Bribe, threats, blackmailing has been a culture of Pakistan’s politics but it always burgeons under army generals on the name of democracy. Gen. Musharraf overthrew the civilian government on 12 October 1999 under the pretext that the then Prime Minister tried to hijack the plane in which he was coming back from Colombo, Sri Lanka. In contrast, other sources tell that it was the army that had already planed to make a coup therefore they did not let the aircraft to land until the coup was over. It is completely false accusation that plane could not land in Karachi; if army wanted it could land on the airport belonged to the Air Force.

After occupying the government, he made tall claims of establishing sound democracy and set an example of good governance. Analysis of his rule depicts that he miserably failed in delivering what he had promised. Following the footsteps of his predecessors, he only strengthened his authority. The constitution is revamped from parliamentary to presidential form of government for all practical reasons. The parliament, Prime Minister and cabinet ministers have become subservient to president. Although elections were held in 2002, actual rule is still with army generals. There are no sign that Gen. Musharraf and his colleague are interested in changing corrupt political culture of the past. In contrast, new methods of political corruption have been instituted since elections 2002. The agencies on his behest are actively participating in making and breaking coalitions. Gen. Musharraf deliberately has amassed corrupt people around him so he could blackmail them easily.

Analyzing period from October 2002 till today shows that he dumped all ethics of democracy. Whether it is election of PM, clearance of Legal Framework Order (LFO) or appointment of Opposition leader, he preferred to make all deals behind the closed door.  Gen. Musharraf did not call the session of National Assembly until he managed to break members of others parties to make PM of his choice from his supportive political party, Pakistan Muslim Leagu (Q). The constitutional clause has yet to be restored which restricts the elected members to change the political party from whose ticket they were elected. The current situation is that the Party which had hardly managed one vote majority to get elected PM of Musharraf’s choice has become a large political party in the parliament. It is on the record that he has personally asked (more appropriately ordered to) smaller political groups to leave their independent identity and join PML-Q.  President house has become a house of conspiracies. The current widespread media reports are that the Super-Man wishes to change PM, who was his cherished choice, for unknown reasons. Similarly, Provinces are not free from continuous interference of Gen. Musharraf. Benazir Bhutto’s party had a clear majority in Sind Province but the government did not invite majority party leader to form the government.

The fact remains intact even after elections that Prime Minister and Parliament has no power. He bypasses the PM and imposes decision on the civil government to execute. To invigorate him, they do what is dictated by the president house. Recently, the speaker of the assembly passed a ruling in which it was said that the president could not be discussed on the floor. Speaker is custodian of the house and unbiased but the writer does not recall any event when speaker gave ruling in favor of opposition. Before inducting LFO in the constitution as 17^th amendment, his ruling was that it was integral part of the constitution even without following the standard constitutional procedure of making amendment. LFO was brought only in the assembly when the government stroked out deal with the religious political parties that they would support to get it through from the national assembly. According to the collated media reports, his regime threatened religious political alliance that their provincial government in NWFP would be destabilized and their membership would be challenged on the grounds of education if they did not support LFO in the parliament. This amendment has given all major powers to the president including appointment of judges, chief of armed forces, dissolving the government etc.

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So far transparency is concerned, it is scarcely found under the command of Gen. Musharraf. If the regime had believed in transparency they would have brought LFO as a bill on the floor instead of making deal with oppositions outside of the parliament, ex-PM Nawaz Sharif and his family was not mischievously disposed to Saudi Arabia under a deal whose contents are still unknown, elections would have not been rigged, leaders of the majority party would have been invited to form the government and leader of the opposition would have been invited according to the convention of the national assembly.

Musharraf announced on television when government benches had signed the agreement with religious parties’ alliance that he would put off his uniform by December 2004. As the time is approaching, he and his aids are giving the hints that it might not happen. It is extraction of his own imagination that people like to see him in the uniform and he is a popular figure among people. The results of presidential referendum are not secret to any one when the government machinery had to fill the ballot box to show high turn out of people, whereas the fact is that all the voting booths were jam packed with ghosts. This is the reason that the election commission had burnt the referendum record soon after declaring the results of referendum.    

President Musharraf is serving interests of the army and not the nation. He has established a National Security Council to purvey permanent role to army generals. Army generals are allotted residential plots and agricultural lands. Retired and serving army personals are willfully appointed everywhere in key and senior most positions in civil bureaucracy. Ironically, army retired personnel are not drawing pension but also salaries.  The judiciary is subdued to him and army generals. A corruption case against army officers and Generals is yet to be heard in the Lahore High court – might never heard. Since he took power, judiciary has not taken a single decision against the government except in the case of Shahbaz Sharif, which was not honored. The Supreme Court in its verdict said that no citizen of Pakistan could be sent in exile. However, Shahbaz Sharif was immediately deported when he landed at the Lahore airport. The government action is contempt of court but judiciary has to bear this embarrassment.

Freedom of speech is crushed. Muslim League (N) President Javaid Hashmi was arrested and imprisoned for 23 years for reading a letter, apparently written by anonymous army personal, in which it was asked that Kargil adventure, which was taken under his command, should be investigated. In present political situation, whosoever does not support Gen. Musharraf, he rebukes them. All politicians are corrupt till the time they do not join his club; all journalists and analysts are pseudo-intellectuals if they criticize his actions.

There is no truth in it that corruption has decreased or economy is growing under this regime. Corruption has been rising since he took the charge of the office. It is naïve to think that corruption can be reduced when the same corrupt practices are followed and most of the same corrupt people are serving in his government. Increase in foreign reserves (12 billion US$) is not due to the fact that economy is growing, rather major increase in foreign reserves is by virtue of rescheduling of loans, purchase of dollars from the open market and bowering of new loans and aids. The strident fact is, poor is getting poorer and affluent are getting richer in Musharraf’s era. Inflation has increased and prices of commodities are three fold higher than 1999. Only in the month of May, more than 100 people suicide due to poverty. In contrast, his regime doubled the salaries and privileges of president, prime minister, ministers and parliamentarians. The privileged class is living like prince and princesses and have-nots are starving.

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On the facet of law and order, Musharraf’s regime has miserably failed in maintaining it. Bomb blasts are becoming common feature in the country, especially in Karachi and Quetta. People of Gilgit are spending their day and nights under curfew. Wana is under fire by the Pakistani Army. Pakistan is once again in a similar situation as it was in under Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. The history shows of Pakistan shows that the country suffered more under army generals’ rule than civilian.   

It is international obligation of government of Scandinavian countries to stress that he should honor his promise by removing uniform by December 2004 and restore real power of the parliament. He should be advised to respect the constitution and laws of the land instead of fiddling with them. Moreover, it there is any move to give him noble prize for normalizing relationship with India, it should be discouraged. If he gets this prestigious award it will certainly encourage other dictators to grab the power from backdoors.

Norwegian Version

Demokrati på lavbluss

Publisert: 01. jul. 2004, 06:00
Oppdatert: 30. jun. 2004, 22:39

DEBATT

Nadeem Yousaf, cand.polit.
Universitetet i Bergen

Bestikkelser, trusler og utpressing har det vært kultur for i pakistansk politikk - under generalene i demokratiets navn. General Pervez Musharraf styrtet den sivile regjeringen 12.10.99. Etter å ha tatt kontroll over regjeringen, opplyste han at han ville etablere et sunt demokrati. En analyse av styret hans viser at han har mislykkes totalt. Han har styrket egen makt. Konstitusjonen er i praksis endret fra parlamentsstyre til presidentstyre. Parlament og ministere er hans servile tjenere. Det ble holdt valg i 2002, men generalene har den reelle makten. Det er ingen tegn til at Musharraf og kollegene hans er interessert i å endre fortidens korrupsjonskultur. Musharraf har derimot samlet korrupte folk rundt seg.

Når vi analyserer perioden fra 02 til i dag, ser vi at han har kastet vrak på all demokratisk etikk. Han velger å gjøre alle avtaler bak lukkete dører. General Musharraf innkalte ikke til møte i nasjonalforsamlingen før han hadde klart å få medlemmer i andre partier til å bryte ut og gå inn for statsministerkandidaten fra sitt støtteparti Pakistansk Muslimsk Liga (Q) (PML-Q). Klausulen i grunnloven som begrenser valgte medlemmers rett til å skifte parti, er opphevet. Provinsene slipper heller ikke unna general Musharrafs stadige innblanding. Benazir Bhuttos parti hadde klart flertall i Sind-provinsen, men ble ikke bedt om å danne regjering.

Valget har ikke endret virkeligheten; statsministeren og parlamentet har ingen makt. Han omgår statsministeren og pålegger regjeringen å sette i verk det han bestemmer. Nylig fikk dirigenten i nasjonalforsamlingen igjennom en bestemmelse som forbød å diskutere presidenten i møtesalen. Dirigenten er husets høye beskytter og nøytral, men skribenten husker ikke ett eneste tilfelle der dirigentens avgjørelse gikk i opposisjonens favør. LFO kom inn i nasjonalforsamlingen ved at regjeringen fikk til en avtale med de religiøse politiske partiene. Ifølge mediene truet regimet den religiøse alliansen med at provinsstyret i Nordvestprovinsen (NWFP) ville bli destabilisert og at de kunne bli utfordret på utdanningspolitikken sin - om de ikke støttet LFO i parlamentet. Dette grunnlovstillegget har gitt all makt av betydning til presidenten, inkludert utnevning av dommere, forsvarsledere, oppløsning av regjeringen o.s.v. Innsynsrett eksisterer knapt.

Resultatet av presidentvalget er ikke hemmelig for noen. Siden maktapparatet måtte fylle opp stemmeurnene for å vise høy valgdeltakelse, var det i virkeligheten spøkelser som fylte opp valglokalene. Valgkommisjonen brente valgregistrene rett etter å ha annonsert valgresultatene. President Musharraf tjener hærens og ikke nasjonens interesser. Han har etablert et nasjonalt sikkerhetsråd for å sikre generalene varig makt. Generalene blir tildelt residenser og jordbrukseiendommer. Både pensjonerte og aktive militære får nøkkelstillinger i byråkratiet.

Pensjonerte offiserer får både pensjon og lønn. Rettsvesenet er underordnet ham og generalene. Det har ennå ikke vært ført en eneste korrupsjonssak mot hærens offiserer i høyesterett i Lahore - og lite trolig vil det bli ført noen. Etter at han overtok makten har ikke rettsapparatet fattet noen avgjørelser som går regjeringen imot, med unntak av dommen i saken mot Shahbaz Sharif. Høyesterett erklærte i sin dom at ingen borger i Pakistan kunne bli sendt i eksil. Likevel ble Sharif utvist straks etter landing på Lahore flyplass. Regjeringens handlemåte viser forakt for retten, og domstolene sitter igjen med skammen.

Ytringsfriheten er knust. President Javai Hashmi i Muslimsk Liga ble arrestert og dømt til 23 års fengsel for å ha lest et brev der det ble bedt om at Kargil-saken, som han hadde ansvaret for, skulle undersøkes. I den nåværende politiske situasjonen er det slik at enhver som ikke støtter general Musharraf, vil bli irettesatt. Alle politikere er korrupte om de ikke støtter ham, alle journalister og analytikere er pseudointellektuelle hvis de kritiserer handlingene hans. Korrupsjonen har økt, og økonomien har ikke hatt noe oppsving. Det er naivt å tro at korrupsjonen kan bli redusert når samme gamle praksis blir fulgt, og omtrent de samme korrupte folkene tjenestegjør i regjeringen. Økningen i valutareservene (12 milliarder dollar) skyldes ikke vekst i økonomien, men heller refinansiering av lån, kjøp av amerikansk valuta på det åpne marked, og etablering av nye lån og hjelpetiltak.

De grelle fakta er at de fattige er blitt fattigere og de rike rikere i Musharrafs tid. Inflasjonen har økt og vareprisene er tredoblet siden 1999. Bare i mars måned begikk over 100 mennesker selvmord på grunn av fattigdom. På den annen side doblet regimet lønn og privilegier til president, ministere og parlamentsmedlemmer. Overklassen lever som prinser og prinsesser mens de som ikke har noe sulter.

Musharrafs regime har totalt mislykkes i å opprettholde lov og orden. Bombeeksplosjoner er blitt hverdagen i landet, spesielt i Karachi og Quetta. Innbyggerne i Gilgit er underlagt portforbud både natt og dag. Wana blir beskutt av den pakistanske hæren. Pakistan er nok en gang i samme situasjon som det var i under general Zia-ul-Haq. Historien viser at Pakistan lider sterkere under militært enn under sivilt styre.

De skandinaviske landene bør forplikte seg til å presse på slik at han holder sitt løfte om å gjeninnføre reell makt til parlamentet. Han bør få råd om å respektere konstitusjonen og lovene, ikke tukle med dem. Skulle noen ville gi ham Nobelprisen for normaliseringen med India, bør det frarådes. Hvis han får denne prestisjetunge prisen, vil det sikkert og visst oppmuntre andre diktatorer til å gripe makten ved å gå bakveien.
 

OVERSATT AV ASLAUG EIDE

Translated by Aslaug Eide

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