Pakistan A Dream Gone Sour

Roedad Khan
47 years after the first military coup, we are back to square one. The country is
under military rule for the fourth time and going down the tubes. When I heard
Secretary Rice, I didnt know whether to laugh or cry. It is not the Pakistan of
September 11, 2001, she said and, not even the Pakistan of September 11, 2002.
It is a ghost of its former self. If Pakistan were to look into a mirror, it wont
recognize itself. Today say: Pakistan and what comes to mind: sham democracy,
fraudulent referendum, rigged elections, a General in uniform masquerading as the
President of this sad country, a rubber stamp parliament, a pliant judiciary and a
figurehead Prime Minister. Pakistan, Dr. Rice said, Is in transition to a democratic
future. Sadly, our democratic future is not in front of us. It is far behind us.
Democracy in the west means a political system marked not only by free, fair and
impartial elections, but also by Rule of Law, a strong, independent judiciary and an
independent Election Commission. All these institutions are non-existent in Pakistan
today. Since the days of Herodotus democracy has meant, first and foremost, rule of
the people. In Pakistan, the people do not rule. The sovereign power of the State
does not reside with the people.
Where ought the sovereign power of the State to reside? Asked Aristotle. With
the people? With the propertied classes? With the good? With one man, the best of
all, the good? With one man, the tyrant? One thing is clear. The sovereignty of the
people is a myth. To apply the adjective Sovereign to the people in Pakistan is a
tragic farce. Whatever the constitutional position, in the final analysis defacto
sovereignty in Pakistan (Majestas est summa in civas ac subditoes legibusque soluta
potestas i.e. highest power over citizens and subjects unrestrained by law in the
words of French Jurist Jean Bodin) resides neither in the electorate, nor the
Parliament, nor the judiciary, nor even the constitution which has superiority over all
the institutions it creates. It resides, where the coercive power resides. It is the
pouvoir occulte which is the ultimate authority in the decision making process in
Pakistan. Even when an elected government is in power, it is the Chief of Army Staf
who is the ultimate authority in decision-making. He decides when to abrogate the
constitution, when it should be held in abeyance, when an elected government
should be sacked and when democracy should be given a chance. Behind the

scenes, it is he who decides whether an elected Prime Minister shall live or die. No
wonder, General Musharraf is clinging to the post of Chief of Army Staf and refuses
to dof his uniform.
Ruin comes, Plato said in 347 BC, When the General uses his army to establish a
military dictatorship. The army of Pakistan struck Pakistans nascent democracy
four times and has been in power for nearly half the countrys existence. It has cast
a long shadow over politics in Pakistan even during the period of civilian rule.
Repeated army intervention in the politics of Pakistan has been a recipe for disaster.
It has thwarted the growth and development of parliamentary democracy and
destroyed whatever little faith people had in their political institutions. What is
worse, it has eroded people's faith in themselves as citizens of a sovereign,
independent, democratic country. The country is in a mess. Today Pakistan presents
an image of a country plagued by political, ethnic and sectarian conflicts. The
country appears to be adrift, lacking confidence about its future. Never before has
public confidence in the countrys future sunk so low.
The army has shown a greater willingness to grasp power than to give it up. None of
the first three army chiefs who ruled Pakistan - Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia ul
Haq - gave up power voluntarily. There is no reason to believe that General
Musharraf will act diferently. A few days after the 1999 coup, his spokesman
insisted that: while others may have tried to hang on to power, we will not. We will
make history'. General Musharraf agreed: 'All I can say', he assured a television
interviewer in January 2000, 'Is that I am not going to perpetuate myself I can't
give any certificate on it but my word of honour. I will not perpetuate myself'. Later
in 2000, Musharraf went a stage further and said, he would respect a Supreme
Court judgment that stated he would remain in office for just three years. In June
2001, Musharraf performed a complete U-turn. Following the examples of Ayub,
Yahya and Zia, he made himself President. And in May 2002, he held a dubious
referendum that is the basis of his rule today.
It is not morning in Pakistan. It will take us more than faith to get us through this
dark night. All the trappings of democracy are there but everyone knows where vital
decisions are made. All the pillars of state have collapsed. One of the most serious
injuries the state can inflict on its subjects is to strip the country of its constitution,
aptly described as a transparent garment clinging to the body politic, and commit
the people to lives of perpetual uncertainty. This kind of existence, as we know very
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well, is like a journey full of dangerous obstacles and risks undertaken in total
darkness. General Musharraf, following the example of his military predecessors,
has defaced, disfigured and decimated the constitution. The result is what we have
today. One doesnt have to be a great constitutional expert to realize that we are
back to pre-independence Government of India Act 1935 with a powerful President,
a non-sovereign parliament and a puppet Prime Minister.
Parliament is one of the chief instruments of our democracy. Is it consistent with the
principle of parliamentary democracy to empower the President at the expense of
the Prime Minster? And is it consistent with the principle of parliamentary
democracy to divest the parliament and pass on its functions to an un-elected body
like the National Security Council dominated by the armed forces. Not surprisingly,
the parliament is cowed, timid, a virtual paralytic, over paid and under employed. In
Pakistan political principle is a flexible commodity. Pragmatism and artful dodging
are not seen as flip-flopping. They are savored far more than loyalty, consistency
and steadfastness. Parliamentary membership is the key to material success, a
passport and a license to loot and plunder. No wonder, it is not a check on the
arbitrariness of the executive and nobody takes it seriously.
Today judiciary is the weakest of the three pillars of state. It has sufered a steady
diminution of power and prestige. Its image is tarnished. Things have been downhill
ever since the infamous Munir judgment. Regrettably, judiciary has been turned into
a fig-leaf for unconstitutional and illegal practices. It is a matter of great regret that
Judges have been collusive in the erosion of the constitution and the Rule of Law in
this country. Mr. Jinnah did not realize that one day judges of the superior courts
would be appointed not because of their ability and sterling character but loyalty to
the executive and their political affiliations. Today nothing prevents the executive
from court-packing and appointing party loyalists with limited knowledge and
experience. If the idea was to degrade the superior courts and to find the worst
men, some of our governments succeeded brilliantly in doing so. "The President
may slip", Tocqueville wrote in 1837, "without the state sufering, for his duties are
limited. Congress may slip without the Union perishing, for above the Congress
there is the electoral body which can change its spirit by changing its members. But
if ever the Supreme Court came to be composed of corrupt or weak or rash persons,
the Confederation would be threatened by anarchy or civil war". One of the lessons
of history is that when judiciary functions at the behest of authority and allows itself
to be used against the citizens, the dykes of law and justice break and revolution
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begins. The history of Pakistan might have been diferent if judges of the superior
courts had stood their ground and refused to collaborate with the usurper. Pakistan
will be Pakistan again the day a judge of the superior court, in exercise of his
awesome powers, interposes the shield of law in defense of the constitution.
General Musharrafs authoritarian regime, far from being temporary, is acquiring the
mantle of permanence. Unless checked, the country will settle into a form of
government with a democratic faade and a hard inner core of authoritarianism an
iron hand with a velvet glove. This is not what Mr. Jinnah envisaged for Pakistan. If
anybody in this country or abroad thinks that General Musharraf will hold free, fair
and impartial elections in this country in 2007 and retire; that a genuine transfer of
power to a civilian government will follow the election and the army will return to
the barracks, he must think again and have his head examined. The lesson of
history is that a person who possesses supreme power, seldom gives it away
voluntarily. No devil, Trotsky wrote long ago, has ever cut its claws voluntarily.
"No man", President Roosevelt once remarked, "ever willingly gives up public life no man who has ever tasted it".
As the public mood shifts from fearful to defiant, the 1999 coup seems more of a
farce than a tragedy. Our window of opportunity is getting narrower by the day. I
believe that if only all the intellectuals could get together and blow their trumpets,
the walls of Jericho would crumble. The walls of autocracy in Pakistan will not
crumble with just one good push. The present order will not go quietly. It will be an
uphill struggle to redeem our democracy and fashion it once again into a vessel to
be proud of.
If democracy is good for Georgia, Ukraine and now Krygyzstan, why is it not good
for Pakistan? Why is Secretary Rice asking the people of Pakistan to be patient and
wait for elections in 2007? America gave its full support to pro-democracy Orange
and

Velvet

revolutions

in

Georgia

and

Ukraine.

Why

is

it

perpetuating

authoritarianism in Pakistan? Why this double-talk? Why this double standard? Isnt
it shrieking hypocrisy? Isnt it just Realpolitik? Isnt it sacrificing democracy,
freedom, supremacy of civilian rule on the alter of self-interest? Isnt it a repudiation
of everything America claims to stand for?

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