The fork in the road

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School

Recent opinion polls suggest that Asif Zardari has abysmal public-approval ratings in Pakistan. Yet a two-thirds majority of the Electoral College has elected him president in a fair contest. What explains this paradox? Should democracy be castigated for superimposing an individual at the helm of the state who is widely perceived as probably the most corrupt politician that Pakistan has seen? But, then, did we really expect benign democracy to evolve in a vacuum and have leaders with impeccable democratic credentials, unblemished integrity, indomitable courage, untainted past and vision for a better future nurtured under the aegis of dictatorship?

In the 1990s we had autocratic civilian rule masquerading as a representative system of government. Just when the continuation of such rule began to teach the electorate lessons in how not to elect leaders, our latest khaki saviour uprooted even the trappings of democracy. The hard-learned lessons of the 1990 were forgotten during the decade of praetorian rule and so now we are starting from scratch again. Those who were given a chance by the nation in the 90s and found wanting will have to be given the benefit of the doubt and tried again. With the elections of Feb 18 and the latest presidential election that swore in a civilian president, we have reassembled the façade of democracy. In abiding by the constitutionally mandated procedures to form a representative government, we have certainly moved a step closer to self-rule.

Yet, this façade shrouds an autocratic culture where power and success, and not integrity and legitimacy, beget respect and support, members of political parties are rewarded for conscience-free loyalty, and not capability and candour, and the barriers to entry into the political realm remain sky high. Uninterrupted political process will reform the prevailing decadent culture of politics. But meanwhile we'll need to make do with the present lot until it reforms itself or is thrown out through a process of public accountability. It is a shame that the much-trumpeted return of democracy is being greeted in the streets of Pakistan with general dismay, other than Bhutto supporters who are exhibiting guarded optimism.

The national mood would not have been so doleful had the PPP-PML-N coalition not collapsed over Mr. Zardari's broken promises, had PPP nominated a well-reputed person to become the face of the state, and had PCO-ridden Justice Dogar not been administering oath at the swearing-in ceremony. But let us not remain mired in what could have been done differently. As an able Machiavellian tactician, Asif Zardari has exhibited unparalleled finesse in consolidating power since the death of his wife. His mastery in deal making, though loathsome to many, has enabled him to contrive an overwhelming mandate to serve as president of the country when many doubted his ability to even hold the party together.

Notwithstanding the amoral ways that got him here, Asif Zardari is now the president of Pakistan and at a fork in the road. What he does with the support and power he has garnered will now determine his own future as well as that of his party. As president, he can marshal ahead with his wheeler-dealer ways, informed solely by an insatiable desire for power and all available means, however abhorrent, to achieve that end. If he takes this option, President Zardari will not be content with being the most powerful man in Pakistan, as head of the state, head of the largest political party and head of the federal government being run by the prime minister as his proxy, and will want more.

Conventional wisdom suggests that a ruling party remains handicapped at the Centre unless it also rules Punjab. Governor Salmaan Taseer's sabre-rattling during the presidential election suggested that PPP was planning to rout the PML-N government in the Punjab. In the aftermath of the presidential election he has reportedly been asked by the PPP leadership to harness his forked tongue. Meanwhile, the PML-N has exhibited that it enjoys a comfortable majority in the Punjab Assembly. In order to amass more power and disassemble the Punjab government at this stage, the PPP would thus need to deploy the coercive apparatus of the state: NAB cases against the Sharifs or disqualification of their candidature by loyalist PCO judges. And such a course of action will spell doom for political stability in the country.

Further, a Machiavellian Zardari will not relinquish the powers of the prime minister expropriated by our military rulers and renege on the promise made in the Charter of Democracy that "the appointment of the governors, the three service chiefs and the CJCSC shall be made by the chief executive, who is the prime minister, as per the Constitution of 1973." He will argue during party deliberations that as the PPP doesn't enjoy simple majority in the Parliament and the prime minister relies on the support of allies to stay in office, the PPP government could fall before the end of its five-year term if the ANP and the MQM withdraw their support. Thus, he should retain the power to discipline an elected government in the event that the PPP-led government is replaced by another coalition, and especially to be able to appoint key individuals to head the army and the provinces in due course, as they would have a significant role in the next elections.

Such mindset would encourage President Zardari to keep the constitutional scheme of institutional checks and balances dysfunctional. In our prevalent political culture where blind allegiance to the top party leader is a prerequisite for the personal progression of members, the Parliament will continue to remain irrelevant as a check on the exercise of executive authority. And President Zardari will be loath to "reassembling" an independent judiciary that could question the exercise of arbitrary authority by the president. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, once returned, would be a strong chief justice and unlikely to allow the judiciary to function as an appendage of the executive. Why would an omnipotent civilian president willingly place himself under the onerous duty of abiding by the law and the Constitution – unless, of course, he is a fair man burdened by a sense of duty to drag the country out of the woods.

But even such exclusive focus on power will not make President Zardari infallible. And Nawaz Sharif's last government proves just that. Mr Sharif was returned to the office of prime minister with a two-thirds majority. He appointed his brother as chief minister of Punjab. He got into a duel with the president and the chief justice and won. A loyal family friend was sworn in as president and the meddlesome chief justice was also removed. Nawaz Sharif also managed the unprecedented task of firing an army chief. But with more power came paranoia and arrogance and the desire for even more power. Eventually the government with the largest public mandate in contemporary history was sent packing by a self-appointed army chief and few people in the country shed tears. The one lesson that history of power politics teaches is that more you hanker after power, the more evasive it becomes.

President Zardari has a second option too. He can take the other fork in the road, the one less travelled – the high road. Instead of consuming himself thinking up sly manoeuvres on the political chessboard he can actually begin to focus on the judicious exercise of the authority already bestowed upon him. He can start with returning Pakistan to an era of constitutionalism. Musharraf is gone and so should his edicts be. Yet our democratic government continues to run the country on the assumption that amendments made to the Constitution of Pakistan singlehandedly by Musharraf are a valid part of our fundamental law. President Zardari's first order of business must be to preserve the Constitution in its legitimate form that he has vowed to defend and protect upon entering his office and unconditionally restore all judges removed from their offices in violation of the Constitution.

In addressing the security situation in the tribal areas, as well as our financial meltdown, President Zardari must fathom the root causes of these problems, instead of addressing the symptoms. The hypocritical strategy that bemoans unilateral US attacks transgressing Pakistani sovereignty before domestic audience while continuing with a security and foreign policy that signals a shameful acceptance of such attacks in practice is simply not sustainable. An elected government that turns a blind eye to its fundamental responsibility of protecting the life of all it citizens – be they in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan – can only be living on a limited lease of life.

President Zardari has an opportunity to reinvent himself. The choices that he makes it this juncture will be his own, but their consequences not so much. His past has given this nation scant reason to expect much from him. Let him bring his artistry in deal-making to negotiate a better future for this hapless country. In hoping against hope, we are desperately relying on miracles.



Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu