The grand opposition

Legal eye
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad
Are we done congratulating ourselves over a democratically elected government having completed its term despite doomsday predictions all along? Let’s acknowledge that the continuity-of-democratic-process-as-solution-to-all-problems argument is already pushing its luck and will be harder to make over the next five years. True, it takes longer than ten years of continuing democracy to fix a myriad of complex problems. But unless fruits of democracy begin to trickle down to ordinary people in whose name state power is exercised and the country begins to move in the direction that leads out of the woods, the vulnerability of the democratic system will continue to grow with time.
The PPP-led regime might have made hay while the sun was shining (and even when it wasn’t), but the next elected government simply cannot afford not to perform. We do not have the luxury of time in beginning to take corrective action to address the key problems confronting Pakistan, and we certainly do not have the patience. We can argue till the cows come home as to whether non-performing civilian governments create a vacuum that is filled by reluctant khakis or whether powerful hidden hands render politicos dysfunctional and make them look corrupt, uncouth and unruly. But the reality remains that if the next civilian regime does not perform, it won’t get five years.
At the eve of the last general election there were three major fault-lines visible in our polity that needed attention: centre-province; civil-military; and liberal-fundamentalist. The 18th Amendment addressed the first and shifted some power from the centre to the provinces (to the chagrin of the babus), even if it didn’t fully think through consequences of omitting the concurrent list and the required transitional arrangements. The last five years have also seen movement on the civil-military imbalance. One can point to the Kerry-Lugar and Memogate debates in Pakistan, for example, to argue that khakis continue to control the narrative when it comes to national security and foreign policy.
But that doesn’t take away from the fact that state power has become more widely distributed amongst key institutional players. Parliament can ask questions about military-controlled institutions such as the NLC etc and can block legislation favoured by the khakis such as the Defence House Authority Islamabad law. The judiciary can summon serving generals, even if its tone in addressing them is markedly different from that used with high ranking police officials and bureaucrats. The media can ask questions about failure of khakis in discharging their duties, even if the right-wing retains significant influence within the media and still views criticism of the army as unpatriotic.
The point is that if part of the solution to protect abuse of power is to distribute it more widely, we have seen some of that happen around us. The judiciary and the media have emerged as powerful pro-citizen institutions with a mind and spirit of their own, notwithstanding criticism that the judiciary occasionally wades into the domain of the executive and the media fans cynicism and doesn’t exercise desired self-restraint. Why is it then that the threat to democracy remains real and epochal events such as the consensual 18th Amendment, the NFC Award and peaceful transfer of power from one civilian government to another don’t excite people about democracy’s prospects?
This brings us back to the problem of performance, coupled with complete denial of responsibility. While power has changed hands over the last five years even if incrementally, the responsibility that comes along with authority has fallen through the cracks. We have a country where all institutions of the state and the society come together to form one grand opposition. To a dispassionate observer this would come across as a place with no one in charge and certainly no one assuming responsibility; be it the OBL incident, the attacks on the GHQ and naval and air bases, persecution of minorities, absence of a system of governance, an economy that has tanked or a criminal justice system that doesn’t deliver.
The recalibration of power over the past few years has provided a responsibility-alibi to everyone. Speak to politicos and they point to our history (and ‘ground reality’ of veto-wielding khakis running the show) as a means to shirk responsibility for policy paralysis. Speak to khakis and they will identify the black letter of the law that mandates ‘civilian control’ of the polity to wash their hands of the rot. Both these arguments are theoretically true but substantively dishonest. Despite dilution of power, khakis have not shied away from intervening into the realm of policy when they feel their core interests are at risk.
The civilian executive has been even more shameless in dodging responsibility. It has had a no-holds-barred approach while distributing state largesse – contracts, licences, jobs etc. But when it comes to taking responsibility for big-ticket items – anti-terror and national security policy, failure to protect lives and provide citizen services and economic collapse etc – you just find them pointing fingers at the khakis, judges or ‘external hands’, depending on the issue in question. Parliament has been slightly better. But despite passing the 18th Amendment, it doesn’t seem to have internalised the fact that the primary tool available to control policies is legislation and not resolutions.
Unless we fix the existing disconnect between power and responsibility, even a squeaky clean election will not produce a performing democracy. The tug of war between national institutions is part of the story of evolving democracies. But any correction or redistribution of power as a consequence should not divert focus away from where the buck ought to stop. If the GHQ is attacked, the army chief has to take responsibility. If the court system seems dysfunctional, the chief justices are primarily responsible. And if state cannot provide security to its citizens, the executive authorities cannot be allowed to do nothing about it and point fingers at the khakis, judges and external conspiracies.
We are at the verge of another general election. If there is a democracy moment for the average citizen, this is it. This is our moment to ask questions and make choices that we will have to live with for another five years. This is the time to audit the performance of parties, to question them about their consistency in applying the principles and policies they espouse, and evaluate the solutions they propose to the foremost problems confronting Pakistan. If we wish to change the manner in which our rulers rule when voted into power, we will also have to change the questions we ask them when they come seeking our votes.
Will the political party and its leadership assume complete responsibility for the exercise of power or failure to exercise power we will vest in it by voting for it or will it hide behind demands of expediency and the rhetoric of unfortunate ground realities? If intolerance (resulting into terrorism and religion-inspired ethnic, sectarian and communal violence), economic collapse, energy crisis and crumbling capacity of state to deliver citizen services are foremost challenges confronting us, what are the policies of the party vis-à-vis such challenges and what are the chances of their success?
Is the party capable of putting in place decision-making mechanisms that will enable it to work with non-representative institutions and stakeholders – the army, the judiciary, the civil society – to build required consensus and evolve effective enforcement strategies to translate policies into action? Pakistan needs behavioural change, not just from the elites but the society more generally. The fish might begin to rot from the head, but elections surely provide an opportunity for bottom-up change. If we wish democracy to prosper, let us vote representatives who will take ownership of the power we vest in them and who actually have a plan as well as the capability to solve our screaming problems.
Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu