Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1998, Pages 35-36

The Subcontinent

How Many "Pillars" Support Pakistan's Government?

By M.M. Ali

Addressing a select gathering at the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, DC, the speaker of the National Assembly, Ilahi Bux Soomro, attributed the crisis of last December to "the antics" of the then-chief justice of Pakistan, Syed Sajjad Ali Shah. Soomro said that Shah had attempted to thwart the constitutional authority vested in the office of the elected prime minister. He added that Shah's machinations were unsuccessful and that with Shah's removal, "the political equation has been set right."

"The four pillars of Pakistan's government—the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and the army—today are working in harmony," Soomro said. "The army has finally decided to stay away from politics, allowing an elected government to operate unhindered." Asked to clarify his "four pillars" description, Soomro said, "the fourth pillar [the army] may not have a constitutional standing but it is very much there as a political reality...Keep in mind that the army has ruled Pakistan for almost 25 years of the country's 50-year history. It is still a force to be reckoned with."

Some members of his audience regretted that Soomro had not included the bureaucracy as the fifth pillar of Pakistan's government, since the civil service has for all practical purposes also run the country for an equal amount of time, if not more.

Easy acknowledgment of an uncomfortable reality can institutionalize an imposed and undemocratic arrangement. Policy-making bodies in a democracy have to represent the will of the people as expressed periodically through free and fair elections. The military has a clear-cut role of its own to perform and cannot replace an elected government even in the worst of times. You do not start sleeping with the devil just because your mate has misbehaved.

The rather sanctimonious statement of Speaker Soomro about the place of the army in the political system reflects the legacy left behind by Generals Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia Ul-Haq. Each in his turn did a great deal of harm to public institutions.

Ayub banned political parties, instituted his brand of "democracy" and ran the country for over 10 years through military ordinances. However, everything that he created was wiped out within a year of his leaving office.

Yahya presided over the breakup of the country by omission and by commission and caused East Pakistan to become the independent state of Bangladesh.

Zia imposed martial law and also banned political parties and used religion to keep himself afloat. The Constitution was tampered with to suit his own ambitions and he remained in power for over 11 years.

The country still is suffering from what he left behind. Endemic constitutional crises, sectarian killings, regional hatreds, graft and the spread of drugs and arms within Pakistan are all an aftermath of Zia's regime. Even the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami, which received official patronage, did not make any political gains. If anything, it has been further marginalized in recent years in Muslim Pakistan.

There were two beneficiaries of the army regimes. One was the feudal landlords and their progeny, who were left untouched to continue their inordinate influence on the economy and the politics of the country. The other beneficiaries were the top military officers who moved out of their barracks into newly acquired mansions in Islamabad and other major cities to live off their equally newly acquired agricultural lands.

And, of course, while all of the three ruling generals took a stranglehold on the civil administration, none ever won a war. Yes, the army is an uncomfortable fact of political life in Pakistan, but it does not have to be anointed as the "fourth pillar."

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Appoints New President

Having won an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly as a result of the February 1997 elections, Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif made sure that he was not thrown out of office prematurely, as happened to him in April l993. Using his Muslim League party's strength in the parliament, he removed the Constitution's controversial 8th Amendment that had been used by presidents to dismiss elected governments almost at will.

Prime Minister Sharif also removed the 13th Amendment that permitted the president to dissolve the National Assembly as he saw fit. More controversially, Sharif supported the adoption of the 14th Amendment, which bans members of the Assembly from changing political parties, or even crossing the floor. (The reason was the actions of some members of parliament who had been elected on one party's ticket but then, allegedly in exchange for personal favors, "crossed the floor" to join other parties, causing governments to fall.)

Then, when former President Farooq Leghari still resisted the prime minister's authority, Sharif engineered his removal from office. Following that, when Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, a Benazir Bhutto appointee, charged the prime minister with contempt of court, Sharif forced the chief justice to step down.

Having accomplished all this while keeping the support of the army chief of staff, Prime Minister Sharif had his own nominee, Rafiq Ahmad Tarar, a sitting senator and former judge, elected by 374 to 58 votes by the National Assembly as the new president of Pakistan. Tarar comes from Punjab province, as do Prime Minister Sharif and Army Chief Jehangir Karamat.

Since the secession of Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) in 1971, Pakistan has had four provinces—Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province, with Punjab the largest.

There has always been a tacit understanding that the prime minister and the president should be from different provinces. With Tarar's appointment, that tradition has been ignored, to the chagrin of Sindh, Baluchistan and the NWFP. Although Tarar has taken his oath of office, his election can be overturned by the court.

In fact, former Election Commissioner Mukhtar Ahmed Junejo rejected Tarar's nomination in December because of the accusation that he had been charged with contempt of court in the past and hence was ineligible to hold this office. Subsequently, Nawaz removed Junejo and replaced him with Abdul Qadeer Chaudhri, who approved the nomination of Tarar.

Charges of Corruption Hound Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto maintains her innocence, but the Western press has printed stories of wealth stashed away in secret bank accounts and of large real estate holdings abroad that have been put in the names of her family and others. Reportedly her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, now in jail in Pakistan on charges of murder and corruption, has been the person who amassed the "ill-begotten" fortune that allegedly runs into millions of dollars.

A detailed front-page report in The New York Times of Jan. 9 described the manner in which the Bhutto family allegedly accumulated the funds and properties. The Times reported: "Among the transactions Mr. Zardari exploited, according to these officials [Accountability Commission]: defense contracts, power plant projects; privatization of state-owned industries; awarding of broadcast licenses; granting of an export monopoly for the country's huge rice harvest; purchase of planes for Pakistan Airlines; assignment of export quotas; granting of oil and gas permits; authorization to build sugar mills; and sale of government lands."

Zardari is reported to have struck a lucrative deal with the Dassault Aviation company of Paris for a "commission" on the purchase of 32 Mirage aircraft. He also allegedly received kickbacks on customs duties on imported goods and worked with one Abdul Razzak Ayub of Dubai who was granted a sole right to import gold into Pakistan. Financial sanctuaries were reported in the Gulf, London, Switzerland and the Virgin Islands. According to the Times account, Bhutto family bank accounts abroad range from between $70 and $100 million. This was in addition to wealth accumulated inside Pakistan, and a $4 million 355-acre estate purchased in Surrey, England.

Responding to a Washington Post report (Dec. l2, 1997) that compared her with such notorious names as Ferdinand Marcos, Mobuto Sese Seko and Raul Salinas de Gortari, Benazir Bhutto wrote a letter, which the Post published, objecting to being placed in such company but not disputing the $14.5 million in Swiss bank accounts linked to her name.

In this regard, it should be recalled that Bhutto has filed three depositions in Pakistani courts against Mian Nawaz Sharif and his friends, also charging misappropriation of public funds, non-return of bank loans and other questionable deals. Maintaining that accusations against her are "unfounded," she asks how is it that 12 months after her dismissal from office, "no charges have been filed nor evidence produced that in any way implicates me or my family in illegal activities."