Suicide Democrats

Posted on March 5, 2009 by beenasarwar

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/print1.asp?id=165518

Op-ed, The News Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Suicide Democrats

Raza Rumi

I am appalled by the recent events that have yet again stirred instability and uncertainty into Pakistani politics. Those of us who voted in last year’s elections expected that the political leaders and Pakistan’s political elites would learn a lesson from our unfortunate history.

We also expected the lawyers’ movement, headed by men of extraordinary calibre, to display sagacity and vision and contribute to the consolidation of a democratic culture. However, what we witnessed was a complete rejection of the Feb 18 polls by the leading lights of the movement, and a few other naïve political actors. When the electorate voted in large numbers and returned the two mainstream political parties to the parliament, the lawyers, instead of accepting that they were wrong to boycott elections, insisted on their narrow and bourgeois interpretation of the term “rule of law.”

Sadly, law, rights and constitutionalism are personalised through the idolisation of the deposed chief justice, as if Pakistan were still a mediaeval kingdom, where the bad King (Musharraf) had to be overthrown, and the good Qazi (Justice Iftikhar) had to be “restored” and vested with all moral, political, executive, military and judicial powers.

The rightwing media has further whipped this game and brought the popular and well-meaning Sharif in direct confrontation with the federal government on this single issue. President Zardari, whom we all hoped had learned his lessons from jail, endless court trials and exile, would act with vision and leadership. Similarly, the Supreme Court, led by Justice Dogar, might have gone an extra mile to prove its neutrality. Alas, how wrong we were!

It is amazing that the long marches, threats of violence and agitation, and questionable imposition of the governor’s rule in the largest province of the country are taking place at a time when the Taliban are capturing one district after another. The media and civil society, instead of bringing down the creaky edifice of democracy, should be pressurising political leaders to act with maturity and not wrangle.

Given the hysteria of the last few days, since the disqualification of the Sharif brothers, the media is portraying the situation as one with no solution. Enemies of democracy, the traditional forces that have always sabotaged civilian rule, are smiling at this imbroglio. There is no paucity of solutions: there are legal and constitutional means whereby the legislature can amend the Constitution on the eligibility of politicians to contest elections and hold offices. A review petition can always be filed that could look at the questions of law pertaining to this matter. Similarly, the promulgation of another NRO is not beyond the realm of the possible. Politics is about bargains and adjustments to strengthen the representative system, rather than bringing it down at every inconvenient juncture.

The PPP must take the initiative to avoid further fissures in the tenuous federation called Pakistan. The current posturing and gung-ho behaviour of the PPP’s Punjab leaders need to be arrested by the central leadership. The PML-N and, in particular, its Quaid, Mian Nawaz Sharif, should also rise above the rhetoric of the 1990s and display flexibility that is essential to a functional democracy. The PML-N has little support in the three smaller provinces of Pakistan and its current rhetoric and thundering against President Zardari, who represents the smaller federating units, is not a good omen. A group of political activists torched the memorial of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, and there have been strong reactions across the country, especially in Sindh. Why blame the bomb blasts at funerals and mosques when such is the prevalent culture of protest.

If the deposed chief justice has to be restored then the matter must be brought before the parliament and solved through constitutional means. One cannot play the politics of constitutionalism and find solutions in executive orders. If Mr Sharif will lead an agitation with the lawyers who are now placed on the other side of the democratic divide, he will not only engineer the fall of the central government, and the PPP, but will also sign the deed of death for the future of democratic politics in Pakistan.

Over fifty deposed judges have taken fresh oaths under the policy of the sitting government. When the incumbent judiciary is trampled and defamed, the detractors forget that it includes all those judges who resisted Musharraf’s emergency. Once an individual is restored to the top slot, will it become legitimate overnight or the incumbent judges would be fired for being part of the “naqli” judiciary?

The civic activism since 2007 was a harbinger of change in Pakistan. The lawyers’ movement is de-legitimising democracy and political parties (including the largest and perhaps the only national party). One may ask whose purpose is being served here. Is it not what the leaders of the Taliban and other extremist groups maintain about democracy by calling it “kufr”?

The establishment and its proxies must not win this game. At present it seems that both the mainstream political parties and their obstinate leaders are bound to create a situation similar to 1958, 1977 and 1999. However, this time the cost of unrest and confrontation will be detrimental to our future. The vicious cycle, emanating from our inability to handle political squabbles, will this time give way to erosion of democratic space won today with sacrifices, toils and struggles.

The writer blogs at razarumi.com and edits two e-zines: Pak Tea House and Lahore Nama. Email: razarumi@gmail.com

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POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Court Ruling May Deepen Political Crisis

Posted on February 28, 2009 by beenasarwar

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45893

"Nawaz Sharif disqualified" reads the headline

Analysis by Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Feb 26 (IPS) – The political chasm in crisis-riddled Pakistan has deepened after a Supreme Court ruling barred from political office opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab – the country’s most populous and powerful province.

The Sharifs’ Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) party had joined hands with President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to defeat political parties supporting former president Pervez Musharraf in elections last February, and force his resignation six months later.

But the alliance between Pakistan’s two main political parties fell apart, mainly over the restoration to office of chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry – whose dismissal by Musharraf in 2007 sparked unrest led by the legal fraternity.

“The move [Wednesday’s apex court ruling] plunges Pakistan back into familiar territory,” said PML-N parliamentarian Ayaz Amir, talking to IPS on the phone from the capital Islamabad. “Another crisis, another round of turbulence… We seem to be cursed with the Chinese saying, ‘may you live in interesting times’.”

For most, the Supreme Court ruling – which upheld a lower court verdict, last June, that made Nawaz Sharif ineligible to stand for elections on airplane hijacking charges – has come “like a bolt from the blue,” as Asha’ar Rehman, resident editor of the daily ‘Dawn’ in Lahore put it.

“The political repercussions will be horrific. We were hoping they would show some maturity and let a reconciliation happen,” added Rehman, talking to IPS from Lahore, capital of the Punjab and the stronghold of the Sharifs.

Iqbal Haider, advocate and chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, termed the decision as being “against democracy, not against the Sharif brothers’’.

In a no-holds barred press conference at his Lahore residence, shortly after the court ruling, a belligerent Nawaz Sharif said he had no problems with the PPP, but held the party head, Zardari, directly responsible for the contentious judgement.

Sharif, a former prime minister, also accused Zardari of offering a “business deal” to Shahbaz Sharif, asking him to support the government in extending the tenure of the current chief justice in return for which the court would provide the brothers with relief.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar dismissed these charges as a knee-jerk response. “The allegations that PML-N chief has levelled against President Zardari are far from reality and are based on ill intention,” he told a press conference in Islamabad later that evening.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman called for examining the court ruling dispassionately while admitting it had created a problem for the government in its efforts for reconciliation.

Many PPP parliamentarians, although unhappy about the decision, say there is unfortunately nothing the party can do in this regard.

The ruling is seen a “technical knockout” for the Sharif brothers who now also stand barred from contesting elections.

“More than anything, it undermines the democratic legitimacy of the government,” political analyst and economist Asad Sayeed told IPS. “Nawaz Sharif is a popular political leader. This decision will push him to the wall and perhaps further towards the religious parties.”

Within hours, President Asif Ali Zardari imposed direct central rule in the Punjab for two months. Defending the decision, a PPP spokesperson cited potential “anarchy” as angry activists took to the streets after Sharif in a press conference exhorted people to come out in protest.

The government wisely refrained from using police force to prevent the protests, as angry activists in various cities burned tyres, blocked traffic, and attacked property. In Rawalpindi, some even destroyed posters of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and damaged the memorial at the public park where she was assassinated on Dec. 27, 2008.

‘Religious militants’ are widely believed to be behind her murder, barely two weeks before the scheduled polls which Bhutto had convinced her former rival Nawaz Sharif to contest, instead of boycotting them as he was planning to do.

Both twice-elected and twice-removed prime ministers had then returned from several years of exile abroad. During this time, army chief Pervez Musharraf headed Pakistan, after ousting Nawaz Sharif from the prime ministership in 1999.

Sharif had tried to replace the army chief and prevent the civilian flight bearing Musharraf back from an official visit to Sri Lanka, from landing in Pakistan. This was the ‘hijacking’ case for which Sharif was convicted, grounds now for his disqualification from public office or contesting elections.

Bhutto’s return to politics in Pakistan in October 2007 was widely seen as part of a ‘deal’ brokered by Washington to restore civilian rule in Pakistan in order to better handle the ‘war on terror’ – for which policy makers were by now prescribing a political rather than a military solution.

The widespread secular movement led by lawyers to restore chief justice Choudhry had also presented the possibility of progressive political change in Pakistan.

After the general elections of Feb. 18, 2008, the PPP and PML-N had agreed to form government as well as to restore the judges whom Musharraf had removed when he imposed emergency rule on Nov. 3, 2007.

“What people forget about the agreement was that it was also about government formation – the other two clauses were how the federal and the provincial governments were going to be formed,” said Asad Sayeed.

“Nawaz Sharif insisted on the judges’ restoration in order to undermine the PPP. They could not have moved towards forming government if Zardari had not agreed on this clause because Sharif was not willing to talk about it.”

Sharif continued to push for the restoration of chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry. Most of the other judges ousted after Musharraf’s November 2007 emergency have since been reinstated after taking fresh oath of office.

The country was bracing for a lawyers’ ‘long march’ to restore Choudhry, scheduled to kick off on Mar. 12 and ending with a sit-in or ‘dharna’ in Islamabad. The PML-N has enthusiastically supported the move.

Ayaz Amir, who has warned against making the restoration of Choudhry the “be all and end all” of politics, told IPS he felt his PML-N party had “stuck its horns too much into this one issue”.

The planned long march, Amir predicted, ”will get more momentum now, but it won’t restore the judges. There will be more instability and tumult, with politicians being further discredited in the public eye”.

More ominously, widespread unrest could also leave the army with “no choice” but to step in – something it is, at this point, clearly reluctant to do.

Amir hopes it will not come to that. “We’re not at that point yet. We have to wait and see what happens when the situation plays itself out.”

Bitter political acrimony is not new in Pakistan. However, so far both the PPP and PML-N have kept their main shared goal before them -to keep the army out of politics and let the political process continue. Observers hope that this long view will prevail.

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