WORLD AFFAIRS

Judgment reserved

General Pervez Musharraf inducts an administrative team, but democracy itself is nowhere in sight.

AMIT BARUAH
in Islamabad

PAKISTAN has entered a make-or-break phase of its history. The people, for the moment, are solely interested in results and performance. Will General Pervez Musharraf and his team be able to deliver? Will the coup leader be able to recover looted national wealth, bring offenders to justice, restore a semblance of economic order, ensure law and order and put the country on course for "real" democracy?

The country has its ninth government in 11 years - four elected governments, four caretaker set-ups and now the military regime with a "civilian front". No civilian government has been allowed to complete its five-year tenure in office. It is hardly an enviable record.

Right now, the Army and the General are on trial. Sick and tired of the Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto duo that has dominated the political scene for almost a decade, the people are relieved to see the back of the ousted Prime Minister. They may not have much to say about the way the change was effected, but they do have lots to say about their expectations from the new regime.

Gen. Musharraf will find that he has no honeymoon period. The people expect him to show results immediately. The crackdown on loan defaulters and tax evaders, which is to begin from November 17, will be the first test for the Government. Will the Army be able to trap the big fish and make them cough up defaulted loans of over Rs.200 billion?

The fact is that "good words" have been heard before. A senior Pakistani journalist, veteran of many a martial law, told this correspondent: "We are good at formulation and planning. But there has been no implementation in the last 52 years. Gen. Musharraf will have to demonstrate that he is different,"

You find the same mood on the streets of Pakistan. Yes, it is good to see that Nawaz Sharif is gone, but we have to wait and see what the new regime does. The people's judgment is reserved.

So far, the General has appointed six members to the National Security Council (NSC) and announced a 10-member Cabinet, which is likely to be expanded to a 12-member one. The appointment of Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, who was a legal "wizard" to the late Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, and that of Mohammad Yaqub, State Bank Governor, to the NSC, has been greeted with considerable scepticism.

Pirzada has been the handmaiden of martial law regimes past; he has provided the legal "cover" to the illegal acts of martial law governments. Yaqub has been around for several years; he has not been able to do much for the country's economy. In fact, during his tenure the economy has continued its downhill slide.

In the Cabinet, barring four members, the others are relatively unknown faces, something that is welcome in itself in a country like Pakistan. The Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, is hawkish on India, though his views are well-argued from a Pakistani standpoint. Recent statements from the Pakistani Foreign Office have accused India of furthering its "hegemonic interests" - such phraseology was missing from the Pakistan-India discourse at least during the second tenure of the Sharif Government.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz is on loan from Citibank to Pakistan. Acceptable to the West and the donor agencies, Aziz's appointment indicates that there will be no departure from past policies; an element of greater implementation in the collection of taxes and continuity of policy will be welcomed by the West.

MIAN KHURSHEED / AP
Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Lt. Gen. (retd) Moinuddin Haider, the Sindh Governor removed by Nawaz Sharif, is the Interior Minister. As Sindh Governor he showed himself to be a man of ideas, but was apparently thwarted at every level by the former Prime Minister, who finally sacked him.

The other appointment that has evoked interest is that of Omar Asghar Khan. His appointment as Minister for Rural Development is a welcome one. The son of Air Chief Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan, he runs a non-governmental organisation called Sungi. Omar Asghar Khan has been at the receiving end of the religious Right. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has accused the General of inducting members of the "NGO mafia" into his Cabinet.

Gen. Musharraf, it seems, will finally have three members from each of the four Pakistani provinces of Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. Such a policy is a deliberate one, aimed at giving the "smaller provinces" the feeling that they are equal partners in the Pakistani Federation. Of course, such equality cannot be ensured by parity of numbers alone, but this move is seen as a step in the right direction.

The General has appointed two women - Atiya Inayatullah to the NSC and Zubeida Jalal to the Cabinet as Education Minister. This follows his statements that women need to be given greater representation at all levels.

In the area of the economy, however, there seems to be little attempt at any fresh thinking. Pakistan's "one-tranche" economy is heavily dependent on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other agencies. Their conditionalities stress on one simple issue - greater revenue generation - which in the Pakistani context means recurring increases in direct taxes.

S. Akbar Zaidi, a leading economic analyst, argued in a recent article: "Since it is more than probable that the same policies devised by the IMF and World Bank which were responsible for these downward (economic trends since 1988) are likely to continue into the future, we have little reason to celebrate. Moreover, under the four democratic regimes since 1988, the policies of the IMF and the World Bank were, at times, half-heartedly followed through because of their obvious negative consequences, and had to be slowed down or even abandoned due to public pressure and protest. What is worse and more worrisome then is that with little need to be popular as they do not have to face an election, the military government can go all out to enforce these policies. The eventual consequences are likely to be far different from the expectations of the military or its supporters."

Zaidi argued that since Pakistan began pursuing the IMF-Bank-directed policies since 1988, its growth rate has dropped in comparison to the trend level of previous years. In the last 11 years, in only one year was GDP growth more than the six per cent demonstrated since 1977.

IN a sense, Pakistan has gotten used to change of governments and political turmoil. Zia-ul-Haq had the longest tenure of 11 years; but in the 1977-85 period he ruled as the Chief Martial Law Administrator. During the 1985-88 period, he had an uneasy relationship with Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo, who became the first victim of the President's new powers under Article 58 (2)(b).

Writing in Dawn, columnist Ayaz Amir draws attention to the distorted democracy that has existed in Pakistan:

"Military interventions in Pakistan have always followed a genetic code. In the beginning they exude a sense of vitality and vigour. Public expectations are high and there is talk of reform in the air. Politicians as a class are reviled and stories of their ineptitude and corruption are laid bare. Then as time passes military rule mutates into a hybrid democracy with a section of the political class becoming willing tools of the new dispensation. This was the pattern both under Ayub and Zia. Yahya who came in between had not the time for it because he was busy presiding over the break-up of Pakistan.

"Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and then, a political generation later, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, were products of the mutant and distorted democracy growing out of military rule. Bhutto senior was a product of the Ayub regime; Nawaz Sharif and his Muslim League the most outstanding political products of the Zia regime. In blaming these knights for their failures, and there is no doubt that their failures have been conspicuous and enormous, the Army cannot absolve itself of a large share of the blame.

AP
The newly inducted Cabinet Ministers, who were administered the oath of office by President Rafiq Tarar and Gen. Musharraf, at the presidential residence on November 6.

It is widely felt that Gen. Musharraf, if he has to carry credibility with the mass of the Pakistani people, must think and act differently. He has to distance himself from the record of the Chief Martial Law Administrators of the past; not just in form but in content. And that, clearly, is a tall order. Also, there is a growing demand that the promised process of accountability must also cover the Army itself. The Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, once described the Army's "corps commanders" as "crore commanders" - a description that could hardly have endeared him to the Army.

In reply to a question from the BBC, the General conceded that there could be corruption in the Army. Earlier, at his November 1 press conference, the Chief Executive said that Army personnel would also be covered under the ambit of the newly-formed National Accountability Bureau (NAB) headed by Lt. Gen. Syed Amjad.

Musharraf also referred to the possibility of holding a referendum in a "bid" to legitimise his rule and the setting up of a Constitution Commission to reform the statute. The General also said that the Army would not intervene directly in the work of civil institutions, but would be engaged in an elaborate "monitoring system" in order to ensure the implementation of government policy. The use of the "intelligence system" to vet civilians being appointed in the civilian administration is an indicator of the widespread use of the "eyes and ears department" in Pakistan and its institutional status.

At his first press conference, the General revealed that he was conscious of the criticism against the first batch of appointments. He promised to be more careful and declared that those who did not perform would be replaced.

MUSHARRAF, who met delegations from the Commonwealth and the European Union, has meanwhile refused to spell out any time-frame for the return of democracy. With "due deference" to the wishes of the international community, he maintained that he would act in the national interests of Pakistan. Taking this logic forward, the Army chief said that he was not even thinking in terms of a time-frame for a return to "democracy". Earlier, he told the official APP news agency: "Firstly, I have seen whenever you give a time-frame, a countdown starts and everyone gets into a standstill. The government machinery doesn't work seriously because they know that the time is limited and on the other side they start whiling away the time."

The General added: "I'm a strong believer in honouring my words. I don't want to say for the sake of saying it. Whatever I say must be done. And, if it is not done, I would like to tell the nation why it is not being done. Because, I mean it. I'm saying it from (my) heart. So, if I give a time-frame and then go back on it, it doesn't fit into my way of thinking. I don't like to do that. Then, I have said there are so many issues to be addressed. Therefore, I would not like to give the time-frame. I have to complete that work first."

The General also said that the international reaction to his October 12 coup was milder than what he had expected. In fact, he was surprised by its mildness. Domestically, he was of the view that he had expected the response to his coup to be positive. "I was pretty sure that the conditions were so bad that the people are going to accept this change," he said. Interestingly, the General chose to characterise his action as a counter-coup. "(The) coup was by the previous government," the Army chief said in a reference to his "sacking" by Nawaz Sharif.

The agenda set by the General and his outright refusal to set any time-frame to his rule implies that he is going to be around for some time. Musharraf told CNN television that he was certainly looking at his tenure in terms of months. Since it cannot be in weeks or days, then clearly we are looking at a period running to years.

THE first stirrings of protest have come from the religious right. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, who was barred from entering the NWFP after he made a speech critical of the General, later had the ban revoked. In his first post-coup speech on November 5, the Qazi criticised the selection of members to the NSC and the Cabinet, describing them as members of the "NGO mafia". Those selected are broadly Western-educated, with no perceptible leanings towards hardline Islam. The Qazi said in Peshawar that the members of the Cabinet and the NSC did not have the support of the masses. "These people will tax the masses, line their pockets and leave this country," he said. Decrying the ban on the use of loudspeakers in mosques in the NWFP, he said this was outrageous. "There is no ban on dance parties, full of obscenities, in cantonments," he said.

It would appear that the religious Right is the first to oppose the General. The reasons are not far to seek - Musharraf has, so far, shown no inclination to appease the clerics though he has made the mandatory "umra" visit to Mecca. The Jamaat and other members of the family of the religious Right are aware that the General is in a position to hit at their roots if he so chooses.

A Government is in place, the Ministers have taken their oath of office, deriving their power from the Chief of the Army Staff. The waiting period is over. The General must now deliver on his promises to a restless Pakistan.