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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Zardari's hedonism

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
The furor over the NRO non-implementation case is not

By Babar Sattar
October 16, 2010
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
The furor over the NRO non-implementation case is not just a product of Zardari-haters' heartfelt desire to see him sink, as Mr Zardari's cronies would have us believe. The government's refusal to implement the NRO judgment is troubling for it and is a manifestation of the hedonistic culture that the PPP under Zardari's leadership is nurturing and perpetuating. The malignant ethos of such a hedonistic culture includes a voracious appetite for corruption backed by affirmative steps blocking the advent of a neutral system of accountability, cronyism and nepotism as an alternative to merit, abuse of discretionary authority to reward and encourage personal loyalty, and contempt for the law and the legal process wedded to the desire to spite and frustrate the enforcement of law in signature-feudal fashion.
Corruption is the bane of any effective system of governance. Every year Pakistan shows up within the top bracket of the list of the world's most corrupt countries. The need to pay bribes to get one's due, starting from clerks in the government departments all the way to the top, is a fact of every Pakistani's life. (Whether it is a corrupt state that is corrupting the society or the other way round is an entirely different whole other discussion.) When rent-seeking behaviour becomes the norm within a system of governance, those holding the levers of power obviously get a lion's share of the boodle. And to give the Zardari-led PPP its due, the argument its apologists and propagandists make is not that there is no corruption, but that when everyone indulges in corruption then the PPP should not be singled out for accountability.
There are three sets of problems with this formulation. One, the defence of corruption as a reality of life is something other state and political actors shy away from, but not the PPP. There is a significant difference between viewing corruption as an unfortunate practice and consequence of non-implementation of law, ethics and morality versus audaciously treating it as an acceptable state of affairs and instead turning the focus on 'fair distribution of the bounty' as argued most recently by PPP's Abdul Qayyum Jatoi. The former position amounts to the acceptance of a wrong and admission of weakness and self-interest that prevents the eradication of the wrong. The latter position threatens to deprave standards of public morality by removing the stigma attached to such manifest wrong and transforming it into a right.
Two, the bold style of extortion the Zardari-led PPP brings to the table falls well beyond the level of hypocrisy that we are used to as a nation. There is a sense of urgency with which the PPP-installed public office holders are making hay. It is not just that the present regime is demanding a bigger pound of flesh thus driving up the cost of doing business in the country, but also that its style is sloppy. In this land of contradictions, we have more patience with those doing the wrong thing while admitting that it is wrong as opposed to those who do so unabashedly. We all know that the lower rungs of the judiciary are excessively corrupt. Whenever a new judge is posted in a district, lawyers appearing before him obviously wish to know about his reputation.
In response to one such inquiry a few years back a senior member of the Islamabad bar commented that the judge in question was a 'shareef aadmi' ('decent man'?). When asked to translate what shareef aadmi meant in this context, he stated that the judge takes whatever you offer him and doesn't excessively haggle over the quantum of the bribe. Even in our existing degenerate state where intellectual corruption doesn't qualify as a wrong and mild financial corruption qualifies one for the label of shareef aadmi, the Zardari-led PPP's style of doing business still manages to outrage most.
Three, the Zardari-led PPP presents Pakistan's corrupt past and present as a justification to continue to indulge in corruption. All military regimes have been corrupt to the hilt we are told and the Sharif's have been no less culpable. And consequently those pointing fingers at the PPP's corruption are in fact part of a grand conspiracy against this party of the masses. What the Zardari-led PPP fails to realise is that ordinary people of this country vying for democracy during Musharraf's regime weren't doing so out of nostalgia for democracy's ills witnessed during the 1990s. There was a sense that our politicos would have learnt from their past mistakes and would mend their ways if afforded another opportunity to govern. Reintroduction of the corrupt ways of the 1990s has thus created a sense of betrayal even amongst the flag-bearers of democracy.
The sentiment of letting-bygones-be-bygones was prevalent in 2008, but not any more. And that is because the sordid habits of the past seem not to have been put to rest. If the Musharraf regime and the Sharifs have been corrupt, what is stopping the Zardari-led PPP from instituting a transparent and credible mechanism to hold all public-office holders accountable that neither indulges in witch-hunts nor condones corruption in the name of reconciliation? And if the accountability drive being led by the judiciary is selective, what is preventing the Zardari-led PPP from making it all-inclusive? If the courts are slow in acting against cases implicating other holy cows - the army or the house of Sharifs - can't the government fix this omission by filing early hearing applications to prod the courts?
PPP had promised through the Charter of Democracy that the politically motivated NAB shall be replaced with "an independent accountability commission", and its chairman shall be appointed in consultation with the opposition leader and confirmed by a joint parliamentary committee comprising equal members of the opposition. Such a person was to meet the standard of 'political impartiality' and 'judicial propriety'. In appointing Deedar Hussain Shah as Chairman NAB, even after the leader of the opposition rejected his name, does the Zardari-led PPP not realise that it is vitiating the letter and spirit of the Charter of Democracy as well as the NAB law?
Why has the Zardari-led PPP failed to put in place a consensually adopted accountability law even after two and a half years of being in power? Why has the existing NAB Ordinance been further deformed, in a serpentine fashion, to enable the government to transfer accountability cases from one court to another without judicial authorisation and oversight? Do the Zardari-led PPP's legal wizards not know that such an amendment intrudes into the domain of the judiciary and falls foul of the framework laid down in the Khan Asfandyar Wali case? Is it not obvious that in determining the architecture of Pakistan's accountability framework and the appointment of key personnel the Zardari-led PPP is motivated by one consideration alone: to secure the personal interests of Mr Zardari?
What is more worrisome is that the Zadari-PPP is not just preoccupied with saving its co-chairperson by hook or by crook, but his entire troupe and the socio-political culture wherein they thrive. Be it the grant of pardon to Rehman Malik and Ahmed Riaz Sheikh in order to suspend the due process of law as a reward for personal loyalty, the re-award of party ticket to Jamshed Dasti after he is caught and de-seated over his fake degree, the stubborn retention of Ijaz Butt despite the mess he has made of Pakistan's favourite sport, or the appointment of the NAB chief; the Zardari-led PPP's approach to constitutionalism, rule of law, governance and public morality is hedonistic.
But such self-indulgence peppered with feudal arrogance is not sustainable. With a free press, an independent judiciary and a heightened consciousness, this nation's appetite and patience for political trickery and conceit has shrunk drastically. Unless PPP has a death wish, can someone please talk some sense into Mr Zardari? And meanwhile can someone also muzzle Fauzia Wahab and Faisal Abidi?

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu