The damage-control ploy

By Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto

Pakistan is ready to explode. The politicians, despite their deep differences, are entwined in the net of reconciliation which is a poor camouflage for abandoning all conflicting ideologies, principles and pride to join the feast of government. This has smothered all complaint and objections, opening the door to a state of hear no evil and see no evil, just do all evil.

Transparency International has disclosed that whereas in 2004 Rs45 billion were pilfered from Pakistan’s treasury, in 2009 corruption has cost the people Rs195 billion. This is in addition to the nurturing of the useless MNAs and MPAs, each of whom is paid about 500,000 rupees per month, hordes of ministers, each of whom receives a salary of around three million rupees per month. The prime minister costs about 25 million a month and the president 30 million. The VIPs’ security costs us Rs165 billion per year. Last but not least, Rs860 billion is the up-to-date cost of the civil war going on in the north. Of course, the cost of lives lost and property damaged is unfathomable, but Amnesty International has said that in the drone attacks alone, while only five high-value targets have been eliminated, more than 700 innocent lives have been lost as the government just looks on.

Of course, the above is not all that afflicts the nation. The process of accountability has been buried so deep that not a single case has been filed against anyone in the top echelons of government and politics since the Musharraf takeover in 1999, even though the stench of corruption reaches the sky. When a minister’s loot and plunder can no longer be ignored and there is uproar in the media, his portfolio is taken away and a less lucrative one allotted.

This background and anger of the people, expressed by protests at the local level all around, only results in one question: when will Zardari go? Quit he will not, despite his constant humiliation. He has already declared that exit in an ambulance is the only option for him. And now that all his corruption cases have been reopened, the only thing keeping him out of jail is the presidential immunity. So he will hold on by the skin of his teeth. The basic cause of all the harm that has been endured in the post-Musharraf era is Zardari and his inability to provide leadership and good governance. It is not surprising that those around him are not only shielding him from accountability but also proclaiming him as a hero on the same level as Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. For this, on the one hand, they have mounted a visibly massive campaign to gag the critics (including, it seems, that knight in shinning armour, Ayaz Amir); on the other hand, they are holding on to straws like the 18th Amendment, which only emphasises the desperateness of their situation.

The 18th Amendment is fine, but certainly not a panacea. Nor can it mitigate the harm caused by this government. It has done away with the dictatorial powers of the president, which Zardari could not exercise anyway. Every effort by him to assert himself had ended in his own humiliation. He passed orders transferring the ISI into civilian control but had to hastily withdraw them the next day. We have seen that he surrendered under pressure on the questions of reinstatement and appointment of judges. He had to quickly lift the emergency he imposed in Punjab and was forced to transfer the National Security Authority to the prime minister. As for dissolving parliament and appointing the chiefs of the armed services, Zardari simply does not have the stature and strength to even think of doing so. This is different from ordering transfers and postings of bureaucrats with shady records for services rendered, or rewarding jail mates and being a “friend of friends” to favourites at public expense.

The 18th Amendment, which is essentially a damage-control ploy, has come very late and under pressure, giving little while generating much controversy. The boast that it has restored democracy and blocked subversion of the Constitution is absurd. By removing the requirement of elections within political parties, nurseries for dictators have been opened up as heads of parties have been given absolute powers over their party men. A constitution did not stop Ayub Khan from taking over. Zia tore up and threw away the Constitution with impunity, in spite of Article 6, which made such contempt punishable with death. He hanged the framer of the Constitution instead. Musharraf also violated the Constitution, imposed the 17th Amendment and ruled for ten years. The 18th Amendment is no Great Wall of China. It cannot stop a takeover or save the Constitution and democracy.

There is no escape from the truth that it is only the people who are the protectors of their land and rights, and this is where the weakness lies.

The systematic plan initiated by Zia to corrupt politics for the purpose of shielding unworthy rulers has culminated in Zardari’s mind-blowing rise to power, with immunity against all forms of accountability. Unfortunately, in Pakistan the curse of corruption has become so endemic that even the man on the street has become contaminated. He is also running in the rat race for personal enrichment rather than the collective benefits derived from honest and good governance. But this has only delayed the inevitable. Thanks to Zardari, the foundation for a bloody revolution has been laid. When the president refuses to obey the orders of the Supreme Court and continues to hide from corruption cases, aided and abetted by his all-too-willing party men and women, the end has been reached and something has got to give.

We know that the French Revolution, followed by the other great revolutions, started with downtrodden and deprived people being forced to come out in scattered groups to protest. This started a momentum which threw up new leaderships and brought unity among the angry crowds, who then focused on complete change and real solutions. In recent years, we have seen uprisings in Ukraine and Georgia. Only a few days ago, the people of Kyrgyzstan rose to remove their corrupt and incompetent government and install a new one, headed by a woman president.

Who knows what is around the corner for Pakistan.