In an apparent last-minute, late-night climb-down, President Asif Ali Zardari
of Pakistan agreed on March 16, 2009, to reinstate as the Chief Justice of the
Pakistan Supreme Court Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhury who was twice removed from
office by the then President Pervez Musharraf in March and November, 2007. His
reinstatement will take effect after the present Pervez Musharraf-appointed
Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar reaches the age of superannuation on March 21,
2009.
There were earlier reports that Zardari was contemplating to give Dogar an
extension. The unprecedented support for Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhury not only
from the community of lawyers, but also from large sections of the people
mobilized by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), has forced him to accept the
demand for his reinstatement. Pressure from the Army and the US to avoid a
violent street confrontation on the issue has also forced his climb-down.
The events leading to this climb-down would strengthen the misgivings not only
in Pakistan, but also in the US about Zardari’s leadership qualities. He
brought this humiliation upon himself by his ill-advised attempts to undermine
the political position of Nawaz, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and their PML (N) in
Punjab. For this purpose, he allegedly manipulated a ruling by a bench of the
Supreme Court consisting of judges appointed by Musharraf disqualifying Nawaz
and Shahbaz from holding any elected office. The bench gave the ruling on the
ground that Nawaz was a convict in a case filed against him by Musharraf after
seizing power in October,1999, and that Shahbaz was a co-accused in a case
relating to the death of a person at the hands of the police when he was the
Chief Minister of Punjab before the 1999 coup.
Allegedly acting on the wrong advice of his cronies, Zardari tried to take
advantage of the ruling to have the PML (N) removed from power in Punjab and to
have an engineered coalition consisting of his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)
and the PML (Qaid-e Azam) created by Musharraf in 2002 to defeat the PPP and the
PML (N) inducted into power. His attempts, made through Salman Taseer, the
Governor of Punjab, who is a crony of Zardari as well as Musharraf, boomeranged.
The fresh agitation by the lawyers for the reinstatement of Chaudhury, the date
for which had been announced by them long before the events in Punjab, might not
have assumed the dimensions of a people’s revolt against Zardari but for his
failed attempt to capture power for his party in the Punjab through engineered
defections from the ranks of the PML (N) and back-room manipulations with the
complicity of some sections of the Musharraf-appointed judiciary.
The last elections to the National Assembly held in February, 2008, two months
after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, surprisingly showed that the sympathy
wave for her was confined to the rural constituencies of Sindh. The PPP failed
to do well even in its traditional support bases in southern Punjab, largely
inhabited by the Seraikis. The sympathy wave in Punjab was more for Nawaz
because of the way he was sought to be humiliated by Musharraf after the coup.
The PML (N) won many more seats in Punjab than the PPP. Even the Rawalpindi
area, where Benazir was assassinated, voted for the PML (N).
The resulting polarization between Sindh, dominated by Altaf Hussain’s
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the PPP, and Punjab dominated by the PML (N),
set in motion the train of events which ultimately led to the humiliation of
Zardari. The action of Zardari in going back on his pre-election commitments
made to the PML (N) in matters relating to the reinstatement of the sacked Chief
Justice and abolishing, through a constitutional amendment, the powers of the
President to dismiss an elected Prime Minister and dissolve the National
Assembly exacerbated his personal differences with Nawaz.
The old Bhutto loyalists in the PPP, including Yousef Raza Gilani, the Prime
Minister, who is a Seraiki, were uncomfortable about the erratic decisions of
Zardari on the advice of a small coterie of persons such as Rehman Malik, the
Adviser for Internal Security, Salman Taseer and Farook H.Naek, his former
lawyer in the corruption cases, whom Zardari made the Minister for Law and then
had him elected as the Chairman of the Senate, the upper House of Parliament.
The Bhutto loyalists were shocked by his action in choosing Naek for election as
the Senate Chairman, overlooking the claims of Raza Rabbani, an old Bhutto
loyalist, who was held in great respect in the party. Rabbani resigned in
protest from his post of Minister For Inter-Provincial Co-ordination.
The people’s uprising on the issue of the reinstatement of the sacked Chief
Justice and the growing discontent in his own party over the way he sought to
marginalize old Bhutto loyalists created a situation, where he found himself
isolated. The erosion of whatever little support he had in his party and in the
country as a whole and the growing unease in the Army and the US over the
implications of his policies and actions for the stability of Pakistan and the
fight against terrorism created a situation where his humiliating climb-down
became inevitable.
Unfortunately, Zardari is not known to be a man who learns from his mistakes.
He tends to repeat them. Comments by persons close to him show that he and his
cronies look upon the concessions made by him not as a climb-down, but as a
tactical retreat to avoid a street confrontation, which might have triggered off
an intervention by the Army. While he may have no other option but to restore
the PML (N) to power in Punjab, he is likely to resist the demand of the PML (N)
and others for a constitutional amendment to abolish his powers to dismiss the
Prime Minister and dissolve the National Assembly. As he did in the past, he
would create an impression as if he is keen to abolish these powers, but is
prevented from doing so by the lack of two-thirds support for a constitutional
amendment in the National Assembly. What one saw on March 16 was only the end of
Act I of the political drama in Pakistan. Act II could start over the issue of
the abolition of the special powers of the President.
Pakistan is in for a spell of weak and manipulative leadership by a leader
without much public support, but trying to survive through political
manipulations. This will aggravate the already serious security vacuum in the
country and give fresh oxygen to the various terrorist groups operating from the
Pakistani territory. At a time when the Barack Obama administration is embarked
on formulating a new strategy to end the political and security vacuum in
Afghanistan, it is faced with the danger of a similar vacuum in Pakistan.
If Pakistani public opinion has to have a say as to who should be its ruler, its
choice will be on Nawaz Sharif. After having seen the huge mess created by
Zardari within six months of taking over as the President, the Army too would
prefer Nawaz Sharif despite his attempts in October, 1999 to humiliate Pervez
Musharraf, his Chief of the Army Staff, by dismissing him while he was abroad
and unsuccessfully trying to prevent his return.
US thinking will have a say in influencing the Army’s position. Zardari has
given the US a free hand in the tribal belt to attack terrorist hide-outs with
its fleet of Predator aircraft. Zardari is amenable to US advice on the fight
against terrorism. There have even been reports that he and Gen.Ashfaq Pervez
Kiyani, his Chief of the Army Staff, have allowed the Central Intelligence
Agency, to use bases of the Pakistan Air Force for launching the Predator
strikes.
It is very likely that if Nawaz Sharif comes to power, he may not be as amenable
to US requirements as Zardari has been. On more than one occasion, Nawaz Sharif
has expressed the view that the present terms of the co-operation with the US
need to be reconsidered without weakening the over-all fight against Al Qaeda.
Zardari owes a huge debt to the US for persuading Musharraf to issue the
National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) under which the pending cases against
him and his wife were withdrawn.
Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, owes no such debt to the US. He is likely to be
more independent and less accommodating with the US. Would the US continue to
facilitate the continuance of Zardari in power because he is willing to do its
bidding or will it remove itself from the way of Nawaz Sharif coming to power,
realizing that a stronger and more popular ruler would help US interests
strategically than a weak and unpopular ruler who could prove to be detrimental
to US interests tactically as well as strategically?
On the answers to this question would depend what happens under Act II of the
Pakistani drama. A dark horse will be Prime Minister Gilani, who has emerged
with an enhanced image from the present crisis by virtue of his having distanced
himself from the decisions of Zardari relating to Punjab. If Gilani has to be
built up into a more assertive ruler, the special powers of the President have
to be abolished. This can be done only if the PML (N) and the Bhutto loyalists
in the PPP join hands. The prospects of this happening are rather low now.
Pakistani co-operation with India in the investigation of the 26/11 terrorist
strikes in Mumbai and in acting against the anti-India terrorist infrastructure
in Pakistani territory will be even more uncertain than it has been hitherto.
More terrorism against India by groups taking advantage of the huge mess and
political and security vacuum in Pakistan is a distinct danger.
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
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