The separate worlds of the army and the politicians

Columnist SULTAN AHMED sees the two indifferent worlds.

Military commanders and political leaders anywhere in the globe live in two separate worlds. The armymen are members of an elaborately structured force who either command or obey, and follow a very rigid code of life and conduct, with the possible or perceived enemy as their focus.

Politicians on the other hand are a vastly dispersed lot with varying ideologies, different perceptions of public life and their own individual methodologies to achieve their ends. And when each country has one army it has many political parties, and some like Pakistan far too many parties.

And while the military men obey orders from the top or the higher command, politicians tend to look to the bottom of the ladders to ascertain what the people think or want as they are the voters from whom all political power springs.

The two groups have different approaches is to the constitution, and to the sharing of power and ordering public life. And while politics is described as the art of the possible anywhere in the world, the army commanders in third world countries have small patience for such an approach with its uncertainties. They like to reshape the political life as they deem fit, and hold order and discipline as the supreme need of their countries.

Barry Rubin in his book “Modern Dictators — A History of Tyranny in the Third World” deals with this problem extensively. Such studies began with the books: “The Man on Horseback” by F. E. Finer followed by “The Role of the Military in the Third World” by Gavin Kennedy.

If the military commanders in Third World countries have a poor view of political leaders or simple contempt for them, more so in countries which they have ruled too often, it is not surprising. Pakistani commanders are no exception to that.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Chief Executive pending his metamorphosis as President soon, thinks that politicians in Pakistan are a spent force and they should retire from public life. He says they had played their innings and are out with a zero score.

But he has not specified who should replace them. He has not said that another set of politicians with a better record should replace them. He possibly presumes that with himself as the supreme leader, shaper of our destiny and makers of our policies, our life would be far better and the country would have a brighter future.

But the people judge the merit of such presumptions in the light of the military rule in the past. Unfortunately, we had as many as three military regimes in the past, ruling the country half the time. And their experience eventually had been too unhappy. Ayub Khan who had prepared himself to take-over the country for long ruled for 11 years and was ousted not by politicians but by his own Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Yahya Khan. Yahya held the first general election in the country after 23 years of its independence and then repudiated its democratic verdict. As a result, he stunningly dismembered the country, lost East Pakistan to the Indian forces and became party to an ignoble surrender, leaving behind 93,000 POWs in Indian hands.

Gen Ziaul Haq put back the clock of progress, and had come with a referendum which claimed that if Pakistanis liked Islam that meant they loved him as President of the country. He too continued for 11 years — until the hand of God took him away from midair. His hand-picked Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo was sacked when he began asserting himself, taking the country by surprise.

Gen Zia got the country fully involved in the war in Afghanistan against the Russians without thinking of the consequences of going all out in that war as the Americans were funding him, and supplying the arms. Finally, when the war was over and the Russians had left Afghanistan we were saddled  with over 3 million Afghan refugees, millions of Russian and American arms in the hands of Afghan refugees and Pakistanis, an extended heroin trade and two million heroin addicts at home and too many bands of armed and militant terrorists and a tremendous increase in crime and violence.

We are reeling under the impact of his politics even now and the country is more divided politically and in terms of sects and in interpreting Islam than ever before.

All that means that if the politicians had failed, the army which had ruled half the time had not succeeded either. Nor can it be argued now the new round of army rule will be more successful than in the past.

“The army is a nation within a nation. It is a vice of our time,” said Alfred Devigny in 1840. The fact that a country needs an army is not disputed, but what is at issue is the political role and periodic supremacy of the army and submerging of all political institutions. And the claim of the generals to know the best in every situation. If military rule solves a few problems for a short while it creates far more problems and destabilises the country and society altogether.

In Pakistan, the Muslim League has been the hobby-horse of all military governments. Soon after the generals settle down in office and plan a long stay at the helm of affairs they try to grab hold of the Muslim League. If the top leaders refuse, a parallel League is created in the manner Ayub Khan created the Convention Muslim League which first met at the acquarium at Clifton.

Gen Zia held non-party elections in 1985 and then felt the need to have a party in the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies to back the government and get legislation passed quick. So he promoted the creation of the Junejo Muslim League which was joined by a large number of Muslim Leaguers. It soon came to have provincial branches as well. And it began fading out after his dismissal from office by Gen. Zia.

By now the country has a large martial law lobby or martial law political infrastructure in which Sarifuddin Pirzada is a towering figure and top adviser to military rulers after having been foreign minister in the Ayub days, succeeding Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

And now, as the Pakistan Muslim League headed by Nawaz Sharif refused to switch over its loyalty to Gen. Musharraf, following the former PM’s expulsion from the country, a parallel Muslim League has been created, described as the like-minded Leaguers with Mian Mohammad Azhar as its president. Old Leaguers like Capt. Gohar Ayub and Illahi Bux Soomro have joined hands with him while Ijazul Haq has fallen in line eventually after wanting to lead the party.

Now, Begum Abida Hussain, Information Secretary of the like-minded Leaguers, says her party would support Gen. Musharraf for presidentship if he would restore the assemblies, which also means putting her party into power after it had secured a majority in the national and provincial assemblies. The government is rather slow to act in this regard as not enough number of Leaguers have joined the like-minded group nor have other politicians showed their willingness to join it. But, once the government openly throws its lot with the like-minded group and begins appointing ministers, more and more of other political leaders may join the group.

Gen. Musharraf has a long agenda, with the creation of the parallel Muslim League as the first step. He would want to restore the suspended assemblies, arguing that he was bringing back to life the suspended Parliament. He could then hold elections to the Senate, using the provincial assemblies and the National Assembly for that purpose. Once, the vacant Senate seats are filled he would hold the presidential elections and become the President.

After that, he would begin calling one political shot after another openly. He would amend the Constitution and restore the excessive presidential powers as earlier provided through the Eighth Amendment which helps him sack the Prime Minister and dissolve the assemblies at will.

In return for doing all these favours for him the national and provincial assemblies would demand that their life be extended by two years to make up for the time lost through the suspension of the assemblies. And that would suit Gen. Musharraf as he would not want to hold general elections immediately after he becomes the president, but after settling down in office securely.

There is a major snag in this scenario. While he may be able to have simple majority in the assemblies to get himself elected, would he get the two-thirds majority needed in the NA and Senate to amend the constitution or will the government exert the kind of “pressure or force needed to make the N.A. and Senate members vote by two-thirds majority to amend the constitution?

If such pressure is brought to bear on the members of Parliament, what would be its international impact, or how will the world react to that at a time when international opinion is really important to us?

Indisputably, the newly elected assemblies will not do the bidding of Gen. Musharraf, will not accept the supremacy of the army and be ready to play second or third fiddle to the army in office. So he is better of dealing with the suspended assembly members and rewarding them by restoring the assemblies and giving them some office with reduced authority.

A major question is: will the Supreme Court endorse such a deal instead of wanting fresh elections before October 2002, as he is committed to do now. The presumption is the Court will endorse his moves and may not look into its grammar.

As a result, what we may have may be a parliamentary system but with presidential supremacy and army dominance. They are talking of a parliamentary system as feeble as that of France and or Egypt and where the President is all powerful and very conspicuous.

Will the world accept such a democracy in Pakistan? That depends on to what extent the Supreme Court accepts the procedures and systems adopted. Equally important is how smoothly and without pressure the change is brought about, and how the other political parties in the country accept the change or how strongly they resist such subterfuges.

At the moment Gen. Musharraf and his generals have unwittingly united most of the political parties, other parties, besides the 18 within the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy too are not supportive of his regime either. And the mass arrests following the moves of the ARD to hold a public meeting in Lahore on March 23 and have a rally on May 1, have been criticised around the world. And that can affect the external aid and foreign investment at a time when foreign countries are showing some interest in helping Pakistan.

The fact is we are living in a world far different from that of Ayub Khan and Gen. Zia. There is a strong emphasis on democracy now in the Western world. The Commonwealth of 55 countries is firm on that. And the recent conference of presidents of American states with 34 of them attending had full democracy and free market economy as its major objectives. And we have now been warned that even if the US lifts the sanctions imposed to deter us from making the nuclear bomb, the sanctions which followed imposition of military rule would continue. And India is openly and covertly always underscoring the fact we are under military rule in Pakistan and wanting no assistance to military rulers.

In such a global environment the military rulers have to reach out for an accommodation with the political leaders. They can’t banish or dismiss them as a spent force. In politics a party rejected by the people today can be re-elected later and a very popular and powerful party of today can become unpopular tomorrow and be rejected by the people.

It is true, the politicians have failed. That does not mean the military rulers have succeeded or will succeed now. The problems, constitutional, political and economic are overwhelming, and no army is competent to handle them effectively. Hence, the army has come to a deal with the politicians and let the good among them have their rightful place in our scheme of things.

The need of the times and the future is to have strong checks against political abuses or economic mismanagement. We need a strong constitution with firm checks against its misuse or violation. The Parliament has to assert itself instead of becoming a handy tool in the hands of the Prime Minister. The standing committees of the house should meet often and assert themselves so should the Public Accounts Committee.

The judiciary should be strong and assertive and the Chief Justice should be chosen in consultation with the leader of the opposition if the order of seniority is not observed.

Accountability should become a permanent process and the judiciary and the army should not remain exempt from its scope, as it is now.

Finally, what should matter is the dominance of institutions as the sheet anchor of the system, and not wily or freewheeling individuals who exploit and wreck the system altogether.