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Mainstream, VOL LI, No 27, June 22, 2013

Pakistan: Wide-angle View

Saturday 22 June 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

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From N.C.’s Writings

It is but natural for us to view the recent General Elections in Pakistan by our time-worn standards and to assess whether it could be regarded as free and fair. There were certainly inadequacies, some of them serious—particularly the prelude to it which involved peremptory dismissal of a duly elected government followed by appointment of a caretaker government chosen by the President and a snap election in the midst of the Muslim month of Ramzan fasting. But any major event in a country has to be judged in the context of its historical development. Otherwise the reality of the given situation is likely to be missed.

Over four decades now, the stereotype that we have formed of Pakistan politics is that it is heavily decided by the domination of a military junta, fed lavishly by a superpower for its own global strategic reasons. This has taken different forms according to the prevailing political vagaries. Quite often the politics of the country is dominated by unalloyed military dictatorship without any frills or cover. At other times, political personalities came on the stage because of the debacle suffered by the military bosses at home or abroad, or because of the unrest of the people which the top brass did not know how to control. The ignominious loss of Bangladesh led to the Bhutto interlude in Pakistan politics, while the seething popular unrest in some parts of the country or the other either led to the reinforcement of the bosses of the armed forces in the politics of the country as it happened in Bhutto’s handling of Balo-chistan or the discredit of the elected government as it happened in the case of Benazir in the fiasco over Sind.

However, the umbilical cord that binds Pakistan’s military junta to the superpower in Washington, particularly to the Pentagon, has had to face a totally different situation with the end of the Cold War. The rules of the game of world politic are yet to be set in the context of the new world in which the military rivalry between two superpowers has given way to a scenario in which trade rivalry and economic domination are sought to be enforced by the developed few over the rest of the world. The military elite spawned by the superpowers in different countries have to face a new situation, almost a crisis situation, and Pakistan’s armed forces bosses are no better off.

The changed situation could be discerned by 1990, about the same time that the superpower Cold War had formally ended in the old form. However, the readjustment in Pakistan took time because of the situation in Afghanistan where the Pak Army, particularly the ISI, acted as the surrogate for Washington.

If the military dictatorship of General Zia was brought to an end by his physical extermination, the transition to civilian regime has not been easy. In fact, the latest election brings that out. When Benazir Bhutto won the election in 1993, it was taken, by and large, as a democratic victory. However, certain back-ground developments of the time would be worth noting. Soon after President Clinton’s victory in 1992, Benazir had gone to Washington, as she has had a strong lobby in the Democratic Party. About this time, she made a statement that she would agree to a General Election provided it was under Army supervision. Rather a strange statement from the leader of a party whose founder was hanged by the military dictatorship at that time. But this understanding with the military bosses was the price she had to pay for having an election to make her the Prime Minister. In the three years of her tenure as the Prime Minister, she never stood up to the military junta. Her quarrel with the President—even the present one who was her nominee—was over the question, who would deal directly with the Army brass. It needs to be emphasised that her major political setback was in Sind in dealing with MQM, and her discredit came because of the indiscriminate use of the armed forces in trying to put down the unrest in Sind, particularly Karachi, with the help of the Army.

Even this time during the General Elections, Benazir thought she could rely on the Army brass. On the day before the General Elections on February 3, Benazir wrote a letter to the Chief of Army Staff, General Karamat, asking him to intervene as she feared there would be “electoral fraud” in 65 seats as he felt the Army could play a pivotal role in dealing with “ballot tampering and post-election fraud”. The appeal was not to the Chief Election Commissioner but to the Army Chief. While throughout her election campaign, she attacked the President, she never suggested that the Army should be curbed.

One of the serious inroads into democratic government in Pakistan has been the setting up by the President of the Council for Defence and National Security (CDNS) which has come under severe scrutiny by the media. This Council would consist of three Service Chiefs and others as advisers and would oversee all measures in the interest of national security and economic development. It has not been made clear what its relation should be with the elected Cabinet. It is significant to note that Nawaz Sharif has already mentioned that the newly elected National Assembly would decide about the CDNS. No such demand has come from the Pakistan People’s Party under Benazir.

The elections were conducted under the supervision of the Army as observers found Army personnel in election booths. In the last election in 1993, this was of course much more conspicuous. The poor turnout of the voters was however not due to the presence of the Army as such, but a perceived degree of apathy at the overpowering corruption and strong-arm rule under Benazir, particularly the notoriety earned by the misdeeds of her husband, Asif Zardari. The poor score of the PPP is mainly due to the slump in Benazir’s personal popularity while she has not permitted any new leadership to come up inside the PPP.

Where then does the Army junta stand in Pakistan politics today? Nawaz Sharif’s convin-cing victory is going to be a sore point for the Army and it poses a difficult challenge for the Army leadership. For one thing, Nawaz Sharif would not forget that he was displaced from power in the past because of the intrigue of the military bosses in league with Benazir. It would be interesting to see how the new Prime Minister would be dealing with the military bosses. In this context, one has to take into account the significance of Nawaz’s convincing victory. He and his party represent what may be called the emerging commercial and industrial corporate sector of Pakistan. One finds them quite responsive to having normalcy in commerce and economic cooperation with India and other South Asian countries. It is worth noting that through-out the election campaign Nawaz, more than once, emphasised his readiness to open dialogue with India—which is in total contrast to Benazir’s hectorings against India.

It would be difficult for the military junta to displace Nawaz Sharif, as it would be in India’s interest to respond to his positive approach towards better understanding with India. If economic cooperation is the buzz-word of the present global market, then Nawaz Sharif’s rule has the promise of ushering in a new phase of India-Pakistan understanding, away from the sabre-rattling of the Cold War days. It is for New Delhi to discern the signs of a new era after the nightmare of the Cold War.

(By arrangement with The Hindu)

(Mainstream, February 15, 1997)

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