Governing High places

History has shown that presidents with spunk have used their power of dissolving the government effectively

Governors in government have a governing dilemma. Their jobs are defined but their qualifications are undefined. The same goes for presidents in this parliamentary system. To be qualified for these posts the main criteria seems to be to have a nondescript personality, to be mostly on mute on public issues and to be blatantly promoting party agendas. When questions are raised as to what exactly they do aside from inaugural addresses and signing off documents, the answer inevitably is that these are ceremonial posts. It is interesting to note how historically the British Empire ruled the subcontinent with its model of governor general who had the highest powers to govern. Lord Mountbatten and so many other names come to mind when we think of how the word governor meant the head of the state. In 1947, Pakistan became a dominion within the British Commonwealth with the British monarch as head of state, represented by the governor general of Pakistan. In 1956, Pakistan established its first Constitution and became a republic, and the positions of queen and governor general were replaced by the president.

Pakistan’s first president was Iskander Mirza who was also the last governor general. In 1958, he abrogated the Constitution and declared martial law. A few weeks later, he was overthrown in a bloodless coup d’état by General Ayub Khan, who then declared himself president. The Constitution was revised and the president became the ruler of Pakistan. The story of the Bhutto revolt against this political system, his win in 1970 and later revision in the Constitution to give more powers to the Prime Minister (PM) than the president, is fairly well known. The pattern of who pulled more strings depended on who came into power. Ziaul Haq and other dictators like Musharraf made constitutional amendments to make the presidential post all empowering, while democratic leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Benazir reverted the control lever back to the PM.

Though the president’s role was pretty much reduced to a figurehead, history has shown that presidents with spunk have used their power of dissolving the government effectively. President Ghulam Ishaque Khan dissolving Nawaz Sharif’s government and President Farooq Laghari dissolving Benazir’s government are examples of where the tables can be turned against the ruling party despite many constitutional amendments. Thus the moral of the story goes that it is less about the power of the laws and more about the power of the personality that will determine whether these ceremonial posts are taken just as political décor or actual political muscle. The recent example of President Zardari pulling the strings while PMs were made sacrificial lambs is a case in point. Thus, the personality cults defining the roles of president and governor is the story that unfortunately keeps on undermining all constitutional powers wrested in these positions. That is why these positions are supposed to be unbiased and neutral. As they do not represent a party but the federation, they inevitably end up being promoters of party or personal interests rather than national interests. The governor is appointed by the president and has the power of dissolving the provincial assembly or imposing governor’s rule as was done by the PPP government. Thus the choice of governors is by no means an accident and deliberately moulded to customise it to suit the purposes of the ruling party. The governor has to give his assent to all bills and budgets of the provincial assembly and, like the president, can promulgate ordinances for provinces in extraordinary circumstances. He is the chancellor of public universities and thus the most prominent place he is seen is on convocations awarding degrees to candidates.

The post of governor has become of prime interest in this country not because he will play a revolutionary role in transforming it but because it is access to a high luxury job where the lavish governor houses and rest houses present prestige and comforts unimaginable. Parties normally give such posts as a reward to party loyalists who are benign sponsors or loyalists of the party. The PML-N chose Chaudhry Sarwar as a reward for his services to the party overseas. However, Chaudhry Sarwar, bred on English politics, found it difficult to make it through entrenched party ranks and his stay in the rather ostentatious Governor House, unexciting. As he started speaking against this political imprisonment he became disqualified to continue. This time, the PML-N has taken its time now to come up with a more submissive version of loyalist in the name of Rafique Rajwana. On the other hand, the governor of Sindh is a classic case of being blatantly used for one thing: furthering Altaf Hussain/MQM interests. He is the evergreen governor whose presence ensures pressure on the federal government from Karachi. He has so far done a remarkable job by being this quiet behind the scenes, effective messenger of the MQM and PPP pacts. However, in the latest episode of resigning, removing and reinstating people, the MQM has now asked Ishratul Ibad to resign. The reason for the resignation is unabashedly his inability to protect party interests in the shape of not intervening to prevent arrests of workers who are themselves confessing heinous crimes.

Thus, the type of personality and the interest of the party governs the choice of people in these posts. Another twist to the story of choosing people for these high ceremonial posts is that they do not have a financial corruption record and are nice gentlemen. However, they have to be non-assertive, docile and willing to play the role of his master’s voice to perfection. President Mamnoon fits the bill well, though the jokingly quoted criterion of his knowing how to make dahi bhallas exactly as the PM likes added to his suitability.

Similarly, the new governor of Punjab is the type of man who would be a governor for a decade and still not make his presence felt. The choice of governors who represent the interests of the party rather than the interests of the province creates friction between the federal and provincial government. The smaller provinces like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have already started raising voice against deprivations and inequity. The federal representatives sitting in these provinces are treated as implants of the ruling party rather than stakeholders of provincial development. This creates within provinces a council of uncommon interests. Appointment to these posts are on the majority party’s decisions. However, if the provinces are consulted on various choices of the names under consideration, it would definitely save many precious hours and resources spent on trying to develop consensus on issues, issues that would never arise if an atmosphere of trust is restored between the federal and provincial governments.

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Napping on NAP

The reluctance to act upon steps that need above board actions comes from vested interests, lobbies and lack of political will

Karachi bleeds again. This time the Ismaili community was targeted. Shock, red alert, arrests, committees, enquiries, more plans, more inaction. After the Army Public School (APS) massacre, with every single party and person in Pakistan agreeing to a complete elimination of terrorism, how come we keep facing attacks on churches and minorities again and again? The fact that it was not a suicide bombing, the fact that it was in broad daylight at the centre of a market place, the fact that it went on for three to four minutes and nobody came to the rescue, the fact that the police station nearby was empty, are all questions that will be debated on talk shows, discussed on social media and then submerged under the next breaking news.

Act or be acted upon. Whether it is economic plans or security plans, the fault lies less with the planning and more with execution. Pakistan’s history is full of it being a pioneer in many planning innovations. The Koreans, in the 1960s, came to study the five-year planning model we developed. We have a separate planning wing, planning department and planning commission. However, despite all this focus on planning, very little has been achieved according to the plans. Each year, annual plans are made and remain as plans. The importance and respect given to plans is minimal. The budget is a plan for the year and is not even a few months old before mini-budgets are made to render the annual plan invalid. Within the budget the most important plan is the public spending development plan (PSDP) that is made and religiously slashed at will. Tax collection targets and plans are also more of a balancing act than any concrete achievement. That is why, when the All Parties Conference (APC) was held and the National Action Plan (NAP) was made the first fear was it being another exercise in pacifying the outrage of the nation.

Unfortunately, the reluctance to act upon steps that need above board and across the board actions comes from vested interests, lobbies and lack of political will. That is why plans remain fancy presentations rather than result-oriented execution. The APC, after the APS incident, outlined 20 areas that need to be acted upon if this menace of terrorism is to be controlled. This exercise was comprehensive and seemed to cover many areas that were considered untouchable previously. Considering action against armed wings of political parties and banning banned organisations operating with other names was also brought under the umbrella of this plan. The million-dollar question was: who will bell the cat? “I will personally supervise the implementation of NAP and will make sure that it is swift and effective,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said during an initial meeting on the plan. Some 15 committees were formed to oversee the execution of these 20 areas and the man of NAP was Chaudhry Nisar, supervising 11 of the 15 committees. Other members assisting him were the same as those who have assisted the PM on every plan, i.e. Ahsan Iqbal, Pervez Rashid, Khawaja Asif and Sartaj Aziz.

The committees also included ministers, senior government officials and top army officials such as the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and that of military operations. However, the military was to focus primarily on anti-terrorist matters and thus army representatives were not featured on the committees tasked to deal with matters such as the persecution of religious minorities, registration of seminaries, sectarianism and media curbs. That, unfortunately, also explains why the only achievement has been terrorists’ arrests and executions, and not much on preventing and uprooting the real pipelines of terrorist breeding.

To carry out a strategy you need a structure. Committees loosely defined and given policy guidelines can never provide a cohesive structure focused on ensuring action. The National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) was supposed to be that structure, an umbrella for all these committees but, instead, what we saw was that NACTA just became a coordination member of the committee just like so many other members. One of the key requirements for empowering NACTA was the setting up of the joint intelligence directorate. The only progress on this supremely important matter in six months is that a proposal has been made, an odd meeting has been held. This is because of the huge trust deficit between the civilian Intelligence Bureau and the military-led ISI that is keeping the authority from becoming an effective and fully operational agency. There was talk of separate budget allocation for NACTA and empowerment to make decisions but it seems that this authority has no authority to do anything other than act as a post office for meetings and some publications.

The most impressive part of NAP is the number of ‘suspects’ arrested for crimes, hate speech and illegal money transfers but do these leads lead to the tracing down of the masterminds behind these attacks? While frequent talks have resulted in better coordination with Afghanistan to prevent cross-border infiltration by groups, no progress has been shared on groups funded by other countries. There have been consistent reports that RAW has been funding groups and political parties to carry out these activities; what action has been taken to deal with this on the military, political and even media level? Blocking financial pipelines is the responsibility of the head of the State Bank. No real progress has happened. Seminaries are still being funded by overseas sponsors. Despite a denial by Chaudhry Nisar that there are seminaries in Punjab receiving funding, the Special Branch of the Punjab police admitted that at least 1,000 seminaries in Punjab were still being funded by overseas sponsors.

Action plans without deadlines on tasks, clear-cut responsibility and reporting on progress are as good as maps without roads and cities. Road maps of any serious action plan require tasks, deadlines, individual responsibility and accountability. For all the 15 areas determined in NAP there should be a list of actions, their specific deadline of completion and the person who will report on them. It is heartening to note that after the Karachi incident weekly meetings are going to be held to monitor progress but then a weekly scoreboard showing actions done or still in process needs to be made to help stakeholders and the public know that the action plan is being acted upon. It is serious inaction in the past that has encouraged repetitive and increasing terrorism and it is serious non-discriminatory action on all fronts in the future that is the only option for the security and safety of the citizens of this country.

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Election Crossroads

Politics is easy business and politicians are not directly dependent on the public to get them into political office

Democracy, as a system, empowers people to choose at will. It is a system that gives people the right to accept and reject leaders, policies and programmes. General elections are the vehicle through which these choices are exercised. This is the basic difference from countries that are controlled by either dictators or monarchies that take away this power from the people and wrest it in their own hands. Research shows that sustainable development is only possible under systems that engage, involve and serve those who elect them. There are many examples of democratic countries versus not so democratic countries developing at a different pace. While India is the largest democracy in the world, China has done far better for its people than India. Thus, there is more to the story than just professing a certain type of political system.

Pakistan is a case study of many political theories. With most of its neighbouring countries ahead of it in terms of development, one of the main reasons given for this development failure is that for half of its history it has been governed by dictators. Interestingly, development in times of autocratic leaders has been much higher than in times of democratic leaders. The average growth rate in Musharraf’s nine years was 6-7 percent while in the last seven years of democratic government it has been three to four percent. Some of the reasons given are that democracy was not given its full reign, dictators did not do long term planning and the masses are not educated enough to make educated choices while choosing their leaders. While all these arguments have some validity, Pakistan is a troubling case of non-development in a system that has proved a big vehicle of development in the world, and thus needs further examination.

Democracy in common terms is described as “with the people, by the people and for the people”. A lot of what has not worked in Pakistan and in some other countries despite claimed democracy can be explained by going by this rather simplistic definition. A democratic system has to ensure that the public is involved in political decision making at all levels. Thus, three forms of government are mandatory to fulfil this requirement: federal, provincial and local. The third tier is the most important to devolve power at the grassroots level. However, most democratic governments in Pakistan have been shy of holding local body elections while dictators have been more forthcoming in this regard. Again, the reason quoted is that dictators use it to gain grassroots control, missing due to their political illegitimacy. In a true democracy, federal and provincial governments are policy and law makers and should not have development funds while local governments should be the ones using these funds for developing their local constituencies. As politics in Pakistan has been more of a money and power game, MNAs and MPAs are extremely reluctant to let go of billions of rupees.

This leads to the question why are they reluctant to let go of this money. One of the main reasons is that politics is easy business and, secondly, they are not directly dependent on the public to get them into political office. That is why the definition of democracy being for the people does not hold true in this country. The consistent deterioration in every single economic and social indicator in the country is evidence of how “for the people” has really been thrown in the dustbin. Secondly, “by the people” is not exactly the absolute truth as far as the election system is concerned. That is why this debate on elections being fair and free, and as per the constitutional description of representing the mandate of the people has become so dominant and vocal.

The first fair and free general elections were held in Pakistan in 1970 by General Yahya Khan. Out of 24 parties, the Awami League of East Pakistan and the PPP in West Pakistan scored the maximum seats. These elections were supposedly the cleanest elections as General Yahya never expected any party to score enough seats to form a strong government and thus did not bother to rig. After this, general elections were held by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 in which the PPP faced an alliance of nine parties called the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). The results were again unexpected as the PPP who, by that time was down in popularity, gained maximum seats of 155 while the PNA got only 36. Protests and riots took place in the country and General Ziaul Haq took over, arresting and later hanging Bhutto on murder charges. Martial law was imposed until 1985 and then, finally, Ziaul Haq was killed in a plane crash in 1988. Thereafter, the two-year revolving door democracy started with Benazir Bhutto managing a controversial win in the 1988 elections only to be dismissed on corruption charges in 1990. The pattern continued of the PPP and PML-N coming into power every two years with heavy allegations of rigging until 1999 when martial law returned with Musharraf in charge. The 2002 elections were termed a military exercise for democratic acceptability and 2008 as an election conducted on a voter list that was 45 percent bogus. The 2013 elections, after a full term of democracy, were supposed to be more representative and fair but, to date, remain controversial.

Why has it always been this cycle of new government, same corruption, same rigging and then the cycle starts all over again? Primarily because every time a new government comes there are some select cases of corruption of the previous government but none whatsoever on electoral rigging. The election commission is accepted as incompetent, voter lists are never cleaned up enough to give a chance to every single person to cast their own vote and pre-poll, during polls and post-poll rigging is screamed against but never penalised. Therein lies the problem of why elections have become a farce and why politicians have become a joke. Trust in the institutions and people running those institutions are at an all time low and accountability of performance is non-existent. For democracy to be effective, institutions like the election commission and various tribunals have to be made accountable for their performance and penalised for irregularities. To absolve wrongdoers by classifying an irregularity as not really corruption and, thus, not really punishable is wrong. Incompetence and dishonesty both tarnish the quality of work and are equally reprehensible and punishable. As Norman D Palmer, who has undertaken extensive research on South Asian politics, concluded: “The never ending political crisis in Pakistan is the product of electoral corruption.” Without dealing with this entrenched virus, democracy will be just a political slogan.

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Deadly Discrimination

The subject of innocent people dying in drone strikes has been shrouded in secret as FATA is an area where the media cannot go and research

President Obama feels contrite and apologises for drone strikes: “I profoundly regret what happened,” he said. “On behalf of the US government, I offer our deepest apologies to the families.” Obama’s aides described this as one of the most painful moments of his presidency. This most painful moment was due to the fact that one US citizen, Warren Weinstein, and the Italian Giovanni Lo Porto were killed by a drone strike intended to gun down terrorists. This is the value each US life holds for its president and also, consequently, it signifies how thousands of innocent lives lost in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen due to these drone strikes, are all worth zilch to the biggest preacher of human values in the world. The subject of drone strikes and their callous collateral damage has been around for some time and the consensus drawn is that no matter how numerically precise they are, they are still blind, deaf and inhuman.

Drone strikes, as a means of the US counterterrorism strategy, have always invited debate and controversy, which, over a period of time, have raised the issue to the level where the UN has made a law to discourage these strikes. Drone strikes became popular as a strategy to prevent public outcry in the US and NATO war on Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in US soldiers’ casualties. There was huge public pressure on the US government to get out of this war as the number of killed US soldiers increased. Drones seemed to satisfy multiple purposes. They were more secretive, more accurate and, most of all, only killing people in other countries. In Pakistan, they started their operations in 2004 and Musharraf has reluctantly admitted that he allowed them but that in his reign they were very infrequent. Successive governments thereafter have completely denied that drone attacks were with their consent and have been raising voice against them but to little effect, till very recently. The subject of innocent people dying in these strikes has been shrouded in secret as FATA is an area where the media cannot go and research, and statistics are highly manipulated by governments to suit their purposes.

In the beginning, drone strikes were infrequent and were always hailed as a wonder weapon that could pin down terrorists and kill them with deadly accuracy. However, as the strikes became frequent, with 2010 recording almost 90 drone attacks, unrest in Pakistan against these strikes and the media stories about how these strikes were indiscriminate began to surface more and more. Some landmark studies revealed horrific facts. The UK’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism published a chilling picture of the truth: “Only 704 of the 2,379 dead have been identified, and only 295 of these were reported to be members of some kind of armed group.” As part of its Naming the Dead project, the Bureau collected the names and, where it was possible, the details of people killed by the CIA, using a multitude of sources. Amnesty International’s report called indiscriminate droning equivalent to war crimes. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on states using drone strikes as a counterterrorism measure to comply with international law as the 193-member body acted on a range of issues related mainly to human rights. The unanimous call for regulating the use of remotely piloted aircraft against suspected terrorists was contained in a comprehensive 28-paragraph resolution, titled ‘Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism’. The portion about drone strikes was included as a result of intensive efforts made by the Pakistan delegation.

Reprieve, the UK NGO working on drone impacts, managed to present an affected family in front of the US Congress and the harrowing story of the victim’s family had a very touching and disturbing impact on the international media. Rafiq ur Rehman, a Pakistani primary school teacher, who appeared on Capitol Hill with his children Zubair 13, and Nabila nine, described his mother, Momina Bibi, as the “string that held our family together”. His two children, who were gathering okra in the field with their grandmother the day she was killed, on October 24, 2012, were injured in the drone attack. Zubair, his son, who was injured, said: “When the drone fired the first time, the whole ground shook and black smoke rose up. The air smelled poisonous. We ran but several minutes later the drone fired again. People from the village came to our aid and took us to hospital. We spent the night in great agony in the hospital and the next morning I was operated on. That is how we spent Eid.”

This pressure made President Obama make laws stricter in 2013 to ensure no damage to civilians is inflicted due to drone attacks. However, Obama’s hypocrisy and double standards were at work again. The Wall Street Journal quotes current and former US officials as saying President Obama made rules for the US drone programme stricter in 2013 but secretly approved a waiver allowing the CIA more flexibility when it comes to conducting drone strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan. The deaths of two hostages, Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, who were killed in a drone strike targeting al Qaeda militants, could have been avoided had the exemption not been in place for Pakistan. The CIA would have been required, by the rules, to gather more intelligence before conducting a drone strike. But what goes around comes around. When you bend a rule, the rule sooner or later bends you. Today, if Obama is facing the hardest moment of his presidency, it is because for years he has completely ignored the cries of the victims of this unmanned and inhumane weapon of innocents’ destruction.

Being black himself, today Obama is seeing blacks crying against discrimination, against the death of a black protestor due to police brutality. Principles of equality regardless of race, class and gender are still more rhetoric than practice. That is why despite so much modernisation there is so much brutalization, that is why despite such advancement in the comforts of life, quality of life has become so elusive, that is why despite the best research and training available in leadership, it has produced such few real leaders in the world. Perhaps if Obama and leaders around the world had paid heed to the final words of Rehman to Congressmen about the drone killing his mother, many more inhumanities would have been prevented. Rehman said: “In the end, I would just like to ask the US public to treat us as equals. Make sure that your government gives us the same status of a human with basic rights as they do to their own citizens. We do not kill our cattle the way the US is killing humans in Waziristan with drones. This indiscriminate killing has to end and justice must be delivered to those who have suffered at the hands of the unjust.”

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