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Pakistan’s struggle for democracy

PERHAPS the only light at the end of the tunnel for Pakistan amid present day political crises and security threats is the trying struggle for democracy, embodied in part in the judiciary’s newfound autonomy.

It would be naïve, of course, to completely detach this sovereignty from the March rumpus that was triggered when General Musharraf tried to wield more power than due by effectively dismissing the sitting chief justice. But that since then the law community has come to respect its own inalienable rights, and their bearing on the constitution and country, is welcome.

Tuesday was a good example of the two opposing trends presenting themselves in tandem. Just as a suicide bomber took seven lives barely two kilometres from the president’s army office in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the government to allow former prime minister Nawaz Sharif back in the country. Significantly, it chided Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for disobeying the court’s earlier orders, requiring the judgment to be implemented “in letter and spirit”.

Ironically, both forces presently run counter to efforts of the Islamabad establishment. The security breakdown brings about international concern and suspicion whereas the court ruling beckons massive embarrassment. But while all forces stand united with the centre in beating off the terrorism threat, there is, rightly, colossal difference of opinion regarding President Musharraf’s power politics.

It is by now clear that the deal to allow Benazir Butto back and Nawaz Sharif’s deportation both owed principally to General Musharraf’s own political survival, not any greater good as Islamabad’s spin has tried to portray. It is little surprise that such reasons are responsible for erosion of much of Musharraf’s domestic, as well as international, goodwill.

However, it bears noting that Islamabad has a way of mending the divergence, though one that would require another about-turn on another of its firmly held views. Clearly it is best for both Pakistan as well as the current president to leverage the upcoming general elections to engineer a political reconciliation between bickering groups in a bid to seriously strengthen the democratic process. If Nawaz Sharif is allowed back, as Benazir has also hinted, and the people allowed to choose the way forward in a fair election, Musharraf would have done quite a bit to redeem his government’s excesses of late.

Since the March 9 CJ ouster, the government has come out embarrassed from a number of its decisions, including a clampdown on the media and sending Sharif packing. Repetition of such mistakes augurs ill for Musharraf and his men just ahead of the election, reeking of political immaturity. For the good of the country, Pakistan’s ruling party needs to step out of the way of steps critical for restoration of democracy, of which presence of all principal political players in the election is essential.