14-20 January 1999

Behind blown bridges



By: Eqbal Ahmad

Apart from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his courtiers, few citizens will attach much importance to the alleged attempt on the Pakistani prime minister's life. Whether one views it in a historical or a contemporary perspective, this was a non-event. It may, nevertheless, serve to further inflate Sharif's ballooning power.

As a phenomenon, political assassinations are about as South Asian as the monsoon. Even our founding fathers -- Mahatma Gandhi, Liaquat Ali Khan, S W R Bandaranaike and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman -- were not spared the assassin's bullet. Their successors suffered a full repertoire of murder by bullet (Indira Gandhi), bomb (Rajiv Gandhi) and the hangman's noose (Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto). Only the Americans can claim a roughly comparable record of political homicide.

Viewed from the historical perspective, the bomb on the road to Raiwind was a minor event. When it exploded under a bridge, Sharif was nowhere near it. In fact, he had not even left his home in Model Town, which is miles away from the site of the explosion. On being informed, he and his family flew to Raiwind by helicopter which was obviously standing by to transport the prime minister. The bomb, which damaged a small bridge, was not ignited by remote control -- a fact that suggests a lack of professionalism rare for real terrorists in Pakistan.

"He is unshaken," the minister of information told reporters, "Our prime minister is a brave man." Just the right words to convey to the world a sense of the sycophancy that surrounds Sharif.

However, there is a real danger that this insignificant event shall serve as an excuse to extend the government's powers, undermine the rule of law and further undercut Pakistan's fragile system of checks and balances. The country has already been greatly enfeebled by a series of developments. Among them were the forced resignation of a chief justice who was asserting the judiciary's authority, constitutional amendments which augment the powers of the prime minister and render him immune to presidential authority, the passage of anti-terrorism legislation which reduces judicial authority to ensure the rights of the accused and the creation of military courts in Sind to entirely bypass the judiciary.

A 15th constitutional amendment has already been voted by the National Assembly where Sharif holds a comfortable two-thirds majority. It now awaits a hopefully negative vote in the Senate where Sharif does not command the required numbers. This amendment, rhetorically an attempt to make the Islamic Republic more Islamic, will confer as much power as those exercised in the seventh century by Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab upon men totally lacking the virtues of Omar.

It is generally believed that Sharif has cracked down on the Muttahida Qaumi Mahaz (MQM) because the Karachi-based ethnic party did not support his proposed 15th amendment. Until two months ago, Sharif's Muslim League and the MQM were allies. The alliance ended when Sharif accused MQM members of murdering Hakim Saeed, a respected philanthropist. Then came the institution of governors' rule in Sind (where the Muslim League government could not survive the break with MQM) and a crackdown on MQM leaders and cadres.

Karachi was returned to the state of war between the government and the MQM which prevailed during Benazir Bhutto's term. Four MQM members were arrested in Karachi after the explosion, an alacrity of investigation unexpected from Pakistan's police and intelligence departments. It is feared that the government will use the explosion to persecute its opposition.

Sharif is prey to a familiar ailment. He retells, in effect, the story of Pakistan's crisis of leadership. More than once, people have entrusted a leader with power who, for greed of power or money or both, did not convert this power into authority. Z A Bhutto was elected by a majority in West Pakistan on promises he was unable to fulfill. He kept amassing power, amendment after constitutional amendment, until he was overwhelmed by the excess of it.

At the climax of his power, Sharif had appeared invulnerable. He appointed himself commander-in-chief, fired the army chief, hand-picked his chief of army staff, jailed his opponents, tamed the judiciary, adulterated the bureaucracy and used religion for his purposes. When he finally needed it, the judiciary was too compromised and enfeebled to save him, the bureaucracy was too weak and demoralised to help civilianise military rule and the mullahs he had courted jumped ship to join Mohammed Ziaul-Haq's bandwagon.

Z A Bhutto's daughter had double luck. Between 1988 and 1997, she had two stints as prime minister. In her first term, she distinguished herself for incompetence while husband Asif Zardari worked the banks and contractors. In the second term she became the Bonnie to her Clyde, and now faces myriad corruption charges by an adversary in power who would neither prosecute seriously nor let her be. As a result, Pakistan's parliamentary system is effectively deprived of an opposition. Only the feisty press and a lively, though small, civil sector enliven a weak democratic environment. Sharif's government looks on these with disfavour.

Sharif is following in Z A Bhutto's footsteps. His greed for power appears to be obsessive. If he does not stop now, he will bring grief to the country and to himself. He should know, as Bhutto should have known, that notwithstanding his own background of collaboration with a military usurper, he is a beneficiary of people's preference for a democratic order. His political future is linked to a parliamentary system whose health is better assured by institutions than by individuals.

The bomb that exploded in Lahore on 3 January could do Pakistan much good if Sharif draws the right lessons from it. One lesson is that when power is personalised, the person in power becomes the focus of all discontent. A second is that short-circuiting the rule of law is a temporary and, in the long run, harmful expedient. Only a reformed, competent and independent judiciary is the ultimate guarantee of justice, an attribute without which a system and a government shall lack legitimacy. A last lesson is that governments and leaders who drag religion into politics distort politics, society and religion itself, but fail to draw political gains from doing so.