the high profile International Republican Institute) dates to the middle of last year, but I doubt things have changed significantly:
Mr. Sharif has also seen a steady rise in his popularity, from 57 percent favorable in our August 2007 poll, to 74 percent in January 2008 and 86 percent today. As significantly, those with a very favorable opinion have almost doubled since January 2008 to 43 percent now—a level no other political figure in Pakistancomes even close to. (By comparison, Mr. Zardari, leader of the PPP, just has a 13% very favorable rating.)
If national elections were held today, Mr. Sharif’s party, the PML-N, would emerge as the clear winner, garnering 42 percent of the vote to the PPP’s 32 percent.
In summary: Nawaz Sharif is dealing from strength. Zardari is floundering to stay afloat.
What this means for subsequent events in Pakistan:
Time is on Nawaz Sharif’s side.
Zardari’s approvals are in the teens and will only go lower as a result of the current crisis.
Sharif, aware of his strength, will play his cards extremely cannily, maintaining his high profile alliance with the popular lawyer’s movement. He will not precipitate a political collapse that would negate his stratospheric political standing by plunging Pakistan into chaos and perhaps bringing a return to military rule.
During the previous lawyer's march, in June 2008, Sharif endorsed the movement but apparently restrained the marchers from an open-ended sit-in in Islamabad that would have challenged the existence of Zardari's government. Instead of showing gratitude for Sharif's help in making the march fizzle, Zardari continued to try and undercut the Sharif brothers.
This time, Nawaz Sharif will be determined to emerge from the struggle with a clear political victory.
In my opinion, Sharif will keep up the pressure until Zardari is forced to make a humiliating concession and let the PML-N regain control of the Punjab government. Then Sharif will continue his maneuvering to ensure that the terminally-weakened Zardari and his unpopular PPP are trounced in the next general election.
I think that Juan Cole makes a mis-step when he dismisses Nawaz Sharif for having gone “around the bend” in accusing “his PPP rivals of trying to whack him”.
Murder is never far from the surface in Pakistani politics. Benazir Bhutto was murdered. Her father was hung. There are persistent rumors that Bhutto orchestrated the murder in 1996 of her brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was a Marxist extremist and an embarrassment.
In an LA Times op-ed in November 2007, Benazir Bhutto’s niece wrote:
My father was a member of Parliament and a vocal critic of his sister's politics. He was killed outside our home in 1996 in a carefully planned police assassination while she was prime minister. There were 70 to 100 policemen at the scene, all the streetlights had been shut off and the roads were cordoned off. Six men were killed with my father. They were shot at point-blank range, suffered multiple bullet wounds and were left to bleed on the streets.
My father was Benazir's younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a "much higher" political authority.
The Zardari government is threatening to charge Sharif with sedition—a capital crime.
And the fact that considerable advantages would accrue if Nawaz Sharif were to suddenly disappear from public life has doubtless crossed the mind of the embattled Asif Zardari.
Showing posts with label Sharif. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sharif. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Blowback, Pakistani Style
The prevailing Western narrative concerning the massive blast that destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is that this 9/11 style outrage will shove some GWOT backbone up the ass of Pakistan’s elites and compel them to get serious about the extremists they’ve been coddling on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan.
Much of the anger and concern are genuine and understandable. However, I also detect a note of determined special pleading, particularly by American security analysts, in the efforts to downplay the significance of a destabilizing factor in Pakistani security that is tacitly acknowledged but determinedly ignored by almost everybody pushing the current military program in Afghanistan and western Pakistan—the profound unpopularity of the US-led military effort in South Asia.
The Marriott blast is, in some ways, an opportunity to turn the focus away from some awkward facts: that Pakistan’s best days in Afghanistan were during the Taliban era, and Pakistan has no real interest in helping NATO establish a viable, pro-US regime in Kabul; that there is a distinct lack of urgency in Pakistan’s desire to bring al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden to justice; and there is widespread detestation of the US policy of military confrontation against the Pakistani Taliban in pursuit of NATO’s pro-Karzai, anti-al-Qaeda objectives.
And there is widespread dismay, fear, and anger inside Pakistan that NATO’s recent escalation to unilateral incursions inside Pakistan in order to rescue its tottering project in Kabul has provoked the borderland extremists to attack the encirclement campaign against it by assaulting its weakest link—the Pakistani political will to endure a campaign of urban terror for the sake of Western GWOT objectives in Afghanistan.
Packaging the Marriott blast as the impetus for a sea change in Pakistani attitudes gives the West the chance to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room: the fact that most knowledgeable observers characterize the attack as calculated blowback inside the Pakistani heartland in retaliation for US-led efforts to carry the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the remote border areas.
As one prescient blogger wrote back in August (full disclosure: it was me):
As Western forces surge into Afghanistan in an effort to defeat the burgeoning Taliban insurgency by assaulting its havens in Pakistan, expect the Pakistani Taliban to retaliate—against Pakistan, in the Pakistani heartland—in order to demonstrate to Pakistani opinion the unacceptably high costs of providing material support to an unpopular American strategy.
In the lede for his September 23 front page article, Analysts fear Pakistan could fall to extremists, for the LA Times, Henry Chu chose to adopt the conventional framing:
…the devastating truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel over the weekend has presented government and military leaders here with a stark choice: Go all out against the extremists or risk the nation’s collapse into chaos.
He also quotes from an editorial in Pakistan’s The News which provides the kind of “it’s us vs. them” framing that American foreign policy experts must have found quite heartening:
“It is time we accepted this war is our own…There must be a consensus across society about the need to act with unity and determination to save what still remains or our wounded country.”
However, beneath these brave words, the traditional equivocation concerning the wisdom of Pakistan’s alignment with the US in the GWOT still persists.
The very editorial quoted by Chu goes on to say:
The opinions we still hear everywhere, in roadside cafes, in offices - and among the country’s establishment - that the militants who have entrenched themselves in northern areas are ‘good’ people, that force should not be used against them - is one reason why we today face such high levels of peril. Pakistan is now rated as the most dangerous place in the world. All those who have seen the charred graveyard of vehicles, of trees torn apart, of ash covering green belts, of people writhing in hospital beds, will not disagree with this assessment. Yet the fact that so many still believe the forces capable of the mayhem we saw in Islamabad on Saturday deserve some kind of protection, that they deserve to be regarded as men of honour with whom dialogue is possible, explains why they have so far proved invincible. Such thinking needs to change.
The News itself is aggressively pursuing a story of a mysterious delivery of steel cases of equipment guarded by US Marines and exempted from security screening to the Marriott a few days before the blast, along with the allegations that the CIA had taken over a block of rooms on the fourth floor long term to use as espionage bases. It also reports:
A hotel employee, on condition of not being named, confided that the hotel management had been receiving threats from unknown persons for the last six months to get the US officials vacated from the hotel.
So there’s an alternative narrative that places the Marriott outrage comfortably within the category of “Pakistani security as collateral damage in the struggle between Islamic radicals and the United States over Afghanistan.”
In this context, it is interesting to consider the views of Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif is best known in the West as the prime minister of Pakistan who was deposed by Musharraf.
In fact, he is the leader of Pakistan’s premier opposition party, the PML-N, which recently abandoned the coalition with the ruling PPP; his party runs Punjab, Pakistan’s prosperous heartland and economic and electoral powerhouse.
Sharif cuts an imposing political figure, is the most well-regarded politician in Pakistan by a considerable margin, and stands a very good chance of coming out on top in the next parliamentary elections and heading the national government as prime minister.
Sharif has positioned his party as the voice of the urban Pakistan bourgeoisie and the champion of civil society, and sedulously courts and heeds public opinion.
His stature and political grasp make him a formidable rival to President Asif Zardari, the one-time grifter and professional spouse who is now America’s equivocal GWOT ally and client of the moment in Pakistan.
Sharif is also a firm and consistent of US-led GWOT operations on and inside Pakistan’s western borders, and that hasn’t changed since the Marriott blast.
And that’s probably why, despite Sharif’s position at the center of Pakistani political life and opinion, you don’t hear very much about him in the Western press.
Courtesy of the Babelfish meat grinder with edits for clarity, here is the gist of an interview Sharif gave the Italian newspaper La Republica (original Italian here; h/t to the Irish Times for being the only English-language outlet to pick up his remarks):
Who is behind the attack on the Marriott? “Someone coming from the tribal areas, perhaps from the zones in which the military operations they have caused many victims. The attack has all the air of a vendetta”.
One refers to the Taliban or Al Qaeda? “We attribute always every responsibility to the Taliban or Al Qaeda: this but is the point of view of the United States. For we the things are various. We know that in the tribal areas there are those who are neither Taliban nor men of Al Qaeda. There are religious persons much, this yes. But creed cannot be only spoken about Taliban or Al Qaeda”.
… “We would have to distinguish between terrorists and members of the tribes. I do not tolerate the use of the army against our people. We must find a negotiated solution.
Will the Taliban will continue to counterattack? “That features of Taliban or the pertaining relatives to the several tribes remained killed in the tribal areas, will sure be continued to counterattack till when the government does not stop the extermination. Those persons come killed like animals: the tribal areas are being transformed in real butcher shops
What thinks some about an eventual participation of the United States in the tribal areas of Pakistan? “We refuse any participation categorically American. The United States must attend to the facts they and to leave us to make what we must make. The USA would have to stop to acting in the role of international policeman”.
He refutes therefore that Pakistan will become " Talibanized"? “The majority of the Pakistani population is moderate and it does not have some propensity for extremism. Pakistan will not never become an extremist State”.
How would he advise the government? “The government must place immediately end any military participation in the tribal areas…The issue will not be able to be resolved with the force. I condemn the attack on the Marriott, but to condemn is not sufficient to straighten the things. We must resist the pressures of the United States and think with our own heads”.
A couple comments:
First, it is remarkable that a politician of Sharif’s stature and savvy would, in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, eschew the blood and guts rhetoric for talk of political dialogue. It’s a sign that of the significant and perhaps decisive character of the popular and political forces willing to accept accommodation with the tribal areas.
Second, contra the apocalyptic prose of the LA Times, the main concern of the Pakistani elite is not that tribal extremists from a thinly populated hinterland will take over Pakistan, an urbanized, populous, and industrialized country of 120 million people. The main concern is that the democratic institutions haltingly restored in the post-Musharraf era will be swept aside by violent unrest and a return to military rule if Pakistan is forced to bow to the United States’ demand for an all or nothing military solution in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.
If there is an impulse for a change of course in Pakistan after this devastating instance of urban terrorism, it involves a third way: not signing on to the US-led military campaign, and abandoning a not-too-effective cycle of half-hearted confrontation and hasty conciliation, with one eye on the hefty US GWOT financial subvention and another on civil peace, with something more determined and effective.
In fact, when one reads the Pakistani commentary, one sees indications of an approach that tries to thread the needle between an aggressive anti-extremist security policy and an urgent need to decouple from US GWOT activities in Afghanistan and western Pakistan and give Islamabad the breathing space to use economic and political as well as military methods to isolate and marginalize the militants in its western borderlands.
In the worst case, this won’t involve whole-hearted support of US-led incursions into the Pakistani borderlands; it will involve Pakistan’s insistence that the aggravating fact of the US presence has turned a low-level political dispute into an existential crisis for Pakistan’s civilian government and society, and the demand that the survival of the Pakistan nation take precedence over the survival of America’s unpopular project in Afghanistan—the Karzai regime.
Much of the anger and concern are genuine and understandable. However, I also detect a note of determined special pleading, particularly by American security analysts, in the efforts to downplay the significance of a destabilizing factor in Pakistani security that is tacitly acknowledged but determinedly ignored by almost everybody pushing the current military program in Afghanistan and western Pakistan—the profound unpopularity of the US-led military effort in South Asia.
The Marriott blast is, in some ways, an opportunity to turn the focus away from some awkward facts: that Pakistan’s best days in Afghanistan were during the Taliban era, and Pakistan has no real interest in helping NATO establish a viable, pro-US regime in Kabul; that there is a distinct lack of urgency in Pakistan’s desire to bring al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden to justice; and there is widespread detestation of the US policy of military confrontation against the Pakistani Taliban in pursuit of NATO’s pro-Karzai, anti-al-Qaeda objectives.
And there is widespread dismay, fear, and anger inside Pakistan that NATO’s recent escalation to unilateral incursions inside Pakistan in order to rescue its tottering project in Kabul has provoked the borderland extremists to attack the encirclement campaign against it by assaulting its weakest link—the Pakistani political will to endure a campaign of urban terror for the sake of Western GWOT objectives in Afghanistan.
Packaging the Marriott blast as the impetus for a sea change in Pakistani attitudes gives the West the chance to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room: the fact that most knowledgeable observers characterize the attack as calculated blowback inside the Pakistani heartland in retaliation for US-led efforts to carry the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the remote border areas.
As one prescient blogger wrote back in August (full disclosure: it was me):
As Western forces surge into Afghanistan in an effort to defeat the burgeoning Taliban insurgency by assaulting its havens in Pakistan, expect the Pakistani Taliban to retaliate—against Pakistan, in the Pakistani heartland—in order to demonstrate to Pakistani opinion the unacceptably high costs of providing material support to an unpopular American strategy.
In the lede for his September 23 front page article, Analysts fear Pakistan could fall to extremists, for the LA Times, Henry Chu chose to adopt the conventional framing:
…the devastating truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel over the weekend has presented government and military leaders here with a stark choice: Go all out against the extremists or risk the nation’s collapse into chaos.
He also quotes from an editorial in Pakistan’s The News which provides the kind of “it’s us vs. them” framing that American foreign policy experts must have found quite heartening:
“It is time we accepted this war is our own…There must be a consensus across society about the need to act with unity and determination to save what still remains or our wounded country.”
However, beneath these brave words, the traditional equivocation concerning the wisdom of Pakistan’s alignment with the US in the GWOT still persists.
The very editorial quoted by Chu goes on to say:
The opinions we still hear everywhere, in roadside cafes, in offices - and among the country’s establishment - that the militants who have entrenched themselves in northern areas are ‘good’ people, that force should not be used against them - is one reason why we today face such high levels of peril. Pakistan is now rated as the most dangerous place in the world. All those who have seen the charred graveyard of vehicles, of trees torn apart, of ash covering green belts, of people writhing in hospital beds, will not disagree with this assessment. Yet the fact that so many still believe the forces capable of the mayhem we saw in Islamabad on Saturday deserve some kind of protection, that they deserve to be regarded as men of honour with whom dialogue is possible, explains why they have so far proved invincible. Such thinking needs to change.
The News itself is aggressively pursuing a story of a mysterious delivery of steel cases of equipment guarded by US Marines and exempted from security screening to the Marriott a few days before the blast, along with the allegations that the CIA had taken over a block of rooms on the fourth floor long term to use as espionage bases. It also reports:
A hotel employee, on condition of not being named, confided that the hotel management had been receiving threats from unknown persons for the last six months to get the US officials vacated from the hotel.
So there’s an alternative narrative that places the Marriott outrage comfortably within the category of “Pakistani security as collateral damage in the struggle between Islamic radicals and the United States over Afghanistan.”
In this context, it is interesting to consider the views of Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif is best known in the West as the prime minister of Pakistan who was deposed by Musharraf.
In fact, he is the leader of Pakistan’s premier opposition party, the PML-N, which recently abandoned the coalition with the ruling PPP; his party runs Punjab, Pakistan’s prosperous heartland and economic and electoral powerhouse.
Sharif cuts an imposing political figure, is the most well-regarded politician in Pakistan by a considerable margin, and stands a very good chance of coming out on top in the next parliamentary elections and heading the national government as prime minister.
Sharif has positioned his party as the voice of the urban Pakistan bourgeoisie and the champion of civil society, and sedulously courts and heeds public opinion.
His stature and political grasp make him a formidable rival to President Asif Zardari, the one-time grifter and professional spouse who is now America’s equivocal GWOT ally and client of the moment in Pakistan.
Sharif is also a firm and consistent of US-led GWOT operations on and inside Pakistan’s western borders, and that hasn’t changed since the Marriott blast.
And that’s probably why, despite Sharif’s position at the center of Pakistani political life and opinion, you don’t hear very much about him in the Western press.
Courtesy of the Babelfish meat grinder with edits for clarity, here is the gist of an interview Sharif gave the Italian newspaper La Republica (original Italian here; h/t to the Irish Times for being the only English-language outlet to pick up his remarks):
Who is behind the attack on the Marriott? “Someone coming from the tribal areas, perhaps from the zones in which the military operations they have caused many victims. The attack has all the air of a vendetta”.
One refers to the Taliban or Al Qaeda? “We attribute always every responsibility to the Taliban or Al Qaeda: this but is the point of view of the United States. For we the things are various. We know that in the tribal areas there are those who are neither Taliban nor men of Al Qaeda. There are religious persons much, this yes. But creed cannot be only spoken about Taliban or Al Qaeda”.
… “We would have to distinguish between terrorists and members of the tribes. I do not tolerate the use of the army against our people. We must find a negotiated solution.
Will the Taliban will continue to counterattack? “That features of Taliban or the pertaining relatives to the several tribes remained killed in the tribal areas, will sure be continued to counterattack till when the government does not stop the extermination. Those persons come killed like animals: the tribal areas are being transformed in real butcher shops
What thinks some about an eventual participation of the United States in the tribal areas of Pakistan? “We refuse any participation categorically American. The United States must attend to the facts they and to leave us to make what we must make. The USA would have to stop to acting in the role of international policeman”.
He refutes therefore that Pakistan will become " Talibanized"? “The majority of the Pakistani population is moderate and it does not have some propensity for extremism. Pakistan will not never become an extremist State”.
How would he advise the government? “The government must place immediately end any military participation in the tribal areas…The issue will not be able to be resolved with the force. I condemn the attack on the Marriott, but to condemn is not sufficient to straighten the things. We must resist the pressures of the United States and think with our own heads”.
A couple comments:
First, it is remarkable that a politician of Sharif’s stature and savvy would, in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, eschew the blood and guts rhetoric for talk of political dialogue. It’s a sign that of the significant and perhaps decisive character of the popular and political forces willing to accept accommodation with the tribal areas.
Second, contra the apocalyptic prose of the LA Times, the main concern of the Pakistani elite is not that tribal extremists from a thinly populated hinterland will take over Pakistan, an urbanized, populous, and industrialized country of 120 million people. The main concern is that the democratic institutions haltingly restored in the post-Musharraf era will be swept aside by violent unrest and a return to military rule if Pakistan is forced to bow to the United States’ demand for an all or nothing military solution in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.
If there is an impulse for a change of course in Pakistan after this devastating instance of urban terrorism, it involves a third way: not signing on to the US-led military campaign, and abandoning a not-too-effective cycle of half-hearted confrontation and hasty conciliation, with one eye on the hefty US GWOT financial subvention and another on civil peace, with something more determined and effective.
In fact, when one reads the Pakistani commentary, one sees indications of an approach that tries to thread the needle between an aggressive anti-extremist security policy and an urgent need to decouple from US GWOT activities in Afghanistan and western Pakistan and give Islamabad the breathing space to use economic and political as well as military methods to isolate and marginalize the militants in its western borderlands.
In the worst case, this won’t involve whole-hearted support of US-led incursions into the Pakistani borderlands; it will involve Pakistan’s insistence that the aggravating fact of the US presence has turned a low-level political dispute into an existential crisis for Pakistan’s civilian government and society, and the demand that the survival of the Pakistan nation take precedence over the survival of America’s unpopular project in Afghanistan—the Karzai regime.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Dharna For None
A funny thing happened at the climax of the lawyers’ Long March to Islamabad to demand restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary.
Nothing.
To widespread dismay and confusion, Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, announced on June 14 that the marchers would disperse from their positions near the parliament building instead of staying on to conduct a dharna.
Dharna is loosely translated as a sit-in. More accurately, it refers to a public fast conducted in an appointed place to demand discharge of a defaulted obligation such as a monetary debt.
In the case of the Long March, a dharna before parliament would carry the implication that the lawyers were not petitioning the government—they were demanding that the legislature enact the explicit undertaking of the Murree Accord between the victorious opposition parties to restore the judiciary within 30 days of the seating of the National Assembly after the February 19 general elections..
As such a dharna would represent an overt challenge to Asif Zardari, co-chairman of the PPP, the man who had broken his promise to restore the judiciary and was instead attempting to bury the issue in a welter of prevarication, obfuscation, bluster, and convoluted counter-proposals.
Maybe that’s why Aitzaz Ahsan hesitated. He is, after all, a leading member of the PPP and perhaps shrank from issuing a mortal political challenge to the head of his party.
There are even anxious rumblings that Ahsan may abandon the judges and accept a deal on the PPP’s terms with less than full restoration of the judiciary.
Whatever the reason, Aitzaz Ahsan’s sudden attack of the collywobbles on the biggest day of his political life has given Asif Zardari a much needed political breather as the campaign to oust President Musharraf—and claim its political dividend--enters its endgame.
The Long March could have been a political disaster for Zardari.
His non-stop political maneuverings to consolidate his position within the PPP and on the top of Pakistan’s political heap since the general election have occurred at the expense of two things that Pakistan really wants—a quick, unambiguous restoration of the judiciary and a decisive, coordinated move by the coalition to oust Musharraf and transition to civilian rule.
Instead, Zardari has willfully squandered the unity of the democratic opposition and alienated a broad and influential spectrum of Pakistani society both inside and outside of his party by doing everything to secure his power and nothing to restore the judiciary and remove Musharraf.
Nothing.
To widespread dismay and confusion, Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, announced on June 14 that the marchers would disperse from their positions near the parliament building instead of staying on to conduct a dharna.
Dharna is loosely translated as a sit-in. More accurately, it refers to a public fast conducted in an appointed place to demand discharge of a defaulted obligation such as a monetary debt.
In the case of the Long March, a dharna before parliament would carry the implication that the lawyers were not petitioning the government—they were demanding that the legislature enact the explicit undertaking of the Murree Accord between the victorious opposition parties to restore the judiciary within 30 days of the seating of the National Assembly after the February 19 general elections..
As such a dharna would represent an overt challenge to Asif Zardari, co-chairman of the PPP, the man who had broken his promise to restore the judiciary and was instead attempting to bury the issue in a welter of prevarication, obfuscation, bluster, and convoluted counter-proposals.
Maybe that’s why Aitzaz Ahsan hesitated. He is, after all, a leading member of the PPP and perhaps shrank from issuing a mortal political challenge to the head of his party.
There are even anxious rumblings that Ahsan may abandon the judges and accept a deal on the PPP’s terms with less than full restoration of the judiciary.
Whatever the reason, Aitzaz Ahsan’s sudden attack of the collywobbles on the biggest day of his political life has given Asif Zardari a much needed political breather as the campaign to oust President Musharraf—and claim its political dividend--enters its endgame.
The Long March could have been a political disaster for Zardari.
His non-stop political maneuverings to consolidate his position within the PPP and on the top of Pakistan’s political heap since the general election have occurred at the expense of two things that Pakistan really wants—a quick, unambiguous restoration of the judiciary and a decisive, coordinated move by the coalition to oust Musharraf and transition to civilian rule.
Instead, Zardari has willfully squandered the unity of the democratic opposition and alienated a broad and influential spectrum of Pakistani society both inside and outside of his party by doing everything to secure his power and nothing to restore the judiciary and remove Musharraf.
At a crucial juncture in its history, Pakistan is divided, confused, and--beset by extremism, a hot war on its western border with Afghanistan, and the continuous intereference of the United States in its domestic politics--afraid.
A well-organized, politically and media-savvy confrontation in front of parliament would have highlighted Zardari’s shortcomings, the broad-based and principled character of the opposition to his policies, and the failure of his leadership--and perhaps given Pakistan's civil society a chance to rediscover the unity of purpose and exhilaration it experienced during the electoral struggle against Musharraf's government that culminated in the triumph of the February general elections.
Fortunately for Zardari, what he got instead was Aitzaz Ahsan.
Ahsan has shown a penchant for impulsive and unwise gestures—he resigned and unresigned as head of the Supreme Court Bar Association within 24 hours after a lawyer-related fracas last month—but the decision to pull the plug on the Long March without consultation, advance warning, or even a symbolic, two-hour dharna to reward and placate his loyal followers takes the cake.
When Ahsan suddenly announced there would be no dharna, he cited as justification that the movement lacked the funding and facilities to support a prolonged stay in Islamabad.
A confession that he had no idea how to feed and shelter his people when they showed up in Islamabad doesn’t say much for Aitzaz Ahsan as a political leader, or even as an event planner.
Don’t just take my word for it.
From The News:
A leader of the lawyers' movement and member of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), Hamid Khan, on Monday termed not staging a sit-in at the Parade Ground a setback to the lawyers' movement that benefited President Musharraf and his aides.
A well-organized, politically and media-savvy confrontation in front of parliament would have highlighted Zardari’s shortcomings, the broad-based and principled character of the opposition to his policies, and the failure of his leadership--and perhaps given Pakistan's civil society a chance to rediscover the unity of purpose and exhilaration it experienced during the electoral struggle against Musharraf's government that culminated in the triumph of the February general elections.
Fortunately for Zardari, what he got instead was Aitzaz Ahsan.
Ahsan has shown a penchant for impulsive and unwise gestures—he resigned and unresigned as head of the Supreme Court Bar Association within 24 hours after a lawyer-related fracas last month—but the decision to pull the plug on the Long March without consultation, advance warning, or even a symbolic, two-hour dharna to reward and placate his loyal followers takes the cake.
When Ahsan suddenly announced there would be no dharna, he cited as justification that the movement lacked the funding and facilities to support a prolonged stay in Islamabad.
A confession that he had no idea how to feed and shelter his people when they showed up in Islamabad doesn’t say much for Aitzaz Ahsan as a political leader, or even as an event planner.
Don’t just take my word for it.
From The News:
A leader of the lawyers' movement and member of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), Hamid Khan, on Monday termed not staging a sit-in at the Parade Ground a setback to the lawyers' movement that benefited President Musharraf and his aides.
“The decision taken by Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan at the 11th hour not to stage a sit-in after holding a successful long march was a setback to the lawyers’ movement and no doubt it had benefited President Musharraf and his aides,” he told a news conference here at the Supreme Court.
Answering questions, Hamid Khan said earlier they had an understanding that the lawyers would stage a sit-in at the Parade Ground till June 14; however, it was changed at the last moment though majority of the lawyers had opposed it.
Dawn helpfully relayed some of Khan’s more pointed comments:
Hamid Khan said the decision to “hastily conclude the march was taken by one individual who announced it … without taking the implementation committee that was overseeing the event into confidence”.
Dawn helpfully relayed some of Khan’s more pointed comments:
Hamid Khan said the decision to “hastily conclude the march was taken by one individual who announced it … without taking the implementation committee that was overseeing the event into confidence”.
He said that members of the committee were under the impression that lawyers would stage “at least a day-long sit-in but its (sudden) termination should be construed as an honest mistake”.
“Many bar associations went away fuming over the lost opportunity to force the government to reinstate the deposed judges,” Mr Khan said.
However, Ahsan’s embarrassing dilemma highlights the special character of the “color revolutions” that the Long March only superficially resembled.
When a “color revolution” of the sort that displaced unpopular regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan is whipped up, there are certain ingredients necessary for success.
When the colorful little forests of tents spring up in the main square, they are funded by George Soros or some other pro-democracy NGO. Food and money are funneled in by local and foreign sympathizers anticipating a profitable change in the political climate. Favorable media coverage is in place, often by outlets funded by the US or NGOs. The International Republican Institute comes out with a poll showing widespread popular support is for the demonstrators, and detestation of the current regime. The local US embassy and the State Department keep the media pot boiling and put pressure on the government with statements urging it “obey the will of the people”. Maybe behind the scenes foreign governments pony up cash and promises to grease the skids for the targeted government to vacate the premises.
And there’s toilets, as a thoughtful commentator pointed out:
I was greatly concerned about the logistical bottle necks when I learned that there was going to be a 48 hour sit-down. A crowd that large would excrete almost two thousand metric tons of urine every twelve hours, not to mention 37500 kilograms of poop over a twenty four hour period. So even if food and water could somehow be made available, what comes out the other end had nowhere to go.
Aside from favorable coverage in the liberal quadrant of the Pakistani press, the Long March enjoyed none of the international support or institutional advantages (and sanitary facilities) a professional “color revolution” requires.
No, the Long March was a genuine, indigenous “people power” political event: amateurishly planned and incompetently organized.
Despite the brave talk that the huge demonstration energized Pakistani public opinion against Musharraf and in favor of the restoration of the judiciary, it is easy to believe that Aitzaz Ahsan’s heretofore sterling reputation as a popular leader is tarnished, and the next time he calls for a demonstration, people are going to be less eager to hit the bricks.
Ahsan compounded his error by dropping from the media radar and neglecting to provide a clear explanation either of what had happened, what he thought had been accomplished, or what he planned to do in the future, leading critics and bewildered supporters to wonder if he was simply overwhelmed by the situation, party to some sordid deal, or had suddenly repudiated the action he so energetically championed in horror at its unforeseen, undesirable political consequences.
The PPP has jumped into the vacuum to ceaselessly belittle the demonstration and denigrate the lawyers’ movement, and to press its patently self-serving and not very accurate narrative that the PPP and Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and not the lawyers’ movement and the struggle for an independent judiciary, are at the center of Pakistan’s democratic revival.
From Dawn:
LAHORE, June 16: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari mocked the lawyers’ long march on Monday and declared his party would soon control the presidency.... “We know what to call a long march. We know when to call a long march. We know how to conduct a long march. And when the People’s Party calls a long march, then Pakistan will see what a long march really is....The day is not far off when... presidency will be held by the PPP. The time is not far when People’s Party will have a gathering like this in the President’s House and jiyalas will dance. And the walls will reverberate with “Long live Bhutto, Long live Bhutto”
The News held its tongue firmly in cheek while reporting Zardari—who is not an appointed or elected official of the government and owes his position to Benazir Bhutto’s political will and not to any democratic party process—described his central role in the genuine exercise of Pakistani democracy:
LAHORE: PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday made it clear that he would not accept dictation on when the judges should be restored, adding he was the one who would decide the issue....
“Benazir Bhutto sacrificed her life for democracy and not for deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry,” Asif Zardari said and added he would himself decide when to restore the deposed judges.
And who’s to gainsay him? The only legacy the Long March seems to have left behind is confusion.
In a mark of the bewildering fug of incompetence that hangs over the Long March, nobody even knows how many people showed up.
Opposition optimists claim 500,000 people showed up in front of parliament on the last night. The PPP-led government sneeringly low-balled the crowd at 20,000.
Sober observers believe that somewhere around 150,000 to 250,000 people were there—perhaps the largest demonstration in Islamabad in the history of Pakistani politics.
The government has consistently labored to downplay the size of the crowd and its significance. The befuddled lawyers’ movement has by inaction given it a free hand to redefine what happened.
Pictures that give an idea of the size of the crowd are virtually impossible to come by.
Nobody on the lawyers’ side made the effort to make sure that this historic event was properly documented. No press releases, no estimates, no aerial shots, no panoramas from the tops of buildings, nobody climbed up a light standard with a camera.
Plenty of shots of little bedraggled knots of demonstrators and groovy political street art, however, courtesy of a blog set up just for the march.
The most likely outcome of the Long March’s embarrassing fizzle will probably be the return of politics as usual to Pakistan—where the parties are opportunistic, patronage-driven assets of powerful political bosses.
Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N, a bossman of the old school, had nevertheless hitched his wagon to the lawyers’ star, believing that an issue-driven modern political party could profit in Pakistan’s current environment.
As the march wound through Sharif’s Punjab stronghold on the way to Islamabad, he provided them with rhetorical and infrastructural support. When the lawyers gathered in the capital he obliged with a vein-popping, sweat-soaked oration declaring that Musharraf should be hanged.
Then, though the claim has been disputed, Sharif reportedly advised Aitzaz Ahsan behind the scenes to drop the dharna.
Perhaps Sharif realized that any attempt to sustain a mass sit-in before parliament with inadequate preparations in 100-degree weather was doomed to failure.
Or he calculated that Zardari would respond to the challenge of a successful dharna by finally pulling the trigger and pushing out Musharraf and restoring the judiciary, thereby robbing Sharif of a key and favorable differentiating issue.
And maybe Sharif decided it was better to let the Musharraf and judiciary issues fester to the PPP’s detriment, and return to his fiefdom of Punjab to consolidate his control and plot his strategy for provoking—and winning—the next parliamentary election.
One thing is clear. Once the Long March reached Islamabad, Sharif did not believe the time was ripe to overtly put the institutional, political, and financial resources of the PML-N behind a dharna to openly challenge Zardari and force the PPP to yield on the issues of Musharraf and the judiciary.
Conspiracy theorists (and the PPP) anxious to drive a wedge between Sharif and the lawyers are floating the idea that Sharif and Zardari have made a side deal involving a modified restoration of the judiciary, and pulling the plug on the dharna was part of the quid pro quo.
But it would seem unlikely that Sharif would lightly discard a useful political weapon—like a massive, highly energized popular movement—against Zardari, who views him as a deadly political rival, for the sake of an unpopular compromise on the judiciary.
Zardari and Sharif are currently meeting in Lahore for some tortuous negotiations on the fate of Musharraf and the judges.
Sharif is undoubtedly leveraging the facts on the ground as revealed by the Long March.
By virtue of his participation, his PML-N is now in a good position to exploit widespread dissatisfaction nationally and within the PPP toward Zardari’s policies (a PPP insider stated, perhaps hyperbolically, that 80% of the PPP members of the National Assembly would have joined the Long March if not for Zardari’s opposition).
For the PML-N, a satisfactory outcome may be to compel Zardari’s public support of Sharif’s high profile, uncompromising, and politically defining vendetta against Musharraf as the price of endorsing what pundits are already describing as an impending and highly unpopular “shady compromise” on the judiciary.
In any case, the Long March, which could have been a triumph for believers in democratic, civilian rule, has turned into an acrid, bewildering disappointment and a harbinger of politics as usual.
An opinion piece by journalist Anjum Niaz gives an idea of the glum mood among progressives:
Once more the people have been cuckolded. They dreamt of a soft revolution in front of the parliament house. They dreamt of a positive change. They dreamt of jumpstarting Pakistan's destiny to make it move forward. In sum, you and I dreamt of days ahead to be free of bad laws, bad men, bad judges and bad governance. We hoped things would be different this time around. Instead, what did the day after look like? It looked like exactly the day before the long march. Flaccid, impotent and obsessive.
...
Nawaz Sharif says "hang [Musharraf];" Asif Zardari says, "PPP will drive him out."We live in a country that has been cuckolded by its leaders for the last 60 years. The people have been deceived, cheated, betrayed and deluded in their partnership with their leaders--civilian and military.
However, Ahsan’s embarrassing dilemma highlights the special character of the “color revolutions” that the Long March only superficially resembled.
When a “color revolution” of the sort that displaced unpopular regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan is whipped up, there are certain ingredients necessary for success.
When the colorful little forests of tents spring up in the main square, they are funded by George Soros or some other pro-democracy NGO. Food and money are funneled in by local and foreign sympathizers anticipating a profitable change in the political climate. Favorable media coverage is in place, often by outlets funded by the US or NGOs. The International Republican Institute comes out with a poll showing widespread popular support is for the demonstrators, and detestation of the current regime. The local US embassy and the State Department keep the media pot boiling and put pressure on the government with statements urging it “obey the will of the people”. Maybe behind the scenes foreign governments pony up cash and promises to grease the skids for the targeted government to vacate the premises.
And there’s toilets, as a thoughtful commentator pointed out:
I was greatly concerned about the logistical bottle necks when I learned that there was going to be a 48 hour sit-down. A crowd that large would excrete almost two thousand metric tons of urine every twelve hours, not to mention 37500 kilograms of poop over a twenty four hour period. So even if food and water could somehow be made available, what comes out the other end had nowhere to go.
Aside from favorable coverage in the liberal quadrant of the Pakistani press, the Long March enjoyed none of the international support or institutional advantages (and sanitary facilities) a professional “color revolution” requires.
No, the Long March was a genuine, indigenous “people power” political event: amateurishly planned and incompetently organized.
Despite the brave talk that the huge demonstration energized Pakistani public opinion against Musharraf and in favor of the restoration of the judiciary, it is easy to believe that Aitzaz Ahsan’s heretofore sterling reputation as a popular leader is tarnished, and the next time he calls for a demonstration, people are going to be less eager to hit the bricks.
Ahsan compounded his error by dropping from the media radar and neglecting to provide a clear explanation either of what had happened, what he thought had been accomplished, or what he planned to do in the future, leading critics and bewildered supporters to wonder if he was simply overwhelmed by the situation, party to some sordid deal, or had suddenly repudiated the action he so energetically championed in horror at its unforeseen, undesirable political consequences.
The PPP has jumped into the vacuum to ceaselessly belittle the demonstration and denigrate the lawyers’ movement, and to press its patently self-serving and not very accurate narrative that the PPP and Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and not the lawyers’ movement and the struggle for an independent judiciary, are at the center of Pakistan’s democratic revival.
From Dawn:
LAHORE, June 16: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari mocked the lawyers’ long march on Monday and declared his party would soon control the presidency.... “We know what to call a long march. We know when to call a long march. We know how to conduct a long march. And when the People’s Party calls a long march, then Pakistan will see what a long march really is....The day is not far off when... presidency will be held by the PPP. The time is not far when People’s Party will have a gathering like this in the President’s House and jiyalas will dance. And the walls will reverberate with “Long live Bhutto, Long live Bhutto”
The News held its tongue firmly in cheek while reporting Zardari—who is not an appointed or elected official of the government and owes his position to Benazir Bhutto’s political will and not to any democratic party process—described his central role in the genuine exercise of Pakistani democracy:
LAHORE: PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday made it clear that he would not accept dictation on when the judges should be restored, adding he was the one who would decide the issue....
“Benazir Bhutto sacrificed her life for democracy and not for deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry,” Asif Zardari said and added he would himself decide when to restore the deposed judges.
And who’s to gainsay him? The only legacy the Long March seems to have left behind is confusion.
In a mark of the bewildering fug of incompetence that hangs over the Long March, nobody even knows how many people showed up.
Opposition optimists claim 500,000 people showed up in front of parliament on the last night. The PPP-led government sneeringly low-balled the crowd at 20,000.
Sober observers believe that somewhere around 150,000 to 250,000 people were there—perhaps the largest demonstration in Islamabad in the history of Pakistani politics.
The government has consistently labored to downplay the size of the crowd and its significance. The befuddled lawyers’ movement has by inaction given it a free hand to redefine what happened.
Pictures that give an idea of the size of the crowd are virtually impossible to come by.
Nobody on the lawyers’ side made the effort to make sure that this historic event was properly documented. No press releases, no estimates, no aerial shots, no panoramas from the tops of buildings, nobody climbed up a light standard with a camera.
Plenty of shots of little bedraggled knots of demonstrators and groovy political street art, however, courtesy of a blog set up just for the march.
The most likely outcome of the Long March’s embarrassing fizzle will probably be the return of politics as usual to Pakistan—where the parties are opportunistic, patronage-driven assets of powerful political bosses.
Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N, a bossman of the old school, had nevertheless hitched his wagon to the lawyers’ star, believing that an issue-driven modern political party could profit in Pakistan’s current environment.
As the march wound through Sharif’s Punjab stronghold on the way to Islamabad, he provided them with rhetorical and infrastructural support. When the lawyers gathered in the capital he obliged with a vein-popping, sweat-soaked oration declaring that Musharraf should be hanged.
Then, though the claim has been disputed, Sharif reportedly advised Aitzaz Ahsan behind the scenes to drop the dharna.
Perhaps Sharif realized that any attempt to sustain a mass sit-in before parliament with inadequate preparations in 100-degree weather was doomed to failure.
Or he calculated that Zardari would respond to the challenge of a successful dharna by finally pulling the trigger and pushing out Musharraf and restoring the judiciary, thereby robbing Sharif of a key and favorable differentiating issue.
And maybe Sharif decided it was better to let the Musharraf and judiciary issues fester to the PPP’s detriment, and return to his fiefdom of Punjab to consolidate his control and plot his strategy for provoking—and winning—the next parliamentary election.
One thing is clear. Once the Long March reached Islamabad, Sharif did not believe the time was ripe to overtly put the institutional, political, and financial resources of the PML-N behind a dharna to openly challenge Zardari and force the PPP to yield on the issues of Musharraf and the judiciary.
Conspiracy theorists (and the PPP) anxious to drive a wedge between Sharif and the lawyers are floating the idea that Sharif and Zardari have made a side deal involving a modified restoration of the judiciary, and pulling the plug on the dharna was part of the quid pro quo.
But it would seem unlikely that Sharif would lightly discard a useful political weapon—like a massive, highly energized popular movement—against Zardari, who views him as a deadly political rival, for the sake of an unpopular compromise on the judiciary.
Zardari and Sharif are currently meeting in Lahore for some tortuous negotiations on the fate of Musharraf and the judges.
Sharif is undoubtedly leveraging the facts on the ground as revealed by the Long March.
By virtue of his participation, his PML-N is now in a good position to exploit widespread dissatisfaction nationally and within the PPP toward Zardari’s policies (a PPP insider stated, perhaps hyperbolically, that 80% of the PPP members of the National Assembly would have joined the Long March if not for Zardari’s opposition).
For the PML-N, a satisfactory outcome may be to compel Zardari’s public support of Sharif’s high profile, uncompromising, and politically defining vendetta against Musharraf as the price of endorsing what pundits are already describing as an impending and highly unpopular “shady compromise” on the judiciary.
In any case, the Long March, which could have been a triumph for believers in democratic, civilian rule, has turned into an acrid, bewildering disappointment and a harbinger of politics as usual.
An opinion piece by journalist Anjum Niaz gives an idea of the glum mood among progressives:
Once more the people have been cuckolded. They dreamt of a soft revolution in front of the parliament house. They dreamt of a positive change. They dreamt of jumpstarting Pakistan's destiny to make it move forward. In sum, you and I dreamt of days ahead to be free of bad laws, bad men, bad judges and bad governance. We hoped things would be different this time around. Instead, what did the day after look like? It looked like exactly the day before the long march. Flaccid, impotent and obsessive.
...
Nawaz Sharif says "hang [Musharraf];" Asif Zardari says, "PPP will drive him out."We live in a country that has been cuckolded by its leaders for the last 60 years. The people have been deceived, cheated, betrayed and deluded in their partnership with their leaders--civilian and military.
"Tell us something we don't know," the readers may easily turn around and say. I have nothing new to add.
JFYI “Dharna for None” is a play on the song title “Dharma for One” a 1969 effort by prog-rock Methuselahs Jethro Tull.
JFYI “Dharna for None” is a play on the song title “Dharma for One” a 1969 effort by prog-rock Methuselahs Jethro Tull.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Snake vs. Tiger!
Asif Zardari, the Wily Snake from Sindh...
Faces Off Against...
...the Tiger of Punjab, Nawaz Sharif...
..In a No Holds Barred Battle...
... to Force Pervez Musharraf From Office!
.. The Prize: Bragging Rights as the Savior of Pakistani Democracy!
If Pakistani politics honored its striking kinship with the rivalries, bombast, and chair-throwing brio of professional wrestling, it might be able to attract U.S. attention to what’s going on over there.
Pakistan’s democratic crisis may well come to head in Islamabad on Thursday.
That’s when the “Long March” of lawyers and political activists led by deposed Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudry and Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan reaches the capital to stage a sit-in in front of parliament and demand restoration of the judiciary.
Interestingly, in contrast to America’s heartfelt interest in seemingly hopeless causes such as humanitarian intervention in Burma and independence for Tibet, this important and broadly supported exercise in people power in one of the most populous and strategically vital nations in the world is attracting little attention in the United States.
Maybe the problem is that the designated flag-bearer of freedom, Asif Zardari’s PPP, isn’t reading from the democratic script and our least-favorite political force, Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, is joining the sit-in with the demonstrators.
In Pakistan’s general elections on February 19, the public handed the opposition parties an unambiguous mandate to take power and finish the job the lawyers’ movement had begun: restore the judiciary and remove terminally unpopular president Pervez Musharraf from office.
Once it won power, the PPP didn’t deliver.
Just the opposite, in fact.
Instead, the new government—the government of the PPP and Asif Zardari—is refusing to support the lawyers’ march, has hauled in 40-foot shipping containers to block the approaches to parliament and set up sandbag positions, and, in a worrying harbinger of what methods might be brought to bear to derail the protests, raised the specter of “terrorist attacks” as a justification for obstructing the march.
In February, by contrast, the way appeared clear. All that was necessary was a parliamentary resolution restoring to their previous positions the members of the judiciary who had been unconstitutionally removed on November 3 because they were poised to challenge Musharraf’s unconstitutional re-election as president.
Prior to the general election, the leaders of the two leading opposition parties, Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s widower and head of the PPP and Nawaz Sharif, head of the PML-N, met and concluded the “Murree Accord” promising that they would restore the pre-November 3 judiciary within 30 days of taking office.
Zasrdari promptly reneged on the deal, first playing semantic games: thirty days should be counted from the swearing in of the cabinet, not the speaker of the national assembly; then thirty days after the provincial assemblies took the oath of office; finally he simply said he “didn’t believe in timetables”.
Explanations—mostly leaked from the Zardari camp—abounded as to why he didn’t want to restore the judiciary. They included: intense pressure from the United States to protect its client Musharraf; longstanding resentment at the ill-treatment had meted out to Zardari in the past by unfriendly judges; profound concern over an excessively independent and activist judiciary.
A less-flattering explanation was that Zardari had availed himself of the good offices of the post-November 3 judiciary multiple times to quash cases against him running the gamut from corruption to murder, so that a newspaper could, with perhaps a touch of irony, describe him as “the cleanest man in Pakistan”.
Matters reached a nadir of sorts in April as the new government applied to the complaisant judiciary to strike down the requirement that candidates for the National Assembly be college graduates. This appeal was not so much triggered by the PPP’s commitment to democratic egalitarianism as by the embarrassing revelation that Zardari—whose political options including succeeding to his wife’s NA seat in a by-election—had lied about his educational achievements and, indeed, claimed a degree from a college that didn’t even exist.
However, the most likely explanation for Zardari’s inaction on the judiciary issue is his addiction to political maneuvering.
Zardari is an unpopular and allegedly unsavory character who owes his position as co-chairman of the PPP to his wife’s political will, and not election by the PPP rank-and-file or its central committee.
His overriding priority has been to discredit and marginalize the numerous political forces inside Pakistan whose credibility and popularity surpass his own.
Zardari’s first key test as the PPP leader was to humiliate and sideline Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who was not only Bhutto’s number two and anticipated political heir (he was beside Bhutto when she died in Rawalpindi, while Zardari was overseas in Abu Dhabi); as the head of the PPP’s electoral organization, he was the legal choice for prime minister. Fahim was dumped and a compliant placeholder, Yousuf Raza Gilani, was put in the prime minister slot instead.
Zardari then turned his attentions toward the lawyers’ movement, led by PPP member Aitzaz Ahsan, which is responsible for much of the reputation that the post-Bhutto PPP enjoys as a principled, popular, and national force, and not just a Sindhi-controlled political machine.
Zardari openly belittled the lawyer’s movement and Ahsan and rather ludicrously claimed that it was the PPP that had enabled the lawyer’s movement, when it was clear that the national uproar over Musharraf’s war on the judiciary beginning in March of 2007 had driven the president’s approval down into the 30s and compelled him to accept Bhutto’s return under US mediation at the end of the year.
Zardari’s fingerprints may or may not be on an extremely nasty effort by friends of Musharraf to discredit the movement to restore the judiciary and minimize its political impact by using provocateurs to foment violence in incidents that can be blamed on the lawyers, but his defense of the lawyers has been half-hearted at best.
Zardari professed that it was the PPP, and not the lawyers, that was the sole arbiter of the fate of the judiciary. He then spent the next few months energetically muddying the waters by floating numerous proposals and finally proposing a complex and probably unworkable grab-bag of constitutional amendments as his “solution” to the judiciary problem.
The most dangerous challenge to Asif Zardari’s political pre-eminence is, however, Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the PML-N, whose personal and electoral symbol is the tiger.
When the US arranged for Bhutto (and Zardari) to return, Saudi Arabia insisted that Sharif be allowed to come back, too. Sharif has had traditionally close ties to Saudi Arabia—he spent his exile there after Musharraf ousted him from the prime ministership in a coup—and it’s possible that the Saudis were simply looking after a capable and useful asset.
However, unlike Bhutto and Zardari, Sharif is not beholden to the United States and has little interest in confronting Islamic extremists and al Qaeda elements inside Pakistan primarily in order to save the West’s bacon in Afghanistan. Riyadh may have been favoring Sharif as part of its plan to try to achieve an accommodation with extremism and redirect the region toward a more conventional—and cooler—great power rivalry with Iran.
In any case, Sharif reappeared in Pakistan with a new image (he invested in hair plugs and a new wardrobe to compete with the ultra-charismatic and telegenic Bhutto) and a progressive, nationalist message that included whole-hearted support for civil society and civilian rule as epitomized by the lawyers’ movement.
Sharif was already a powerhouse in Punjab—his home province and Pakistan’s demographic, political, and economic heart—and his new message resonated nationwide and even within the PPP. Zardari was forced to accept an electoral alliance with Sharif’s PML-N, which enshrined in the Murree Accord the central demand that the pre-November 3 judiciary be restored. The PML-N roared to victory in Punjab, winning control of the provincial government, a large number of seats in the National Assembly, and important portfolios in the cabinet as a member of the ruling coalition.
Sharif, admittedly a late convert to the merits of an independent judiciary (while he was prime minister, his supporters organized a rent-a-riot against the judiciary to punish it for some rulings he didn’t like), has played his democratic cards astutely while consolidating his dominant position in the critical province of Punjab.
When all the Murree Declaration deadlines had passed, Nawaz Sharif pulled his people out of the cabinet. However, he didn’t enter the opposition and pledged that the PML-N would vote with the government on key issues, retaining the PML-N’s progressive credentials while sparing it the onus of bringing down the popularly-elected civilian government.
This unavoidably left the PPP as the dominant party in the ruling coalition.
And that’s the way Asif Zardari wanted it. Indeed, it was rumored that his delays and evasions over the last four months on the judiciary had no higher purpose than to force Sharif to quit the coalition.
Now, Zardari held the political initiative and could maximize and aggrandize the sole political credit for removing Musharraf from office.
So far, so good.
Signs are that Musharraf’s support in the Pakistani military and in Washington have fallen away, and the prize is within Zardari’s grasp.
But things are still a little tense.
Despite numerous hints to Musharraf not to let the door hit his behind on the way out of the presidential palace, he’s still hanging on.
Unsurprisingly, Musharraf wants a political indemnity that shields him from criminal charges related to his unconstitutional acts.
Unsurprisingly, Nawaz Sharif is letting Musharraf—and Zardari--twist in the wind by insisting that any indemnity is unacceptable.
Most worryingly, the lawyers’ movement has finally lost patience with Zardari and his unwillingness to follow through on the popular mandate for restoration of the judiciary, and has begun its long-threatened Long March to Islamabad to demand that parliament reinstate the judges—a move that is seen as ineluctably leading to Musharraf’s impeachment or resignation.
The PML-N is supporting the lawyers’ march wholeheartedly, and has vowed to join the lawyers in a sit-in before parliament.
This places the PPP in the unenviable position of siding with a few small coalition partners and the hated PML-Q (Musharraf’s faction) in opposing the march.
On Wednesday, the government was forced into an embarrassing climb-down, with Prime Minister Gilani’s advisor stating awkwardly, “We will not put up any sort of resistance”, and agreeing to let the lawyers rally in sight of parliament while cordoning off the area right in front of the building to forestall the efforts of the ubiquitous “miscreants” who wreak so much havoc in Pakistani politics.
So Zardari’s window of opportunity—during which he can claim a clear political victory by forcing out Musharraf, instead of absorbing a high-profile and embarrassing political setback by explicitly blocking the lawyers’ movement—is sliding shut.
He might still put it off.
In fact, he has to.
He’s alienated the core elements of the PPP, the lawyers’ movement, the PML-N, and a pretty wide swath of public opinion with his antics.
If Zardari comes out of this looking like Musharraf’s defender, the opponent of progressive forces inside Pakistan, and, most importantly, a loser, his party could fragment into factions that would reject his leadership and perhaps even align with the PML-N.
This is a matter of political survival for Zardari, and one can expect him to battle with the considerable resources of intelligence, guile, ruthlessness, and power at his command.
The battle between the snake and the tiger—it’s not over yet.
Faces Off Against...
...the Tiger of Punjab, Nawaz Sharif...
..In a No Holds Barred Battle...
... to Force Pervez Musharraf From Office!
.. The Prize: Bragging Rights as the Savior of Pakistani Democracy!
If Pakistani politics honored its striking kinship with the rivalries, bombast, and chair-throwing brio of professional wrestling, it might be able to attract U.S. attention to what’s going on over there.
Pakistan’s democratic crisis may well come to head in Islamabad on Thursday.
That’s when the “Long March” of lawyers and political activists led by deposed Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudry and Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan reaches the capital to stage a sit-in in front of parliament and demand restoration of the judiciary.
Interestingly, in contrast to America’s heartfelt interest in seemingly hopeless causes such as humanitarian intervention in Burma and independence for Tibet, this important and broadly supported exercise in people power in one of the most populous and strategically vital nations in the world is attracting little attention in the United States.
Maybe the problem is that the designated flag-bearer of freedom, Asif Zardari’s PPP, isn’t reading from the democratic script and our least-favorite political force, Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, is joining the sit-in with the demonstrators.
In Pakistan’s general elections on February 19, the public handed the opposition parties an unambiguous mandate to take power and finish the job the lawyers’ movement had begun: restore the judiciary and remove terminally unpopular president Pervez Musharraf from office.
Once it won power, the PPP didn’t deliver.
Just the opposite, in fact.
Instead, the new government—the government of the PPP and Asif Zardari—is refusing to support the lawyers’ march, has hauled in 40-foot shipping containers to block the approaches to parliament and set up sandbag positions, and, in a worrying harbinger of what methods might be brought to bear to derail the protests, raised the specter of “terrorist attacks” as a justification for obstructing the march.
In February, by contrast, the way appeared clear. All that was necessary was a parliamentary resolution restoring to their previous positions the members of the judiciary who had been unconstitutionally removed on November 3 because they were poised to challenge Musharraf’s unconstitutional re-election as president.
Prior to the general election, the leaders of the two leading opposition parties, Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s widower and head of the PPP and Nawaz Sharif, head of the PML-N, met and concluded the “Murree Accord” promising that they would restore the pre-November 3 judiciary within 30 days of taking office.
Zasrdari promptly reneged on the deal, first playing semantic games: thirty days should be counted from the swearing in of the cabinet, not the speaker of the national assembly; then thirty days after the provincial assemblies took the oath of office; finally he simply said he “didn’t believe in timetables”.
Explanations—mostly leaked from the Zardari camp—abounded as to why he didn’t want to restore the judiciary. They included: intense pressure from the United States to protect its client Musharraf; longstanding resentment at the ill-treatment had meted out to Zardari in the past by unfriendly judges; profound concern over an excessively independent and activist judiciary.
A less-flattering explanation was that Zardari had availed himself of the good offices of the post-November 3 judiciary multiple times to quash cases against him running the gamut from corruption to murder, so that a newspaper could, with perhaps a touch of irony, describe him as “the cleanest man in Pakistan”.
Matters reached a nadir of sorts in April as the new government applied to the complaisant judiciary to strike down the requirement that candidates for the National Assembly be college graduates. This appeal was not so much triggered by the PPP’s commitment to democratic egalitarianism as by the embarrassing revelation that Zardari—whose political options including succeeding to his wife’s NA seat in a by-election—had lied about his educational achievements and, indeed, claimed a degree from a college that didn’t even exist.
However, the most likely explanation for Zardari’s inaction on the judiciary issue is his addiction to political maneuvering.
Zardari is an unpopular and allegedly unsavory character who owes his position as co-chairman of the PPP to his wife’s political will, and not election by the PPP rank-and-file or its central committee.
His overriding priority has been to discredit and marginalize the numerous political forces inside Pakistan whose credibility and popularity surpass his own.
Zardari’s first key test as the PPP leader was to humiliate and sideline Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who was not only Bhutto’s number two and anticipated political heir (he was beside Bhutto when she died in Rawalpindi, while Zardari was overseas in Abu Dhabi); as the head of the PPP’s electoral organization, he was the legal choice for prime minister. Fahim was dumped and a compliant placeholder, Yousuf Raza Gilani, was put in the prime minister slot instead.
Zardari then turned his attentions toward the lawyers’ movement, led by PPP member Aitzaz Ahsan, which is responsible for much of the reputation that the post-Bhutto PPP enjoys as a principled, popular, and national force, and not just a Sindhi-controlled political machine.
Zardari openly belittled the lawyer’s movement and Ahsan and rather ludicrously claimed that it was the PPP that had enabled the lawyer’s movement, when it was clear that the national uproar over Musharraf’s war on the judiciary beginning in March of 2007 had driven the president’s approval down into the 30s and compelled him to accept Bhutto’s return under US mediation at the end of the year.
Zardari’s fingerprints may or may not be on an extremely nasty effort by friends of Musharraf to discredit the movement to restore the judiciary and minimize its political impact by using provocateurs to foment violence in incidents that can be blamed on the lawyers, but his defense of the lawyers has been half-hearted at best.
Zardari professed that it was the PPP, and not the lawyers, that was the sole arbiter of the fate of the judiciary. He then spent the next few months energetically muddying the waters by floating numerous proposals and finally proposing a complex and probably unworkable grab-bag of constitutional amendments as his “solution” to the judiciary problem.
The most dangerous challenge to Asif Zardari’s political pre-eminence is, however, Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the PML-N, whose personal and electoral symbol is the tiger.
When the US arranged for Bhutto (and Zardari) to return, Saudi Arabia insisted that Sharif be allowed to come back, too. Sharif has had traditionally close ties to Saudi Arabia—he spent his exile there after Musharraf ousted him from the prime ministership in a coup—and it’s possible that the Saudis were simply looking after a capable and useful asset.
However, unlike Bhutto and Zardari, Sharif is not beholden to the United States and has little interest in confronting Islamic extremists and al Qaeda elements inside Pakistan primarily in order to save the West’s bacon in Afghanistan. Riyadh may have been favoring Sharif as part of its plan to try to achieve an accommodation with extremism and redirect the region toward a more conventional—and cooler—great power rivalry with Iran.
In any case, Sharif reappeared in Pakistan with a new image (he invested in hair plugs and a new wardrobe to compete with the ultra-charismatic and telegenic Bhutto) and a progressive, nationalist message that included whole-hearted support for civil society and civilian rule as epitomized by the lawyers’ movement.
Sharif was already a powerhouse in Punjab—his home province and Pakistan’s demographic, political, and economic heart—and his new message resonated nationwide and even within the PPP. Zardari was forced to accept an electoral alliance with Sharif’s PML-N, which enshrined in the Murree Accord the central demand that the pre-November 3 judiciary be restored. The PML-N roared to victory in Punjab, winning control of the provincial government, a large number of seats in the National Assembly, and important portfolios in the cabinet as a member of the ruling coalition.
Sharif, admittedly a late convert to the merits of an independent judiciary (while he was prime minister, his supporters organized a rent-a-riot against the judiciary to punish it for some rulings he didn’t like), has played his democratic cards astutely while consolidating his dominant position in the critical province of Punjab.
When all the Murree Declaration deadlines had passed, Nawaz Sharif pulled his people out of the cabinet. However, he didn’t enter the opposition and pledged that the PML-N would vote with the government on key issues, retaining the PML-N’s progressive credentials while sparing it the onus of bringing down the popularly-elected civilian government.
This unavoidably left the PPP as the dominant party in the ruling coalition.
And that’s the way Asif Zardari wanted it. Indeed, it was rumored that his delays and evasions over the last four months on the judiciary had no higher purpose than to force Sharif to quit the coalition.
Now, Zardari held the political initiative and could maximize and aggrandize the sole political credit for removing Musharraf from office.
So far, so good.
Signs are that Musharraf’s support in the Pakistani military and in Washington have fallen away, and the prize is within Zardari’s grasp.
But things are still a little tense.
Despite numerous hints to Musharraf not to let the door hit his behind on the way out of the presidential palace, he’s still hanging on.
Unsurprisingly, Musharraf wants a political indemnity that shields him from criminal charges related to his unconstitutional acts.
Unsurprisingly, Nawaz Sharif is letting Musharraf—and Zardari--twist in the wind by insisting that any indemnity is unacceptable.
Most worryingly, the lawyers’ movement has finally lost patience with Zardari and his unwillingness to follow through on the popular mandate for restoration of the judiciary, and has begun its long-threatened Long March to Islamabad to demand that parliament reinstate the judges—a move that is seen as ineluctably leading to Musharraf’s impeachment or resignation.
The PML-N is supporting the lawyers’ march wholeheartedly, and has vowed to join the lawyers in a sit-in before parliament.
This places the PPP in the unenviable position of siding with a few small coalition partners and the hated PML-Q (Musharraf’s faction) in opposing the march.
On Wednesday, the government was forced into an embarrassing climb-down, with Prime Minister Gilani’s advisor stating awkwardly, “We will not put up any sort of resistance”, and agreeing to let the lawyers rally in sight of parliament while cordoning off the area right in front of the building to forestall the efforts of the ubiquitous “miscreants” who wreak so much havoc in Pakistani politics.
So Zardari’s window of opportunity—during which he can claim a clear political victory by forcing out Musharraf, instead of absorbing a high-profile and embarrassing political setback by explicitly blocking the lawyers’ movement—is sliding shut.
He might still put it off.
In fact, he has to.
He’s alienated the core elements of the PPP, the lawyers’ movement, the PML-N, and a pretty wide swath of public opinion with his antics.
If Zardari comes out of this looking like Musharraf’s defender, the opponent of progressive forces inside Pakistan, and, most importantly, a loser, his party could fragment into factions that would reject his leadership and perhaps even align with the PML-N.
This is a matter of political survival for Zardari, and one can expect him to battle with the considerable resources of intelligence, guile, ruthlessness, and power at his command.
The battle between the snake and the tiger—it’s not over yet.
Monday, March 10, 2008
How Long Can the PPP—and Pakistan—Survive the Zardari Follies?
China Matters looks at what delayed the formation of Pakistan’s new ruling coalition for almost a full month.
It’s not Musharraf, or the United States...though they’ve been doing their best.
They key factor has been the ambition of PPP co-chairman (and widow of Benazir Bhutto) Asif Zardari.
Zardari has been scheming feverishly to assert control over a PPP hierarchy that despises him so he can claim the prime minister post—and the independent reserves of power and influence that office will provide him.
Zardari's evolving power struggle with PPP elder Amin Makhmood Famin appear to have played a significant role in dictating the terms and timing of the PPP's March 9 joint announcement with Nawaz Sharif's PML-N.
China Matters sees trouble ahead for any political force that Zardari feels can eclipse him—such as the lawyers’ leader Aitzaz Ahsan or the PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif.
China Matters also sees problems for Pakistan, as Zardari’s personal weakness and opportunism encourage foreign manipulation of Pakistan’s fragile and threatened democracy.
There is one thing that should never be underestimated in Pakistani politics.
The opportunism, mendacity, and hamfistedness of Bhutto widower and PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari.
OK, that’s three things.
Three things that Pakistan's enemies, allies, and interested parties from Islamabad to Washington, Beijing, Riyadh, and New Delhi will all be keen to observe and exploit as Zardari extends his control over the PPP.
Here’s Time Magazine reporting on the historic coalition pact between Zardari’s PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N:
Zardari agreed that the new parliament would pass a resolution within 30 days of convening to reinstate dozens of judges fired by Musharraf after he declared emergency rule on Nov. 3.
The leaders agreed that the judiciary would be restored "as it was on Nov. 2," suggesting that ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would return to his post.
But Zardari muddied the issue by saying that the current justices would not be "disturbed."
"I think we'll have to take a...stance on this whereby we have a collective wisdom and accommodate everybody," Zardari said.
Zardari’s main problem is that he is profoundly uncharismatic man trying to exercise charismatic control over a mature, energized party that craves competent, democratic leadership instead.
Given the opportunity to rally the troops during a speech to the newly-elected PPP Members of the National Assembly, Zardari managed to avoid every issue of importance—such as the question of who was going to be prime minister—for a cringe-inducing session of Who’s Your Daddy?
The session included the public belittling of a party stalwart who had once neglected to give the PPP’s current jefe his proper due.
Bring on the Chair of Shame!
Zardari’s entire speech, the participant said, revolved around him and how he felt alone in the prison when none of the PPP colleagues came to visit him in the prison.
At one stage, the PPP chief called Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar from the back row and asked him to be seated in the front. A chair was brought especially for him.
Zardari narrated a minor incident which took place in one of the trial courts during hearing. He said he had asked Mukhtar whether he has come to see him but Mukhtar replied that he was here to meet his leader Benazir Bhutto.
When a few years later Mukhtar was jailed, Zardari asked him who is his leader now. “You,” he replied.
The participants were surprised to hear this and several other small stories, which Zardari told them.
A senior party leader told this correspondent that Mukhtar was one of the most vocal opponents of Zardari when he was the PPP secretary-general. He openly criticised Zardari for bringing down the PPP government in 1996 due to his shenanigans.
It is quite probable that this touching scene was choreographed by Zardari and Mukhtar in advance to symbolize that the proud and disdainful PPP hierarchy was being brought to the heel of Zardari, once despised as a corrupt and feckless interloper.
The Western press has extensively reported that Zardari finally endorsed PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif’s demand that the pre-November 3 judiciary be restored.
This is bad news for Musharraf.
He had deposed Pakistan’s Supreme Court because he suspected that they were poised to disallow his re-election as president (Musharraf defied the constitution by standing while still in uniform).
The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has been under house arrest since November. Musharraf went the extra mile by denouncing Chaudhry as the “scum of the earth”.
If the pre-November 3 Supreme Court goes back to work, there’s no reason to believe they’ll be interested in bending their interpretation of the constitution for Musharraf’s sake.
Musharraf is currently huddling with his advisors and deciding exactly how to convince the United States that an ex-military officer with popularity under 20% who has fomented a political and constitutional crisis is the only person to lead Pakistan’s democratic society and professional military--even when the ruling coalition is prepared to openly move against him and the armed forces appear to be safely in the capable hands of Army Chief of Staff Kiyani.
When one looks at the numbers—and the disposition of political forces inside Pakistan—it’s hard to understand why it took Zardari a month to figure out he should back the judges.
The Terror Free Tomorrow foundation did a poll just before the elections. It called the vote within the margin of error. So its numbers are pretty good.
Here’s what it said about Chaudhry vs. Musharraf.
Musharraf’s favorable rating: 30%; unfavorable 62%.
Chaudhry’s favorable: 61% unfavorable 20%
At the time of the poll, 70% of respondents wanted Musharraf to resign.
24% said they would vote for a party led by Iftikhar Chaudhry. Even though he was a) under house arrest b) had no party c) had never stated any intention of starting a party.
To hammer the point home:
Musharraf is extremely unpopular.
His continued efforts to cling to power are the leading cause of political instability inside Pakistan.
The pre-November 3 judiciary is widely respected.
Restoring the judiciary and allowing it to rule on Musharraf’s presidency is the clearest and most logical way to a) get rid of a profoundly unpopular politician b) return Pakistan to constitutional and civilian government c) create a civilian political regime with broad popular support.
The only reason that this supremely logical and popular move hasn’t occurred already is because of Asif Zardari.
Zardari, in his own way, epitomizes the rot at the heart of the PPP just as Musharraf symbolizes the rot at the heart of the Pakistani government.
Both of them distort the political process in order to preserve their positions and advance their interests.
Difference is, of course, Musharraf may very well be on his way out.
Zardari, on the other hand, isn’t going anywhere—except, quite possibly, the prime minister's office or even the presidential palace.
Formation of the ruling coalition in the National Assembly has been held up for several weeks because of Zardari’s maneuvering.
On the one hand Nawaz Sharif refused to bring his PML-N into the coalition unless Zardari agreed to call for restoration of the judiciary.
Conceding this point to Sharif was virtually inevitable. Sharif wasn’t going to back down—restoration of the judiciary, in addition to being wildly popular, is at the core of the PML-N platform and its new, progressive political identity.
If the PPP entered the government with Musharraf and the new hack judiciary with the PML-N on the outside of the tent pissing in, the PPP wouldn’t just be unpopular. It would be in a weak government vulnerable to dissolution of parliament and a new election--and at the mercy of the PML-N at the next poll.
On the other hand, there was the United States, which had engineered Benazir Bhutto’s return so that the PPP would cohabit with Musharraf and provide a popular foundation for his presidency. The U.S. was adamantly opposed to a coalition with the PML-N on Sharif’s terms, since restoration of the judiciary would clearly lead to Musharraf’s downfall.
Zardari spend a month anxiously vacillating between the priorities of his patron and the demands of his powerful coalition partner.
The media reported that Zardari was lukewarm on the issue of the judges because he had just used the post-November 3 judiciary to get his corruption cases thrown out and didn’t want to risk a return to legal jeopardy.
Even Zardari did not hide his emotions against the judges...He explained to journalists that he was against the restoration of those judges as these very people were sitting in courts when he, along with his spouse, was being hounded and wronged in jail and put on trial....
Zardari was told that it was not an ordinary show of bravery, defiance and commitment shown by these 60 honourable judges, who had preferred to get themselves jobless and go to jails instead of falling in line as Musharraf wanted them.
But Zardari was not convinced with the logic as he had only one thing on his mind: why was he not given justice by these judges? Sources said similar concerns of the PPP were conveyed to the PML-N...
The Nawaz camp is said to have developed a strong belief that if ministers and civil servants were not doing their duty, then courts should have the legal right to intervene and provide justice to the downtrodden people... But, sources said, this logic and reasoning had little impact on the mind of Zardari.
These remarks provide a window on Zardari’s reflexive sense of victimhood, entitlement, and hurt pride—and his solipsistic conflation of the party and himself--honed during the years when his corruption and poor judgment were blamed for the collapse of the PPP’s fortunes.
But as a policy position, I don’t buy it. I think Zardari was looking for excuses to justify his vacillation on the issue of the judges and avoid antagonizing the United States. (I think Zardari's hostility to the judges also reflects his jealousy of the lawyers' movement as an independent font of power and legitimacy, and reveals his willingness and intent to move against it if and when it appears vulnerable--CH 3/11/08)
Finally, he jumped to Sharif’s side, with an apologetic wink (hey, we’ll accommodate everybody!) to the United States.
Doubtless the precipitating factor was the unremitting militancy of the lawyer’s movement. The lawyers promised a Black Flag week of marches and confrontation to commemorate the anniversary of Musharraf’s first move against the judiciary.
The lawyers’ movement is led by Aitzaz Ahsan, head of the Supreme Court Bar Association, who is also one of the most renowned and respected members of the PPP.
Zardari recognized that the PPP’s political future was grim if he got on the wrong side of Nawaz Sharif, Aitzaz Ahsan, and the lawyers’ movement.
And his personal political future would be bleak as well.
Because Zardari has managed to antagonize many of the cadres inside the PPP during his protracted and divisive effort to assert control over the party after the election.
After the triumph in the February elections, the consensus choice of the PPP elders for prime minister was Benzair Bhutto’s second-in-command, the respected Amin Makhood Fahim.
Zardari promptly muddied the waters by initiating a whispering campaign against Fahim, encouraging some of his cronies to throw their hat in the ring, moving to stack the PPP’s Central Executive Committee (which might have been responsible for the choice under normal party rules), and then threatening to end-around the CEC by choosing the PM in consultation with the newly elective National Assembly members instead.
Zardari’s clumsy attempts to orchestrate the selection of the prime minister brought his leadership—bestowed by Benazir Bhutto’s will instead of a party democratic process—into question:
From The News:
ISLAMABAD: Delay in naming the prime minister by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is sickening for a predominant majority of its MNAs-elect and testing their patience level."We were never in such a state of indecisiveness, in such a spin," one of them remarked to The News.
...
"I don't know what fear Zardari has in his mind in declaring Amin Fahim as the PPP nominee when the Makhdoom's loyalty to the party has been undoubted. He should come out of his hangover of being inferior to Amin Fahim spiritually in Sindh," said one of them.
Zardari’s stated motives rang alarm bells.
Zardari let it be known that he wanted a PPP man from Punjab to hold the prime minister’s job—despite the fact that the PPP’s base and much of its leadership, including Fahim, is in Sindh.
Of course, one reason for the Punjab qualification might simply be to disqualify Fahim.
But one report speculated that Zardari wanted to be prime minister (first he needs to win Benazir Bhutto’s empty seat in a soon-to-be-held by-election) and that he made the calculation that creating a conflict between four competitors would make it possible for him to leapfrog over Fahim and the others in three months’ time.
Zardari had told the Sindhi MNAs for the first time since the race for the slot of the prime minister started that in the first three months, he had decided to bring a prime minister from the Punjab....
Zardari said he understood that the people were strongly talking in Sindh that the prime ministerial slot was their right. Keeping their aspirations in view, Zardari said he had decided to first bring a prime minister from the Punjab for only three months and then he would elevate himself to the post.
As the News pointed out, this was Zardari’s third U-turn on the issue of the prime ministership in 60 days—hardly an inspiring performance.
Another theory was that Zardari, a Sindhi, covets the presidency and feels it wouldn’t be acceptable to have both top spots of PM and president held by a Sindhi.
In any case, Fahim was furious, called in a reporter from The News, and unburdened himself in an interview entitled “I am being humiliated, betrayed” .
Maybe Zardari hadn’t foreseen this virtually inevitable eventuality.
From The News :
Zardari, they claimed, read Fahim's interview with a sense of “disbelief”.
The PPP leaders believe that if the diehard loyalist from Sindh is ignored, as indications have started becoming clearer, the party might face an immediate split, as Fahim did not seem to be in a mood to give up so easily, at least this time.
But actually it looks like Zardari went out of his way to provoke Fahim so that he could have a pretext to ostracize a respected and established rival high inside the PPP.
When Zardari and Sharif announced their coalition agreement on Sunday, Fahim was conspicuous by his absence—apparently because Zardari decided to freeze him out of the discussions and failed to notify him of the meeting .
Nawaz Sharif exploited the fissure between Zardari and Fahim to denounce Fahim and put himself forward as the protector...of Asif Zardari, his political rival! as the story entitled Sharif assures Zardari of support to foil plots makes clear.
It looks like Zardari has exploited Sharif’s muscle to keep him in the PPP’s driver seat.
And Sharif--who previously stated his preference for Aitzaz Ahsan as prime minister--apparently is happy to back Zardari for now.
PPP sources...feel confident that the signing of the March 9 historic Bhurban Accord by Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari has not only given a phenomenal boost to the stature of both leaders but it has also helped the latter have firm control over his party facing threats of division.
Not only that the Amin Fahim factor has been controlled significantly but external efforts to create a rift in the party have also faced a serious dent. “Now Asif Ali Zardari is in a comfortable position to name anyone for the office of prime minister,” a party source said, adding even if he himself wants to become the prime minister he would enjoy smooth sailing. [emph. added]
I wonder if publicly humiliating a PPP elder for the sake of a crude, barely disguised power play is going to boost Zardari's stature a great deal.
Clearly, Zardari doesn't care what he does to the PPP as long as he can enter the promised land of the prime ministership and use its good offices to consolidate his personal power and influence.
Heckuva job, Asif.
Zardari, having done a good job of alienating the PPP leadership, can’t afford to have Nawaz Sharif and Aitzaz Ahsan’s hands against him as well--for now.
The next question will be whether Zardari acts on his ostentatious contempt for the judges and tries to undercut Aitzaz Ahsan, whose personal popularity and claims to moral leadership both inside and outside the PPP easily eclipse Zardari's.
Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif, although he must believe he is the ultimate target of Zardari's machinations, must be smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary as he contemplates Zardari’s personal vulnerability and his dependence on the relationship with the PML-N.
Zardari's political weakness, paradoxically, made it possible for him to heed Pakistan’s popular will and defy the United States.
Zardari might make it through the next few months and perhaps even make it into the prime ministership or the presidency with Sharif’s help.
Or he might renege on his promise about the judges, provoking Sharif to pull out of the coalition and bringing down the government.
Or he might try to neutralize Sharif through a political, administrative, or judicial vendetta that destroys Pakistan's short-lived civilian polity.
But, given Zardari’s shortcomings of leadership and character, the February 18 elections might well turn out to be the last high-water mark of the Bhutto dynasty in the PPP, as well as in Pakistani politics.
It’s not Musharraf, or the United States...though they’ve been doing their best.
They key factor has been the ambition of PPP co-chairman (and widow of Benazir Bhutto) Asif Zardari.
Zardari has been scheming feverishly to assert control over a PPP hierarchy that despises him so he can claim the prime minister post—and the independent reserves of power and influence that office will provide him.
Zardari's evolving power struggle with PPP elder Amin Makhmood Famin appear to have played a significant role in dictating the terms and timing of the PPP's March 9 joint announcement with Nawaz Sharif's PML-N.
China Matters sees trouble ahead for any political force that Zardari feels can eclipse him—such as the lawyers’ leader Aitzaz Ahsan or the PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif.
China Matters also sees problems for Pakistan, as Zardari’s personal weakness and opportunism encourage foreign manipulation of Pakistan’s fragile and threatened democracy.
There is one thing that should never be underestimated in Pakistani politics.
The opportunism, mendacity, and hamfistedness of Bhutto widower and PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari.
OK, that’s three things.
Three things that Pakistan's enemies, allies, and interested parties from Islamabad to Washington, Beijing, Riyadh, and New Delhi will all be keen to observe and exploit as Zardari extends his control over the PPP.
Here’s Time Magazine reporting on the historic coalition pact between Zardari’s PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N:
Zardari agreed that the new parliament would pass a resolution within 30 days of convening to reinstate dozens of judges fired by Musharraf after he declared emergency rule on Nov. 3.
The leaders agreed that the judiciary would be restored "as it was on Nov. 2," suggesting that ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would return to his post.
But Zardari muddied the issue by saying that the current justices would not be "disturbed."
"I think we'll have to take a...stance on this whereby we have a collective wisdom and accommodate everybody," Zardari said.
Zardari’s main problem is that he is profoundly uncharismatic man trying to exercise charismatic control over a mature, energized party that craves competent, democratic leadership instead.
Given the opportunity to rally the troops during a speech to the newly-elected PPP Members of the National Assembly, Zardari managed to avoid every issue of importance—such as the question of who was going to be prime minister—for a cringe-inducing session of Who’s Your Daddy?
The session included the public belittling of a party stalwart who had once neglected to give the PPP’s current jefe his proper due.
Bring on the Chair of Shame!
Zardari’s entire speech, the participant said, revolved around him and how he felt alone in the prison when none of the PPP colleagues came to visit him in the prison.
At one stage, the PPP chief called Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar from the back row and asked him to be seated in the front. A chair was brought especially for him.
Zardari narrated a minor incident which took place in one of the trial courts during hearing. He said he had asked Mukhtar whether he has come to see him but Mukhtar replied that he was here to meet his leader Benazir Bhutto.
When a few years later Mukhtar was jailed, Zardari asked him who is his leader now. “You,” he replied.
The participants were surprised to hear this and several other small stories, which Zardari told them.
A senior party leader told this correspondent that Mukhtar was one of the most vocal opponents of Zardari when he was the PPP secretary-general. He openly criticised Zardari for bringing down the PPP government in 1996 due to his shenanigans.
It is quite probable that this touching scene was choreographed by Zardari and Mukhtar in advance to symbolize that the proud and disdainful PPP hierarchy was being brought to the heel of Zardari, once despised as a corrupt and feckless interloper.
The Western press has extensively reported that Zardari finally endorsed PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif’s demand that the pre-November 3 judiciary be restored.
This is bad news for Musharraf.
He had deposed Pakistan’s Supreme Court because he suspected that they were poised to disallow his re-election as president (Musharraf defied the constitution by standing while still in uniform).
The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has been under house arrest since November. Musharraf went the extra mile by denouncing Chaudhry as the “scum of the earth”.
If the pre-November 3 Supreme Court goes back to work, there’s no reason to believe they’ll be interested in bending their interpretation of the constitution for Musharraf’s sake.
Musharraf is currently huddling with his advisors and deciding exactly how to convince the United States that an ex-military officer with popularity under 20% who has fomented a political and constitutional crisis is the only person to lead Pakistan’s democratic society and professional military--even when the ruling coalition is prepared to openly move against him and the armed forces appear to be safely in the capable hands of Army Chief of Staff Kiyani.
When one looks at the numbers—and the disposition of political forces inside Pakistan—it’s hard to understand why it took Zardari a month to figure out he should back the judges.
The Terror Free Tomorrow foundation did a poll just before the elections. It called the vote within the margin of error. So its numbers are pretty good.
Here’s what it said about Chaudhry vs. Musharraf.
Musharraf’s favorable rating: 30%; unfavorable 62%.
Chaudhry’s favorable: 61% unfavorable 20%
At the time of the poll, 70% of respondents wanted Musharraf to resign.
24% said they would vote for a party led by Iftikhar Chaudhry. Even though he was a) under house arrest b) had no party c) had never stated any intention of starting a party.
To hammer the point home:
Musharraf is extremely unpopular.
His continued efforts to cling to power are the leading cause of political instability inside Pakistan.
The pre-November 3 judiciary is widely respected.
Restoring the judiciary and allowing it to rule on Musharraf’s presidency is the clearest and most logical way to a) get rid of a profoundly unpopular politician b) return Pakistan to constitutional and civilian government c) create a civilian political regime with broad popular support.
The only reason that this supremely logical and popular move hasn’t occurred already is because of Asif Zardari.
Zardari, in his own way, epitomizes the rot at the heart of the PPP just as Musharraf symbolizes the rot at the heart of the Pakistani government.
Both of them distort the political process in order to preserve their positions and advance their interests.
Difference is, of course, Musharraf may very well be on his way out.
Zardari, on the other hand, isn’t going anywhere—except, quite possibly, the prime minister's office or even the presidential palace.
Formation of the ruling coalition in the National Assembly has been held up for several weeks because of Zardari’s maneuvering.
On the one hand Nawaz Sharif refused to bring his PML-N into the coalition unless Zardari agreed to call for restoration of the judiciary.
Conceding this point to Sharif was virtually inevitable. Sharif wasn’t going to back down—restoration of the judiciary, in addition to being wildly popular, is at the core of the PML-N platform and its new, progressive political identity.
If the PPP entered the government with Musharraf and the new hack judiciary with the PML-N on the outside of the tent pissing in, the PPP wouldn’t just be unpopular. It would be in a weak government vulnerable to dissolution of parliament and a new election--and at the mercy of the PML-N at the next poll.
On the other hand, there was the United States, which had engineered Benazir Bhutto’s return so that the PPP would cohabit with Musharraf and provide a popular foundation for his presidency. The U.S. was adamantly opposed to a coalition with the PML-N on Sharif’s terms, since restoration of the judiciary would clearly lead to Musharraf’s downfall.
Zardari spend a month anxiously vacillating between the priorities of his patron and the demands of his powerful coalition partner.
The media reported that Zardari was lukewarm on the issue of the judges because he had just used the post-November 3 judiciary to get his corruption cases thrown out and didn’t want to risk a return to legal jeopardy.
Even Zardari did not hide his emotions against the judges...He explained to journalists that he was against the restoration of those judges as these very people were sitting in courts when he, along with his spouse, was being hounded and wronged in jail and put on trial....
Zardari was told that it was not an ordinary show of bravery, defiance and commitment shown by these 60 honourable judges, who had preferred to get themselves jobless and go to jails instead of falling in line as Musharraf wanted them.
But Zardari was not convinced with the logic as he had only one thing on his mind: why was he not given justice by these judges? Sources said similar concerns of the PPP were conveyed to the PML-N...
The Nawaz camp is said to have developed a strong belief that if ministers and civil servants were not doing their duty, then courts should have the legal right to intervene and provide justice to the downtrodden people... But, sources said, this logic and reasoning had little impact on the mind of Zardari.
These remarks provide a window on Zardari’s reflexive sense of victimhood, entitlement, and hurt pride—and his solipsistic conflation of the party and himself--honed during the years when his corruption and poor judgment were blamed for the collapse of the PPP’s fortunes.
But as a policy position, I don’t buy it. I think Zardari was looking for excuses to justify his vacillation on the issue of the judges and avoid antagonizing the United States. (I think Zardari's hostility to the judges also reflects his jealousy of the lawyers' movement as an independent font of power and legitimacy, and reveals his willingness and intent to move against it if and when it appears vulnerable--CH 3/11/08)
Finally, he jumped to Sharif’s side, with an apologetic wink (hey, we’ll accommodate everybody!) to the United States.
Doubtless the precipitating factor was the unremitting militancy of the lawyer’s movement. The lawyers promised a Black Flag week of marches and confrontation to commemorate the anniversary of Musharraf’s first move against the judiciary.
The lawyers’ movement is led by Aitzaz Ahsan, head of the Supreme Court Bar Association, who is also one of the most renowned and respected members of the PPP.
Zardari recognized that the PPP’s political future was grim if he got on the wrong side of Nawaz Sharif, Aitzaz Ahsan, and the lawyers’ movement.
And his personal political future would be bleak as well.
Because Zardari has managed to antagonize many of the cadres inside the PPP during his protracted and divisive effort to assert control over the party after the election.
After the triumph in the February elections, the consensus choice of the PPP elders for prime minister was Benzair Bhutto’s second-in-command, the respected Amin Makhood Fahim.
Zardari promptly muddied the waters by initiating a whispering campaign against Fahim, encouraging some of his cronies to throw their hat in the ring, moving to stack the PPP’s Central Executive Committee (which might have been responsible for the choice under normal party rules), and then threatening to end-around the CEC by choosing the PM in consultation with the newly elective National Assembly members instead.
Zardari’s clumsy attempts to orchestrate the selection of the prime minister brought his leadership—bestowed by Benazir Bhutto’s will instead of a party democratic process—into question:
From The News:
ISLAMABAD: Delay in naming the prime minister by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is sickening for a predominant majority of its MNAs-elect and testing their patience level."We were never in such a state of indecisiveness, in such a spin," one of them remarked to The News.
...
"I don't know what fear Zardari has in his mind in declaring Amin Fahim as the PPP nominee when the Makhdoom's loyalty to the party has been undoubted. He should come out of his hangover of being inferior to Amin Fahim spiritually in Sindh," said one of them.
Zardari’s stated motives rang alarm bells.
Zardari let it be known that he wanted a PPP man from Punjab to hold the prime minister’s job—despite the fact that the PPP’s base and much of its leadership, including Fahim, is in Sindh.
Of course, one reason for the Punjab qualification might simply be to disqualify Fahim.
But one report speculated that Zardari wanted to be prime minister (first he needs to win Benazir Bhutto’s empty seat in a soon-to-be-held by-election) and that he made the calculation that creating a conflict between four competitors would make it possible for him to leapfrog over Fahim and the others in three months’ time.
Zardari had told the Sindhi MNAs for the first time since the race for the slot of the prime minister started that in the first three months, he had decided to bring a prime minister from the Punjab....
Zardari said he understood that the people were strongly talking in Sindh that the prime ministerial slot was their right. Keeping their aspirations in view, Zardari said he had decided to first bring a prime minister from the Punjab for only three months and then he would elevate himself to the post.
As the News pointed out, this was Zardari’s third U-turn on the issue of the prime ministership in 60 days—hardly an inspiring performance.
Another theory was that Zardari, a Sindhi, covets the presidency and feels it wouldn’t be acceptable to have both top spots of PM and president held by a Sindhi.
In any case, Fahim was furious, called in a reporter from The News, and unburdened himself in an interview entitled “I am being humiliated, betrayed” .
Maybe Zardari hadn’t foreseen this virtually inevitable eventuality.
From The News :
Zardari, they claimed, read Fahim's interview with a sense of “disbelief”.
The PPP leaders believe that if the diehard loyalist from Sindh is ignored, as indications have started becoming clearer, the party might face an immediate split, as Fahim did not seem to be in a mood to give up so easily, at least this time.
But actually it looks like Zardari went out of his way to provoke Fahim so that he could have a pretext to ostracize a respected and established rival high inside the PPP.
When Zardari and Sharif announced their coalition agreement on Sunday, Fahim was conspicuous by his absence—apparently because Zardari decided to freeze him out of the discussions and failed to notify him of the meeting .
Nawaz Sharif exploited the fissure between Zardari and Fahim to denounce Fahim and put himself forward as the protector...of Asif Zardari, his political rival! as the story entitled Sharif assures Zardari of support to foil plots makes clear.
It looks like Zardari has exploited Sharif’s muscle to keep him in the PPP’s driver seat.
And Sharif--who previously stated his preference for Aitzaz Ahsan as prime minister--apparently is happy to back Zardari for now.
PPP sources...feel confident that the signing of the March 9 historic Bhurban Accord by Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari has not only given a phenomenal boost to the stature of both leaders but it has also helped the latter have firm control over his party facing threats of division.
Not only that the Amin Fahim factor has been controlled significantly but external efforts to create a rift in the party have also faced a serious dent. “Now Asif Ali Zardari is in a comfortable position to name anyone for the office of prime minister,” a party source said, adding even if he himself wants to become the prime minister he would enjoy smooth sailing. [emph. added]
I wonder if publicly humiliating a PPP elder for the sake of a crude, barely disguised power play is going to boost Zardari's stature a great deal.
Clearly, Zardari doesn't care what he does to the PPP as long as he can enter the promised land of the prime ministership and use its good offices to consolidate his personal power and influence.
Heckuva job, Asif.
Zardari, having done a good job of alienating the PPP leadership, can’t afford to have Nawaz Sharif and Aitzaz Ahsan’s hands against him as well--for now.
The next question will be whether Zardari acts on his ostentatious contempt for the judges and tries to undercut Aitzaz Ahsan, whose personal popularity and claims to moral leadership both inside and outside the PPP easily eclipse Zardari's.
Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif, although he must believe he is the ultimate target of Zardari's machinations, must be smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary as he contemplates Zardari’s personal vulnerability and his dependence on the relationship with the PML-N.
Zardari's political weakness, paradoxically, made it possible for him to heed Pakistan’s popular will and defy the United States.
Zardari might make it through the next few months and perhaps even make it into the prime ministership or the presidency with Sharif’s help.
Or he might renege on his promise about the judges, provoking Sharif to pull out of the coalition and bringing down the government.
Or he might try to neutralize Sharif through a political, administrative, or judicial vendetta that destroys Pakistan's short-lived civilian polity.
But, given Zardari’s shortcomings of leadership and character, the February 18 elections might well turn out to be the last high-water mark of the Bhutto dynasty in the PPP, as well as in Pakistani politics.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Pakistan Politics: Zardari Deals While Washington Fumes
Pakistan’s two main opposition parties, the PPP and the PML-N, have agreed to form a coalition government.
The fate of the judiciary and Musharraf have not been clearly addressed, so it’s not clear if this is a lasting coalition or a superficial and tactical alliance.
But simply the fact that Asif Zardari and the PPP have announced a coalition with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N—an arrangement that is wildly popular within Pakistan but is detested by the United States—is a sign that the PPP has slipped the leash from the United States and our desperate plan to ensure Pervez Musharraf’s survival as president of Pakistan through an alliance with the PPP is about to come to naught.
Asif Zardari might well be turning his back on the bargain Washington made with Benazir Bhutto—our backing in return for her promise to enter a coalition with Musharraf —that brought his wife back to Pakistan and vaulted him to political power.
Maybe Zardari decided to screw Washington instead of Pakistan.
If so, good for him!
No doubt the Bush administration is angrily muttering Sellout! under its breath and envisioning a cavalcade of political catastrophes in the train of the coalition with the PML-N, starting with support of the lawyers’ movement and ending with the resignation of Musharraf.
Hardliners in the White House are probably also muttering Heckuva job, Zalmay! to U.N. Ambassador Khalilzad and the collection of geopolitical geniuses in the State Department who thought that returning Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan would strengthen Musharraf.
According to The News :
Nawaz Sharif maintained that there is no difference in the two parties on the restoration of the deposed judges.“We accept the mandate of PPP with an open heart and wish that PPP complete its five year term,” he said, adding, “struggle for restoration of judiciary will continue and CoD [Charter of Democracy] will also be followed.”
PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Zardari said PPP and PML-N have decided to work together for democracy. However, he said, some of the matter are yet to be decided by the parties.
It would surprise me if the PML-N continues in the coalition if Musharraf remains in the presidency and the pre-November 3 judiciary is not restored, especially in the light of news reports like this :
Mr Sharif informed the CWC [PML-N Central Working Committee] and newly-elected MNAs [Members of the National Assembly] that reinstatement of judges of superior courts was a cornerstone of the party’s policy and there would be no compromise on the issue.
... the party had adopted a unanimous resolution, asking President Gen (retd) Pervez Mushararf to step down. The resolution said that President Musharraf had himself announced that he would resign from the office if his popularity went down. He said the party believed that after the Feb 18 elections, it was time for President Musharraf to quit because that was also in the best interest of the nation.
As I previously argued, Sharif’s positions on the judges and Musharraf don’t stem from his desire for revenge against Musharraf, as the Western media sometimes lazily assumes.
Championing democracy, independence of the judiciary, and civilian rule are the cornerstones of Sharif’s efforts to recreate the PML-N as a national electoral powerhouse rivaling the PPP by focusing on issues that resonate with Pakistan’s educated , affluent, and influential classes nationwide.
Sharif is unlikely to squander the considerable political capital he has accumulated over the last three months—and led to the PML-N’s impressive showing in the February 18 elections—by abandoning his demands that the judiciary be restored and Musharraf go.
Especially since the lawyers’ movement, emboldened by the elections, are loudly demanding restoration of the deposed Supreme Court justices and promising to intensify their activities if the purportedly pro-law and pro-democracy parties threaten to cave to Musharraf’s blandishments and U.S. pressure on the issue.
Somebody smuggled a cell phone to deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (he’s still under house arrest) and he used it for a remote address to a chanting crowd of lawyers from Dawn) :
“The Constitution was amended and emergency was imposed to perpetuate the one-man rule and no subsequent measure could validate them. History would not forgive us if we do not restore the rule of law,” he warned.
Speaking on the occasion, SHCBA president Rasheed A. Razvi said the lawyers would continue their struggle irrespective of any support extended by political parties. He said no political party was in the field when they had started the campaign on March 9, 2007. A majority of parties and, in fact, the entire civil society gathered behind them in due course because they (the lawyers) were fighting for a worthy cause.[emph. added]
Note, by the way, the complete absence of deference to the PPP and the PML-N.
The lawyers started the protest movement against Musharraf early in 2007 and the opposition parties jumped on the bandwagon in order to make political hay going into the elections.
The lawyers’ movement is a constituency that Zardari and Sharif can’t control and, if they don’t support demands to reinstate the judiciary, they can’t accommodate it.
And once the pre-November 3 judiciary is restored, then Musharraf’s continued participation in Pakistan’s political life becomes basically untenable.
Not just because the reconstituted Supreme Court would undoubtedly rule favorably and with alacrity on the lawsuit challenging the validity of Musharraf’s election to the presidency—the threat that Musharraf tried to pre-empt with his imposition of the State of Emergency in the first place--and effect his political demise within a short period of time.
The risks for Musharraf go beyond losing the presidency.
Musharraf’s actions since November 3 are an absolute mare’s nest of illegality and contradiction (a radio interview with Ali Ahsan, son of the leader of the lawyers’ movement, Aitzaz Ahsan, provides an excellent overview of the background and significance of the lawyers’ movement in Pakistani politics).
Musharraf declared a State of Emergency not only to avoid invalidation by the Supreme Court of his election as president. He tried to make his legal position unassailable by a series of hasty, ill-conceived, and clumsily executed constitutional and legal maneuvers.
He removed the justices, detained them—they are still under house arrest—and installed a new slate of justices, some of them eager hacks and some apparently recruited under duress by the intelligence services, without any confirmation process and had them swear an ad hoc oath promising not to challenge his rule or his actions taken under the State of Emergency.
Then the faux Supreme Court obligingly dismissed the case challenging his election without a hearing and validated Musharraf’s presidency.
For good measure, Musharraf then exploited the extra-legal latitude he had extracted from the new court to amend the constitution, removing the right to declare martial law from the army and giving it to the president.
So the lawyers’ movement is not just a matter of giving the real Supreme Court justices their jobs back and then maybe negotiating some national unity deal that lets Musharraf keep the presidency.
Once the restored Supreme Court starts rolling, it will inevitably want to go beyond the election ruling and unwind a set of unconstitutional declarations and actions that corrupted the independence of the judiciary and placed excessive and dangerous powers into the hands of the president.
That would place Musharraf in legal jeopardy beyond simply the loss of his office.
We’re talking criminal charges, possible impeachment, or at the very least a series of negotiations on immunity/amnesty and what kind of governmental role and functions are still permissible for such a profoundly compromised, unpopular, and distrusted president.
It is difficult to see why anyone would want to go through this traumatic and dangerous process (despite his two months’ experience in civilian life, Musharraf is an army man and has stocked the upper ranks with his creatures), driven by an angered and empowered lawyers’ movement, instead of making joint cause among the political parties to remove Musharraf asap and with a minimum of fuss.
Defying the lawyers and keeping in place Musharraf while trying to deal with the extra-legal incubus created by the State of Emergency at the heart of Pakistan’s government is an excessively high price for the PPP to pay for coddling Musharraf or appeasing the United States.
Especially since the lawyers have announced their plans for mass marches and rallies starting March 7 demanding the restoration of the judiciary.
I don’t think that the PPP wants to start its new and improved democratic administration by showcasing the Pakistani contribution to the lexicon of non-lethal force—the laathi charge—to club lawyers in the main square in Islamabad.
Therefore, I think Asif Zardari decided to let the PML-N into the coalition on Sharif’s terms—i.e. by accepting, at least for now, the PML-N’s uncompromising stance on the judges and, by extension, the removal of Musharraf.
In other words, instead of holding firm on the issue of Musharraf’s survival—the thing that apparently still matters most to the United States--Zardari blinked.
A more charitable and accurate interpretation of events is that Zardari is trying to bend U.S. support to Pakistani political realities.
Maybe he’ll even try to persuade Washington to abandon its support of Musharraf.
That’s perhaps the assurance he gave to Sharif in order to bring the PML-N into the coalition.
Jim Lobe has written an article on the the newly vocal and growing Mush Must Go chorus in the U.S. foreign policy sphere.
For the first time, that chorus includes the PPP.
Lobe reported that Hussein Haqqani, the PPP’s flack-in-residence at Boston University, its spokesman to Capitol Hill, and designated quotemeister to the U.S. media, unveiled the current party position in the Wall Street Journal:
The newspaper also published a column by Hussein Haqqani - an adviser to the late PPP leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - demanding that Musharraf "work out an honorable exit or a workable compromise with the opposition."
That, to me, is a clear sign that the PPP wants to abandon its promise to work with Musharraf and call for his ouster instead--even if Asif Zardari is still cautiously hesitating to make an overt demand inside Pakistan for Musharraf to stand down.
The PPP wants to swim with the political tide in Pakistan instead of bending to pressure from Washington.
So it has rejected Washington’s Three No policy—no reform of the judiciary, no resignation of Musharraf, and no alliance with the PML-N.
And now it's that close to being all over for Musharraf and the United States, and the curtain will ring down on America's disastrous foray into Pakistani politics.
The News reported:
ISLAMABAD: The United States has now decided to respect the wishes of Pakistani voters and has finally given a go-ahead to the two main winners to resolve all the issues according to the wishes of their voters, including the issue of the deposed Supreme Court judges. US diplomats, who met some top leaders of PPP and PML-N in the last two days, have conveyed the view that the restoration of the deposed judges was an internal issue of Pakistan and the US would not interfere in any internal political or legal issue. ...
Observers said it was clear that the Zardari-Nawaz alliance announced on Thursday night had forced the US to change its position on supporting Musharraf, who had announced a few days ago that restoration of the judges was not possible.
The last line of the article gives an idea of what Nawaz Sharif brings to the coalition, and who the geopolitical winner might be here. Hint: it's not the United States:
Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari will soon meet again and discuss about a joint meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They will request Saudi Arabia to help in stabilising the oil prices for two to three years so that the new elected government could have some relief.
image of police officers with laathi sticks from http://pakistaniat.com/
image of laathi charge from http://www.paktribune.com/
The fate of the judiciary and Musharraf have not been clearly addressed, so it’s not clear if this is a lasting coalition or a superficial and tactical alliance.
But simply the fact that Asif Zardari and the PPP have announced a coalition with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N—an arrangement that is wildly popular within Pakistan but is detested by the United States—is a sign that the PPP has slipped the leash from the United States and our desperate plan to ensure Pervez Musharraf’s survival as president of Pakistan through an alliance with the PPP is about to come to naught.
Asif Zardari might well be turning his back on the bargain Washington made with Benazir Bhutto—our backing in return for her promise to enter a coalition with Musharraf —that brought his wife back to Pakistan and vaulted him to political power.
Maybe Zardari decided to screw Washington instead of Pakistan.
If so, good for him!
No doubt the Bush administration is angrily muttering Sellout! under its breath and envisioning a cavalcade of political catastrophes in the train of the coalition with the PML-N, starting with support of the lawyers’ movement and ending with the resignation of Musharraf.
Hardliners in the White House are probably also muttering Heckuva job, Zalmay! to U.N. Ambassador Khalilzad and the collection of geopolitical geniuses in the State Department who thought that returning Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan would strengthen Musharraf.
According to The News :
Nawaz Sharif maintained that there is no difference in the two parties on the restoration of the deposed judges.“We accept the mandate of PPP with an open heart and wish that PPP complete its five year term,” he said, adding, “struggle for restoration of judiciary will continue and CoD [Charter of Democracy] will also be followed.”
PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Zardari said PPP and PML-N have decided to work together for democracy. However, he said, some of the matter are yet to be decided by the parties.
It would surprise me if the PML-N continues in the coalition if Musharraf remains in the presidency and the pre-November 3 judiciary is not restored, especially in the light of news reports like this :
Mr Sharif informed the CWC [PML-N Central Working Committee] and newly-elected MNAs [Members of the National Assembly] that reinstatement of judges of superior courts was a cornerstone of the party’s policy and there would be no compromise on the issue.
... the party had adopted a unanimous resolution, asking President Gen (retd) Pervez Mushararf to step down. The resolution said that President Musharraf had himself announced that he would resign from the office if his popularity went down. He said the party believed that after the Feb 18 elections, it was time for President Musharraf to quit because that was also in the best interest of the nation.
As I previously argued, Sharif’s positions on the judges and Musharraf don’t stem from his desire for revenge against Musharraf, as the Western media sometimes lazily assumes.
Championing democracy, independence of the judiciary, and civilian rule are the cornerstones of Sharif’s efforts to recreate the PML-N as a national electoral powerhouse rivaling the PPP by focusing on issues that resonate with Pakistan’s educated , affluent, and influential classes nationwide.
Sharif is unlikely to squander the considerable political capital he has accumulated over the last three months—and led to the PML-N’s impressive showing in the February 18 elections—by abandoning his demands that the judiciary be restored and Musharraf go.
Especially since the lawyers’ movement, emboldened by the elections, are loudly demanding restoration of the deposed Supreme Court justices and promising to intensify their activities if the purportedly pro-law and pro-democracy parties threaten to cave to Musharraf’s blandishments and U.S. pressure on the issue.
Somebody smuggled a cell phone to deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (he’s still under house arrest) and he used it for a remote address to a chanting crowd of lawyers from Dawn) :
“The Constitution was amended and emergency was imposed to perpetuate the one-man rule and no subsequent measure could validate them. History would not forgive us if we do not restore the rule of law,” he warned.
Speaking on the occasion, SHCBA president Rasheed A. Razvi said the lawyers would continue their struggle irrespective of any support extended by political parties. He said no political party was in the field when they had started the campaign on March 9, 2007. A majority of parties and, in fact, the entire civil society gathered behind them in due course because they (the lawyers) were fighting for a worthy cause.[emph. added]
Note, by the way, the complete absence of deference to the PPP and the PML-N.
The lawyers started the protest movement against Musharraf early in 2007 and the opposition parties jumped on the bandwagon in order to make political hay going into the elections.
The lawyers’ movement is a constituency that Zardari and Sharif can’t control and, if they don’t support demands to reinstate the judiciary, they can’t accommodate it.
And once the pre-November 3 judiciary is restored, then Musharraf’s continued participation in Pakistan’s political life becomes basically untenable.
Not just because the reconstituted Supreme Court would undoubtedly rule favorably and with alacrity on the lawsuit challenging the validity of Musharraf’s election to the presidency—the threat that Musharraf tried to pre-empt with his imposition of the State of Emergency in the first place--and effect his political demise within a short period of time.
The risks for Musharraf go beyond losing the presidency.
Musharraf’s actions since November 3 are an absolute mare’s nest of illegality and contradiction (a radio interview with Ali Ahsan, son of the leader of the lawyers’ movement, Aitzaz Ahsan, provides an excellent overview of the background and significance of the lawyers’ movement in Pakistani politics).
Musharraf declared a State of Emergency not only to avoid invalidation by the Supreme Court of his election as president. He tried to make his legal position unassailable by a series of hasty, ill-conceived, and clumsily executed constitutional and legal maneuvers.
He removed the justices, detained them—they are still under house arrest—and installed a new slate of justices, some of them eager hacks and some apparently recruited under duress by the intelligence services, without any confirmation process and had them swear an ad hoc oath promising not to challenge his rule or his actions taken under the State of Emergency.
Then the faux Supreme Court obligingly dismissed the case challenging his election without a hearing and validated Musharraf’s presidency.
For good measure, Musharraf then exploited the extra-legal latitude he had extracted from the new court to amend the constitution, removing the right to declare martial law from the army and giving it to the president.
So the lawyers’ movement is not just a matter of giving the real Supreme Court justices their jobs back and then maybe negotiating some national unity deal that lets Musharraf keep the presidency.
Once the restored Supreme Court starts rolling, it will inevitably want to go beyond the election ruling and unwind a set of unconstitutional declarations and actions that corrupted the independence of the judiciary and placed excessive and dangerous powers into the hands of the president.
That would place Musharraf in legal jeopardy beyond simply the loss of his office.
We’re talking criminal charges, possible impeachment, or at the very least a series of negotiations on immunity/amnesty and what kind of governmental role and functions are still permissible for such a profoundly compromised, unpopular, and distrusted president.
It is difficult to see why anyone would want to go through this traumatic and dangerous process (despite his two months’ experience in civilian life, Musharraf is an army man and has stocked the upper ranks with his creatures), driven by an angered and empowered lawyers’ movement, instead of making joint cause among the political parties to remove Musharraf asap and with a minimum of fuss.
Defying the lawyers and keeping in place Musharraf while trying to deal with the extra-legal incubus created by the State of Emergency at the heart of Pakistan’s government is an excessively high price for the PPP to pay for coddling Musharraf or appeasing the United States.
Especially since the lawyers have announced their plans for mass marches and rallies starting March 7 demanding the restoration of the judiciary.
I don’t think that the PPP wants to start its new and improved democratic administration by showcasing the Pakistani contribution to the lexicon of non-lethal force—the laathi charge—to club lawyers in the main square in Islamabad.
Therefore, I think Asif Zardari decided to let the PML-N into the coalition on Sharif’s terms—i.e. by accepting, at least for now, the PML-N’s uncompromising stance on the judges and, by extension, the removal of Musharraf.
In other words, instead of holding firm on the issue of Musharraf’s survival—the thing that apparently still matters most to the United States--Zardari blinked.
A more charitable and accurate interpretation of events is that Zardari is trying to bend U.S. support to Pakistani political realities.
Maybe he’ll even try to persuade Washington to abandon its support of Musharraf.
That’s perhaps the assurance he gave to Sharif in order to bring the PML-N into the coalition.
Jim Lobe has written an article on the the newly vocal and growing Mush Must Go chorus in the U.S. foreign policy sphere.
For the first time, that chorus includes the PPP.
Lobe reported that Hussein Haqqani, the PPP’s flack-in-residence at Boston University, its spokesman to Capitol Hill, and designated quotemeister to the U.S. media, unveiled the current party position in the Wall Street Journal:
The newspaper also published a column by Hussein Haqqani - an adviser to the late PPP leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - demanding that Musharraf "work out an honorable exit or a workable compromise with the opposition."
That, to me, is a clear sign that the PPP wants to abandon its promise to work with Musharraf and call for his ouster instead--even if Asif Zardari is still cautiously hesitating to make an overt demand inside Pakistan for Musharraf to stand down.
The PPP wants to swim with the political tide in Pakistan instead of bending to pressure from Washington.
So it has rejected Washington’s Three No policy—no reform of the judiciary, no resignation of Musharraf, and no alliance with the PML-N.
And now it's that close to being all over for Musharraf and the United States, and the curtain will ring down on America's disastrous foray into Pakistani politics.
The News reported:
ISLAMABAD: The United States has now decided to respect the wishes of Pakistani voters and has finally given a go-ahead to the two main winners to resolve all the issues according to the wishes of their voters, including the issue of the deposed Supreme Court judges. US diplomats, who met some top leaders of PPP and PML-N in the last two days, have conveyed the view that the restoration of the deposed judges was an internal issue of Pakistan and the US would not interfere in any internal political or legal issue. ...
Observers said it was clear that the Zardari-Nawaz alliance announced on Thursday night had forced the US to change its position on supporting Musharraf, who had announced a few days ago that restoration of the judges was not possible.
The last line of the article gives an idea of what Nawaz Sharif brings to the coalition, and who the geopolitical winner might be here. Hint: it's not the United States:
Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari will soon meet again and discuss about a joint meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They will request Saudi Arabia to help in stabilising the oil prices for two to three years so that the new elected government could have some relief.
image of police officers with laathi sticks from http://pakistaniat.com/
image of laathi charge from http://www.paktribune.com/
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Pakistan: It’s Not Over Yet
Update to the Update:
I see from Jim Lobe that Hussein Haqqani, the PPP’s flack-in-residence at Boston University, its spokesman to Capitol Hill, and designated quotemeister to the U.S. media, unveiled the current party position in the Wall Street Journal:
The newspaper also published a column by Hussein Haqqani - an adviser to the late PPP leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - demanding that Musharraf "work out an honorable exit or a workable compromise with the opposition."
That, to me, is a sign that the PPP wants to abandon its promise to work with Musharraf and accommodate the PML-N by calling for his ouster instead, even if Haqqan and Zardari are cautiously hesitating to make an categorical demand for Musharraf to stand down while the Bush administration is still committed to supporting Musharraf.
The PPP wants to swim with the political tide in Pakistan instead of bending to pressure from Washington.
So it is moving to reject Washington’s Three No policy—no reform of the judiciary, no resignation of Musharraf, and no alliance with the PML-N.
And Asif Zardari wants to turn his back on the bargain Washington made with Benazir Bhutto—our backing in return for her promise to enter a coalition with Musharraf —that brought his wife back to Pakistan and vaulted him to political power.
So it looks like Zardari decided to screw Washington instead of Pakistan.
If so, good for him!
Lobe’s article also has a good roundup of the newly vocal and growing Mush Must Go chorus in the U.S. foreign policy sphere.
Update:
Pakistan’s The News reports that the PPP and the PML-N have agreed to form a coalition government.
The fate of the judiciary and Musharraf have not been clearly addressed, so it’s not clear if this is a lasting coalition or a superficial and tactical alliance.
According to The News:
Nawaz Sharif maintained that there is no difference in the two parties on the restoration of the deposed judges.
“We accept the mandate of PPP with an open heart and wish that PPP complete its five year term,” he said, adding, “struggle for restoration of judiciary will continue and CoD [Charter of Democracy] will also be followed.”
PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Zardari said PPP and PML-N have decided to work together for democracy. However, he said, some of the matter are yet to be decided by the parties.
It would surprise me if the PML-N continues in the coalition if Musharraf remains in the presidency and the pre-November 3 judiciary is not restored.
It’s noteworthy that Asif Zardari and the PPP have taken a step away from the United States by pursuing a coalition with the PML-N.
It looks like Zardari is trying to bend U.S. support to Pakistani political realities.
Perhaps he’ll even try to persuade Washington to abandon its support of Musharraf.
Perhaps that's the assurance he gave to Sharif in order to bring the PML-N into the coalition.
And Sharif, afraid that he would be left standing on the sidelines if the PPP won the glory of driving Musharraf from office, cautiously decided to enter the coalition with the intention of opting out later if the PPP falters in its anti-Musharraf fervor.
Original post below
Nawaz Sharif sees no reason to follow Asif Zardari and the PPP into a dead end.
Sharif, leader of the opposition PML-N, is saying his demand that the pre-November 3 judiciary be restored—which would most likely directly lead to the invalidation of Musharraf’s presidential election—is non-negotiable.
With the provincial assemblies that vote on the president now dominated by the opposition (except in Balochistan, where Musharraf’s PML-Q managed to cling to the lead spot), any do-over of the presidential election would certainly lead to Musharraf’s departure.
Musharraf’s resignation is desired by about 75% of Pakistanis, according to the IRI poll.
An independent judiciary (close to but not quite “restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary”) was supported to 85% of respondents in the Terror Free Tomorrow (hereinafter TFT) poll .
One might be tempted to regard the PML-N’s uncompromising stance as posturing during the negotiations to form a coalition government.
But taking a junior position in a PPP-led coalition and, in effect, expending his political capital to help the PPP succeed in governing Pakistan doesn’t do a lot for Sharif.
Sharif has more to gain if he can gain control of Punjab province, where the PML-N won the plurality of seats, without having to kowtow to the PPP.
Given his party’s strong showing in the provincial elections held as part of the national assembly elections on February 18), where the PML-N won 102 Punjab seats to 77 for the PPP and 64 for the PML-Q, that goal might be in reach.
At the national level, Sharif has given every indication that a) he’s ready for a long-haul fight for power and b) he saw what Benazir Bhutto started to do with the PPP and wants to build a national, issue-oriented party and not just a Punjab powerhouse.
In this context, insisting on restoration of the judiciary isn’t a quixotic crusade or, as the US media misleadingly paints it, symptomatic of Sharif’s thirst for revenge against the guy who removed him from office in 1999.
It’s smart politics.
And as far as I can see, Nawaz Sharif is a pretty smart guy.
So I don’t expect him to abandon his confrontational stance.
And where does this leave Asif Zardari and the PPP?
Behind the political 8-ball.
The PPP is unwilling to insist on Musharraf’s ouster or the restoration of the judiciary.
Instead, it is exploring alternatives to the PML-N in alliances with the thuggish MQM (which controls Karachi) and those electoral remnants of the despised PML-Q who have supposedly been purified in the flames of the February 18 election and are worthy of admission into the PPP.
In other words, the PPP is sliding into alliance with Musharraf, the PML-Q, and the MQM: three of the least popular forces in Pakistani politics.
Excuse me.
I forgot the fourth and least popular force in Pakistan politics (20% according to TFT): the United States.
If the PPP compromises with Musharraf, the (completely accurate) rumblings of outrage that Asif Zardari sold out Pakistan for the sake of the secret PPP+Musharraf power sharing deal demanded by the United States will only increase.
Pardon me.
That puts the PPP on the wrong side of the fifth and even less popular issue (9% approval according to TFT) in Pakistan: supporting the US/Musharraf War on Terror military campaign against the al Qaeda, Taleban, and the Pashtuns in West Pakistan.
With the PPP ready to embrace this armful of political anvils, it doesn’t look like genius for the PML-N to hold back.
It looks like common sense.
If the PPP-led coalition allows Musharraf to stay in the presidency, doesn’t restore the pre-November 3 judiciary, and collapses into bickering and impotence, producing a hung parliament, then Musharraf can dissolve parliament and call for new elections, perhaps even a few months from now.
Then the PPP would be running on a platform of failure, ignoble compromise, and squandered sacrifice...against the PML-N, which dominates Punjab, with its share of over half of the seats in the National Assembly and has consolidated its position as leader of the national middle class with its popular stance on Musharraf and the judiciary.
The next salvo in Pakistan’s political battle may be March 7.
According to Dawn :
LAHORE, Feb 20: Supporters of Aitzaz Ahsan, the detained president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, defied police restrictions and carried him on their shoulders outside his Zaman Park residence.Talking to the media, Mr Ahsan reiterated his call for restoration of deposed judges by March 7. “Otherwise we will hold a long march and gather in Islamabad from all over the country,” he said.
He said lawyers would not settle for anything less than the reinstatement of deposed judges and they were ready to negotiate with all political parties for the purpose. “But I want to make one thing clear. That we have a one-point agenda: restoration of all deposed judges,” he added....He said the PPP could not ignore the issue of reviving the pre-emergency judiciary because Benazir Bhutto herself had declared Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as the “real” chief justice of Pakistan.
A Los Angeles Times profile gives an idea of Ahsan’s national stature:
A celebrated lawyer, Ahsan was shut away in jail and then in his home here for speaking out against Musharraf's six-week emergency rule late last year and for defending Pakistan's popular chief justice, whom the president had summarily dismissed.The crackdown on Ahsan turned this distinguished, articulate man into a national hero, a prisoner of conscience whose confinement, in the eyes of many, symbolized the arrogance and highhandedness of Musharraf's rule.
If you don’t think lawyer militancy and restoration of the judiciary aren’t potential minefields for the PPP, consider this:
Ahsan is not just one of the most popular and respected people in Pakistan.
He’s also a PPP politician whose name was floated as a possible consensus prime minister.
And three weeks from now he could be leading a protest march against a PPP-led coalition government.
Like I said, it’s not over yet.
I see from Jim Lobe that Hussein Haqqani, the PPP’s flack-in-residence at Boston University, its spokesman to Capitol Hill, and designated quotemeister to the U.S. media, unveiled the current party position in the Wall Street Journal:
The newspaper also published a column by Hussein Haqqani - an adviser to the late PPP leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - demanding that Musharraf "work out an honorable exit or a workable compromise with the opposition."
That, to me, is a sign that the PPP wants to abandon its promise to work with Musharraf and accommodate the PML-N by calling for his ouster instead, even if Haqqan and Zardari are cautiously hesitating to make an categorical demand for Musharraf to stand down while the Bush administration is still committed to supporting Musharraf.
The PPP wants to swim with the political tide in Pakistan instead of bending to pressure from Washington.
So it is moving to reject Washington’s Three No policy—no reform of the judiciary, no resignation of Musharraf, and no alliance with the PML-N.
And Asif Zardari wants to turn his back on the bargain Washington made with Benazir Bhutto—our backing in return for her promise to enter a coalition with Musharraf —that brought his wife back to Pakistan and vaulted him to political power.
So it looks like Zardari decided to screw Washington instead of Pakistan.
If so, good for him!
Lobe’s article also has a good roundup of the newly vocal and growing Mush Must Go chorus in the U.S. foreign policy sphere.
Update:
Pakistan’s The News reports that the PPP and the PML-N have agreed to form a coalition government.
The fate of the judiciary and Musharraf have not been clearly addressed, so it’s not clear if this is a lasting coalition or a superficial and tactical alliance.
According to The News:
Nawaz Sharif maintained that there is no difference in the two parties on the restoration of the deposed judges.
“We accept the mandate of PPP with an open heart and wish that PPP complete its five year term,” he said, adding, “struggle for restoration of judiciary will continue and CoD [Charter of Democracy] will also be followed.”
PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Zardari said PPP and PML-N have decided to work together for democracy. However, he said, some of the matter are yet to be decided by the parties.
It would surprise me if the PML-N continues in the coalition if Musharraf remains in the presidency and the pre-November 3 judiciary is not restored.
It’s noteworthy that Asif Zardari and the PPP have taken a step away from the United States by pursuing a coalition with the PML-N.
It looks like Zardari is trying to bend U.S. support to Pakistani political realities.
Perhaps he’ll even try to persuade Washington to abandon its support of Musharraf.
Perhaps that's the assurance he gave to Sharif in order to bring the PML-N into the coalition.
And Sharif, afraid that he would be left standing on the sidelines if the PPP won the glory of driving Musharraf from office, cautiously decided to enter the coalition with the intention of opting out later if the PPP falters in its anti-Musharraf fervor.
Original post below
Nawaz Sharif sees no reason to follow Asif Zardari and the PPP into a dead end.
Sharif, leader of the opposition PML-N, is saying his demand that the pre-November 3 judiciary be restored—which would most likely directly lead to the invalidation of Musharraf’s presidential election—is non-negotiable.
With the provincial assemblies that vote on the president now dominated by the opposition (except in Balochistan, where Musharraf’s PML-Q managed to cling to the lead spot), any do-over of the presidential election would certainly lead to Musharraf’s departure.
Musharraf’s resignation is desired by about 75% of Pakistanis, according to the IRI poll.
An independent judiciary (close to but not quite “restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary”) was supported to 85% of respondents in the Terror Free Tomorrow (hereinafter TFT) poll .
One might be tempted to regard the PML-N’s uncompromising stance as posturing during the negotiations to form a coalition government.
But taking a junior position in a PPP-led coalition and, in effect, expending his political capital to help the PPP succeed in governing Pakistan doesn’t do a lot for Sharif.
Sharif has more to gain if he can gain control of Punjab province, where the PML-N won the plurality of seats, without having to kowtow to the PPP.
Given his party’s strong showing in the provincial elections held as part of the national assembly elections on February 18), where the PML-N won 102 Punjab seats to 77 for the PPP and 64 for the PML-Q, that goal might be in reach.
At the national level, Sharif has given every indication that a) he’s ready for a long-haul fight for power and b) he saw what Benazir Bhutto started to do with the PPP and wants to build a national, issue-oriented party and not just a Punjab powerhouse.
In this context, insisting on restoration of the judiciary isn’t a quixotic crusade or, as the US media misleadingly paints it, symptomatic of Sharif’s thirst for revenge against the guy who removed him from office in 1999.
It’s smart politics.
And as far as I can see, Nawaz Sharif is a pretty smart guy.
So I don’t expect him to abandon his confrontational stance.
And where does this leave Asif Zardari and the PPP?
Behind the political 8-ball.
The PPP is unwilling to insist on Musharraf’s ouster or the restoration of the judiciary.
Instead, it is exploring alternatives to the PML-N in alliances with the thuggish MQM (which controls Karachi) and those electoral remnants of the despised PML-Q who have supposedly been purified in the flames of the February 18 election and are worthy of admission into the PPP.
In other words, the PPP is sliding into alliance with Musharraf, the PML-Q, and the MQM: three of the least popular forces in Pakistani politics.
Excuse me.
I forgot the fourth and least popular force in Pakistan politics (20% according to TFT): the United States.
If the PPP compromises with Musharraf, the (completely accurate) rumblings of outrage that Asif Zardari sold out Pakistan for the sake of the secret PPP+Musharraf power sharing deal demanded by the United States will only increase.
Pardon me.
That puts the PPP on the wrong side of the fifth and even less popular issue (9% approval according to TFT) in Pakistan: supporting the US/Musharraf War on Terror military campaign against the al Qaeda, Taleban, and the Pashtuns in West Pakistan.
With the PPP ready to embrace this armful of political anvils, it doesn’t look like genius for the PML-N to hold back.
It looks like common sense.
If the PPP-led coalition allows Musharraf to stay in the presidency, doesn’t restore the pre-November 3 judiciary, and collapses into bickering and impotence, producing a hung parliament, then Musharraf can dissolve parliament and call for new elections, perhaps even a few months from now.
Then the PPP would be running on a platform of failure, ignoble compromise, and squandered sacrifice...against the PML-N, which dominates Punjab, with its share of over half of the seats in the National Assembly and has consolidated its position as leader of the national middle class with its popular stance on Musharraf and the judiciary.
The next salvo in Pakistan’s political battle may be March 7.
According to Dawn :
LAHORE, Feb 20: Supporters of Aitzaz Ahsan, the detained president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, defied police restrictions and carried him on their shoulders outside his Zaman Park residence.Talking to the media, Mr Ahsan reiterated his call for restoration of deposed judges by March 7. “Otherwise we will hold a long march and gather in Islamabad from all over the country,” he said.
He said lawyers would not settle for anything less than the reinstatement of deposed judges and they were ready to negotiate with all political parties for the purpose. “But I want to make one thing clear. That we have a one-point agenda: restoration of all deposed judges,” he added....He said the PPP could not ignore the issue of reviving the pre-emergency judiciary because Benazir Bhutto herself had declared Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as the “real” chief justice of Pakistan.
A Los Angeles Times profile gives an idea of Ahsan’s national stature:
A celebrated lawyer, Ahsan was shut away in jail and then in his home here for speaking out against Musharraf's six-week emergency rule late last year and for defending Pakistan's popular chief justice, whom the president had summarily dismissed.The crackdown on Ahsan turned this distinguished, articulate man into a national hero, a prisoner of conscience whose confinement, in the eyes of many, symbolized the arrogance and highhandedness of Musharraf's rule.
If you don’t think lawyer militancy and restoration of the judiciary aren’t potential minefields for the PPP, consider this:
Ahsan is not just one of the most popular and respected people in Pakistan.
He’s also a PPP politician whose name was floated as a possible consensus prime minister.
And three weeks from now he could be leading a protest march against a PPP-led coalition government.
Like I said, it’s not over yet.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Pakistan Election Roundup
The big winner in the February 18 general election was Nawaz Sharif.
His PML-N party exceeded expectations by a significant margin, winning 66 national assembly seats, second only to the PPP’s 88.
In the PML-N (and Pakistani political and economic) heartland of Punjab, Sharif’s party took advantage of the collapse of Musharraf’s PML-Q to win a plurality of the national and provincial assembly seats. As a result, the PML-N is the first choice for the PPP’s partner in a coalition government.
And the game isn’t over yet.
Sharif announced a political amnesty for the few PML-Q politicians who were able to survive the electoral holocaust and are now anxiously looking for a new home in the PML-N.
If Sharif scoops up the PML-Q assemblymen and women, he could theoretically claim first place in the national elections and the right to form the government (not likely) and become strong enough inside Punjab to form the provincial government without having to haggle with the PPP (what he really wants).
The PML-N has gained stature among Pakistan’s educated and professional classes by its unwavering stand for restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary as the benchmark for the democratization of Pakistan’s civil society.
In his first press conference since the election (PKPolitics has the clip; it’s not all Urdu; there are a couple of English-language exchanges) Sharif cannily linked two popular issues—restoration of the judiciary and Mush Must Go.
He insisted that the judiciary be restored and the reconstituted Supreme Court rule on the constitutionality of Musharraf’s second term as president.
Since Musharraf ran while still in uniform—blatantly unconstitutional—and the deposed Supreme Court justices, under house arrest since November 3 and unfairly vilified in the government press, will be utterly uninterested in cutting Musharraf any slack, and since 70% of the electorate wants Musharraf to go anyway, the chances of Musharraf emerging from this kind of judicial review with his presidency intact is pretty much zero.
By this process, Sharif a) gets the Supreme Court to do his dirty work and b) and gets popular kudos for championing Pakistan’s independent judiciary.
And Sharif gets to wrong-foot the PPP, which is awkwardly attempting to preserve its domestic democratic credibility but at the same time live up to the deal Benazir Bhutto made with Washington, by which she would prop up Musharraf in return for a chance to return to Pakistan, contest the elections, and win the prime ministership.
Now, if the PPP had thoughts of accommodating Musharraf (and Washington), it has to take the immensely unpopular step of ignoring popular demand for restoration of the independent judiciary—with zero political cover from the PML-N.
Reportedly, Sharif also made participation in a national PPP coalition government conditional on the PPP putting Aitzaz Ahsan, the barrister who is champion of Pakistan lawyer’s movement, in the PM slot.
That’s a malicious poke in the eye and kneecapping of the political fortunes of the two men who would be king—or at least prime minister, Bhutto’s widower Asif Zadari or Makhdoom Amin Faheem, the de facto leader of the PPP.
Slick.
The PPP is also a winner, of course.
It won the greatest number of seats, and convincingly demonstrated its credentials as Pakistan’s only national party, winning races in Punjab, the North West Frontier Provinces, and Balochistan, as well as dominating its home state of Sindh.
But it looks like its electoral fortunes have crested without achieving the national mandate it aspired to, let alone the 2/3 share of the vote that Asif Zardari promised or even the 50% share that the International Republican Institute’s dubious pre-election poll predicted.
Punjab looks to become Nawaz Sharif territory. And Punjab is, literally, more than half the battle.
And the PML-N has the better of the national debate, with Sharif consciously leveraging his acknowledged national stature and and pro-judiciary pro-democracy credentials to work beyond provincial identity politics and forge an issue-based political organization that resonates with Pakistan’s educated and prosperous classes nationwide.
By contrast, the PPP is too close to the United States and its unpopular security policies, saddled with a rather ridiculous quasi-religious cult of personality centered on Benazir Bhutto, associated with violent and parochial Sindh chauvinism, and led by an unpopular and ethically challenged co-chairman (Zardari) who owes his position to Bhutto’s political will, which imposed him on a party organization that really doesn’t like him.
The PPP will have its hands full dealing with Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N.
The PPP has already vowed not to deal with the pro-Musharraf parties in forming a government, which means a coalition with the PML-N is in the cards.
Future cracks in this marriage of convenience between the PPP and the PML-N is supposed to offer the only hope for Musharraf, who otherwise would be gassing his plane for exile in Turkey or the Maldives or wherever.
If the two opposition parties can’t get their act together, Musharraf gets a few months of drift and bickering followed by an open split and a hung parliament, at which time he can dissolve parliament and hold new elections, in which he hopefully will do better.
This may be a forlorn hope, since the party that will probably do better is the PML-N, which is vocally and visibly intransigent on the issue of Pervez Musharraf.
The United States now has a brief window of opportunity to do something constructive in Pakistani politics.
The deep thinkers of the State Department could look at the election results, decide that we did our honorable best by Musharraf, our loyal but terminally inept strongman, and give our backing to his peaceful departure.
The PPP would be spared the suicidal role of appearing as Musharraf’s protector, and be able to form a governing coalition with the PML-N in a subordinate position inside the government, instead of throwing rocks at it from the outside.
The U.S. has always abhorred a situation in which the PPP and the PML-N formed a coalition.
Sharif is generally if inaccurately understood to be anti-American.
Back in December, President Bush publicly expressed doubt that Sharif could cut it as a partner of the World’s Only Superpower in the Global War on Terror.
Sharif’s problem is not that he’s anti-American.
The anti-American religious parties in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Provinces got trounced by the secular Awami National Party.
No, the Bush administration’s problem is deeper than that.
Sharif represents resistance to the Bush administration’s confrontational security policy; resistance that, post Iraq, has become mainstream not only in Pakistan but throughout the Middle East.
His primary overseas patron is Saudi Arabia.
Sharif represents an Islamic security doctrine quietly championed by Riyadh that values stability (and has come to reject America’s highly destabilizing actions in the Middle East), is comfortable with religiously conservative regimes, and doesn’t care too much about what happens to Karzai, the NATO-backed regime in Kabul, or any of the other democracies we have midwifed so bloodily in the region.
Washington fears that a PPP coalition under the influence of the PML-N (which is extremely popular: it polled above 70% in Pakistan, according to the International Republican Institute) would reflect this orientation and adopt policies popular with the Pakistani people i.e. decouple from the U.S. war on the Taleban and al Qaeda just at the time that the prospect of losing Afghanistan has started giving U.S. policymakers some serious heartburn.
No question that’s a problem.
Inside Pakistan, support for the U.S.-led War on Terror clocks in at an unimpressive 9%.
The Pakistani people hate it, the army hates it, and as a result even Musharraf couldn’t even do more than a half-hearted job of pursuing militants in Pakistan’s west.
No matter who’s in power, we’re not going to unearth some miracle race of Pakistani crusaders ready to kill their own Muslim citizens so NATO can destroy Pakistan’s natural Pashtun allies in Afghanistan.
Better to settle for a popular, stable PPP/PML-N government in Pakistan without Musharraf but with Kiyani (the new, improved army strongman) and hope that all that money we’re throwing at Pakistan buys us some grudgingly-acknowledged leverage for anti-extremist initiatives that suit both U.S. policy and the Pakistani national mood.
Of course, accepting half a loaf is not really what the Bush administration is about. Its usual response to a setback is to blame it on a deficiency of will and vigor, and double down when the facts on the ground are screaming Change Course! instead.
So we’ll see whether Washington casts its vote in favor of the PPP+Musharraf, continued division and drift in Pakistani politics and security doctrine, and eventual dominance by Nawaz Sharif and a PML-N grown more overtly anti-American.
Or maybe we can do something smart right now.
We can decide if we—and Pakistan--emerge out of this thing as winners or losers.
Pakistan electoral map from http://www.dawn.com/
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