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Editorial: Gillani: premier for five years

The PPP finally nominated Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani as its candidate for premiership late Saturday and he is one prime minister for whose majority in the National Assembly elaborate arrangements have been made by the ruling coalition. He is expected to win with an overwhelming majority and take oath on Tuesday. Apart from presiding over the largest cabinet in history — expected to be 70-strong in three phases — he will have the most harmonious conditions for stewarding the centre-province relations. The PPP says he will rule for five years, which gives one an inkling of what kind of politics Pakistan will have in the coming days.

Fifty-five year old Mr Gillani is a party loyalist who was chosen by Ms Benazir Bhutto as speaker of the National Assembly after coming to power in 1993. The electoral debacle of 1997 saw him back in his constituency in Multan but, in 2001, an anti-corruption court sentenced him to ten years in prison with Rs 100 million as fine. As a result of this conviction and incarceration, he could not fight the 2002 elections. His mother and sister died while he was in jail. Then in 2006 his prison term was set aside by the Punjab High Court. He has emerged as the leading PPP winner in south Punjab in the 2008 elections and will be the province’s bridge to Sindhi politics because of his family relations with Pir Pagaro.

The government of Mr Gillani will be the first of its kind in the country’s history in many ways. It will be confronted with crises to which there is no immediate solution while it has to pull together with its powerful ally the PMLN ruling in the largest province. The top leaders of the coalition, Mr Asif Ali Zardari and Mr Nawaz Sharif, will be out of the government but making policy in Islamabad which the prime minister will have to follow. It is the continued cooperation between the two that will decide the fortunes of the Gillani government. He will definitely not be a combative and aggressive prime minister that the common man wants, but a discreet slowing-moving chief executive with an ear cocked to the latest inter-party consensus. And one can say that Mr Gillani is temperamentally suited to the job he will hold.

The first task before him will be that of cabinet-formation. The parties will probably decide the portfolios at the residences of Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif but some ministries will be contested. Given the pacific mood of the leadership some give and take is expected. However, it is on the question of the restoration of the deposed judges that the first frictions may make their appearance. The text of the Bhurban Declaration is clear but not the statements given afterwards by the two big parties. As the National Assembly deliberates on it, the various economic crises facing the nation will need to be addressed too with not many obvious solutions in sight since the crises are linked to the global economy.

That brings to the position the government will take vis-à-vis the army. PPP leader Mr Naveed Qamar, who is said to be hopeful of getting the finance portfolio in the cabinet, has been thinking of solutions. And the only solution that has sprung to his mind so far is the cutting of the defence budget. The defence budget has come down from the dangerous level of 6 percent of the GDP in the 1990s to around 4 percent today. The PPP-PMLN leadership says it will “negotiate” with Baitullah Mehsud in the Tribal Areas, but it will be a mistake to weaken the army first by cutting its budget.

In fact the army will have to be beefed up as Islamabad undertakes any talks in South Waziristan. Far more important in this context would be a rapid normalisation of relations with India and a further liberalisation of policies of trade and investment with it. Talking to the terrorists will need a strong military underpinning to succeed and this will bring up the matter of the general attitude of the ruling politicians towards the army. Paradoxically, the elected government may come to need the army as per the Constitution far more than President Musharraf ever did.

The economy, and not the raw passions of the masses, must dictate the internal and external policies of the coalition government. It will be found soon enough that foreign policy doesn’t need to be tampered with too much. What will need an innovative approach is the matter of provincial autonomy and fresh financial apportionment of resources between the provinces. And the politicians will have to understand better the statesmanlike journey they have embarked upon and be ready to get to the finishing line without aborting it. *

Second Editorial: Muslims want democracy but...

A major survey in the form of a book Who Speaks for Islam, saying it represents one billion Muslims around the world, has found that the majority favours democratic rights and representative government, rather than any of their radical alternatives. The poll, conducted over a period of five years, covering 35 countries and 50,000 respondents, found that most wanted freedom of speech and representation. At the same time however they wanted the sharia as their law.

That’s where the rub is. What is not articulated is the fact that Muslims want “free and fair” elections to get rid of their rulers who can go on for decades before they leave power. So far the experiment with democracy in Pakistan and Bangladesh is that it begins correctly but then tends to lean heavily in favour of an “Islamic longing” without a clear idea of governance. Islam is exploited by politicians and clergy alike to bring about a system that is not democratic at all. Law-making is done without “scrutiny of reason” and laws made without rational justification then pervert society without being revoked. Non-Muslims and women suffer under the democracy Muslims want. They must realise that democracy is not just elections. *

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