Share this story!            

Editorial: Parting is such sweet sorrow!

The PMLN has quit the cabinet but not the coalition after reaching a deadlock with its coalition-partner, the PPP, over the modalities of restoring the judges. Thus, so far, it has not become part of the opposition in parliament. The PMLN wanted the judges reinstated on the lines demanded by the lawyers’ movement, the APDM and the media, namely, through a resolution and an executive order; but the PPP wanted it done through a constitutional amendment. The basis of their discussions was the March 9 Murree Declaration which contained a deadline of thirty days from the day the government took over. After that, the view of the two parties started to diverge.

The PPP understood “restoration” to mean that no one would be fired to make way for the wrongly deposed judges. It also had a different interpretation of the deadline. On the face of it, the PPP appeared to be more flexible but looking back at the stance it took after March 9, one can see the red line it had drawn on the issue. Mr Asif Ali Zardari talked about the deposed judges in a way that revealed reservations. By the same token, the media discussions brought out his preference for the new judges called the PCO judges. His final position was that a parliamentary resolution in favour of restoring the judges was not the right modality because it would be most likely rejected by the current Supreme Court. He called it as “illegal” as the act of firing them.

An “expert committee” headed by the law minister, Mr Farooq Naek, got deadlocked over the issue. After that, the Dubai and London talks got deadlocked too, leading to the latest situation. The PMLN decision to quit the federal cabinet is Mr Nawaz Sharif’s gesture of solidarity with the lawyers’ movement and a popular stance in favour of the deposed judges which is another way of saying a consensus against President Pervez Musharraf. It has a strategic aspect too which must be considered.

Mr Nawaz Sharif is the most popular anti-Musharraf leader in the country today and his party has won big in the country’s largest province, Punjab. But he has not got the strength required in the National Assembly to form a government in Islamabad. Going by anyone’s analysis, if the elections were held again today, his party might be returned with a majority. By getting out of the coalition government, he is making sure that he is not stigmatised by the lawyers whose movement is the biggest and strongest in Punjab and unprecedentedly devolved down to the district level all over Pakistan because of the district bars.

The PMLN’s decision to quit the government is going to channel some of the disaffection of the people in the direction of the PPP since all the problems faced by the country in the political (FATA & Balochistan) and economic (food & energy) sectors do not lend themselves to solutions in the short run. If the old judges are not restored — or if they are restored and the new ones are not fired — there will be agitation in the country. Other elements apart from the lawyers will join in, including the APDM and the warlords of the Tribal Areas, to make it tough for the PPP to hold on to power. That is when talk and pressure to dissolve the assembly and hold fresh elections will gather momentum.

The nation is opposed to the “establishment”. So when the PPP seems inclined to listen to the establishment while the PMLN sees it as its enemy, the net loser is the PPP. But as explained by the secretary general of the PMLQ, Mr Mushahid Hussain, the message from the establishment today is different from the messages it used to give out in the past: the threat to Pakistan’s security is not external but internal. The PPP, which was once a “security risk” because of its alleged “external nexus”, agrees with it; so does the ANP as it faces its worst enemy in the Tribal Areas and no longer in Islamabad. But the national consensus today is that the enemy is external and it is sitting in Afghanistan in the shape of the United States.

The “establishment” may be right this time, but that no longer matters. A “triangle of fear” has come into being: an “establishment” that fears the PMLN, the PPP fears the “establishment”, and the PMLN fears a compact between the PPP and the “establishment”. Pakistan could therefore be going back to a polarisation it has known in the past, only with partners changed. We could be entering another round of politics of vendetta in which a divided nation will not even know the extent of harm its passions have done to it. This time around, interrupted democracy may actually yield even worse results than the political musical chairs of the 1990s. *

Second Editorial: The mandate debate

Most political discussions these days revolve around the “mandate” of the 2008 elections. How should one determine the mandate of the people? Is the mandate of the people an iron-clad measure on which the elected party must prove itself? President George Bush invaded Iraq amid global protest but won his second term while the war was in full swing, meaning that the American people had given him the mandate to carry on what he had begun. Today the same American people vote against him in the polls.

The truth is that under “indirect democracy” people give votes to the politicians they favour. They listen to their pre-election promises and know them to be hot air but they elect them mostly because they don’t want the opposing candidate elected. It is for the winning party in government to act on the lines it thinks will make it popular without violating certain rules of pragmatism. So one should leave the task of interpreting the “mandate” to the party that has won the people’s vote. A precise mandate is yielded only by a referendum, but referendums are a dangerous way of tying politics to public passions. For example, today a referendum on whether Pakistan should invade Holland for blasphemy might well yield a mandate impossible to fulfil. *

Home | Editorial

Share this story!