"Roadmap for Democracy": A must for Pakistan
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  "Roadmap for Democracy": A must for Pakistan
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« on: June 03, 2006, 12:45:51 PM »

 "Roadmap for Democracy": A must for Pakistan

Gulf News , Oman Tribune, The Nation ( Pakistan ) May 24, 2006
A Roadmap for Democracy
Husain Haqqani

Recent developments in Nepal and Nigeria serve as examples for how nations can overcome entrenched authoritarian structures through popular mobilization and thoughtful political action. Nepal ’s parliament, restored by King Gyanendra after massive street protests, has voted to strip the King of all substantive powers. That paves the way for Nepal ’s transition, hopefully on a more stable basis, towards constitutional democracy under a titular monarch. King Gyanendra’s effort to use his nation’s difficulties, including the brutal Maoist insurgency that plagues the countryside, to concentrate power in his own hands appears to have been thwarted. It took a combination of international pressure, manifestation of the people’s opposition to the King in the streets of Katmandu and cooperation among Nepal ’s various political parties to ensure the diminution of the King’s authority. Nepal still has a long way to go in its transition to democracy but its political leaders have clearly agreed on a roadmap for that transition.

In Nigeria , the Senate threw out a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed retired General Olusegun Obasanjo to seek a third term as the country’s president. Like Pakistan , Nigeria has also had a chequered history of intermittent civilian and military rule. General Obasanjo had been Nigeria ’s military ruler from 1976 to 1979. Then, he handed over power to an elected civilian government that was subsequently overthrown by the military. Obasanjo entered politics and was elected president in 1999 as a popular civilian politician after a round of disastrous military dictators.

Obasanjo did not consider himself indispensable for his nation in 1979 and refrained from actively demanding the amendment to the Nigerian constitution that would allow him to run for office again next year. Nigeria ’s constitution limits elected presidents to two terms of office. But Obasanjo’s colleagues campaigned hard to change the constitution to enable their leader to secure the presidency again. The decision of the Nigerian parliament to reject the proposition is likely to strengthen democracy in Africa ’s most populous country. The Nigerian military probably prefers one of its own, a former general, in power. But Nigeria ’s politicians have made it known that they do not like the idea of changing the country’s constitution to suit an individual or to please the country’s military establishment.

Educated Pakistanis who are equally disillusioned with the country’s military and political leaderships must look at the experiences of Nepal and Nigeria to identify prospects for change within their own country. King Gyanendra had justified his own power grab on grounds of the ineffectiveness and ineptitude of Nepal ’s civilian politicians. The Nepalese military and a strong segment of the country’s business elite supported the King’s stated desire for stability secured with an iron hand. But the politicians turned to the masses and were eventually able to demonstrate greater popular support for their messy democracy than for King Gyanendra’s ‘efficient autocracy.’ Pakistan ’s politicians, too, would have to do the same.

Once Nepal ’s people took to the streets, Gyanendra’s international support vaporized. The international community backed the demand for restoration of parliamentary government and it is unlikely that the cantankerous nature of Nepal ’s politics will change the world’s commitment to constitutional democratic rule in Nepal .

The “Charter for Democracy” recently signed by Pakistan ’s major political leaders Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Mr. Nawaz Sharif offers hope that the still popular exiled politicians might return to Pakistan in time for the 2007 parliamentary election. A popular uprising is more difficult to organize in Pakistan than in Nepal . One of the reasons why Pakistan ’s first military ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, shifted the country’s capital from Karachi to Islamabad was precisely to forestall the fall of a government through popular protests.

People power is more easily manifested in countries where the commercial center, political and cultural hub and state capital are all in one city or close to each other. In Pakistan ’s case, the federal capital ( Islamabad ) is a city mostly of diplomats and civil servants while centers of commercial and political activity are widely dispersed. Unless an agitation campaign is organized in several Pakistani cities simultaneously it is unlikely to be effective. The last such campaign, in 1977, succeeded because it was encouraged by the refusal of the military-intelligence complex to put it down with force. The international community was quick to support the opposition at that time, which is less likely at the present moment.

Since 1977, Pakistan ’s military and intelligence services have ensured through manipulation that each of Pakistan ’s major cities is controlled by a different political faction. Since the 1999 coup d’etat, General Pervez Musharraf has benefited from disagreements within opposition ranks and the lack of sufficient organization of Pakistan ’s mainstream political parties. The military regime has, through the political wings of the intelligence services, exacerbated dissension among opposition ranks and exacerbated the relatively weak organization of the PPP and PML(N).

It is difficult to be fully organized as a political party while being hounded by the state apparatus. Although it is fashionable for some to criticize the mainstream parties for not developing party infrastructures beyond the personality cults around part leaders, the role of Pakistan ’s establishment in undermining political parties should not be underestimated.

“The Charter for Democracy” marks the end of mutual hostility and confrontation between the major parties, which was accentuated by the military-intelligence combine between 1988 and 1999 and then cited as justification for the military’s continuous meddling in politics. If Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif decide to get on a plane and return to Pakistan , the supporters of the two mainstream parties would be encouraged to mobilize. That would make it difficult for the Musharraf regime to stage-manage the results of the 2007 election. If Pakistan ’s parliament acts like the Nigerian Senate and turns down any attempt by Musharraf to change the rules of the game again by amending or reinterpreting the constitution then Pakistan might also get another chance of becoming a democracy. The Musharraf regime has responded to the revitalization of Pakistan ’s opposition by highlighting concerns, shared by a section of the Pakistani intelligentsia, about the capabilities of Pakistan 's opposition leaders. But the real issue for Pakistan goes beyond that of personalities, a fact ironically cited by Musharraf himself in recent remarks. Pakistan has to get beyond military rule and decide upon its form of government, without adulteration. Pakistanis are convinced that there is no alternative to democracy and a general doubling as president in uniform is hardly democratic.

Soon after coming to power in 1999, General Musharraf had the option of building a civilian political base for himself. But he squandered the goodwill of his early days and stuck with the Pakistani military’s tried and tested remedy of taking over a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League and running the country with a combination of military strong-arming and intelligence manipulation. Despite exile and exclusion from the electoral arena, coupled with consistent propaganda and repression of their families and associates, Pakistani politics still revolves around Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, on the one hand, and the military on the other. Those who want the military out of Pakistan ’s politics might have no choice now except endorsing the Bhutto-Sharif combine.

(Husain Haqqani is Director of Boston University’s Center for International Relations and Co-Chair of the Hudson Institute’s Project on Islam and Democracy. He is the author of the Carnegie Endowment book ‘Pakistan Between Mosque and Military’)
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