There was a Nawab Sahib in Lucknow who lived so much beyond his means that his property was being sold off bit by bit. In sheer desperation he hired a clerk (a munshi) who promised to turn his fortune provided he was temporarily made the Nawab (i.e. given both the power and the responsibility). The Nawab agreed and the Munshi Ji took over. He took to cancelling all the orders of the Nawab, which were mindlessly extravagant, and in two years the Nawab cleared his debts. Seeing this success another equally extravagant Nawab hired the Munshi Ji. This Nawab, however, kept all power to himself while the responsibility of saving money remained with the Munshi. Soon the Munshi Ji resigned and, when the Nawab urged him to stay on he said: ‘I succeeded when I was both munshi and nawab. Now that you have made me a mere munshi, responsible only for making irresponsible payments, I had better resign to save my reputation’. The moral of the anecdote is that ‘power and responsibility must belong to the same person or institution’.
This is exactly what is wrong with Pakistan’s politics. First the Messers Ghulam Mohammad and Iskandar Mirza kept the power to themselves while giving the responsibility to the prime ministers whom they kept throwing out in an unashamedly undemocratic manner. Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan at least had the grace to do away with the munshis while they remained the nawabs. Zia ul Haq rediscovered the Machiavellian art of hiring the poor Munshi Ji while keeping all real power with himself. When the munshi tried to act in a responsible manner, which implied using power, he was sacked. Zia ul Haq actually brought about a fundamental change in parliamentary democracy which, indeed, had never been given much of a chance in Pakistan anyway. In this form of government, parliament is sovereign i.e. there is no power above the will of the parliament. It can make any laws subject to rules specified in the constitution. What this implies, in theory, is that the will of the people is sovereign. Since democracy is, literally, rule of the people (demos), parliamentary sovereignty is taken as the sovereignty of the collective will of the people as expressed in elections.
When Zia ul Haq gave the president the power to sack the prime minister, he implied that the will of a person not elected directly by the people was superior to the will of the people. This was a fundamental and cardinal breach of parliamentary democracy. The decade of dismissals which followed was a negation of democracy. The Chief of the Army Staff emerged as the real power behind the throne. People openly mentioned the ‘Trioka’ (President, COAS and PM) whereas, of course, parliamentary democracy knows of no ‘trioka’. The PM along with his cabinet colleagues are powerful till such time as they are dismissed by the will of the people who have installed them in such responsible and powerful offices in the first place. These ten years gave democracy a bad name. It destroyed the peoples’ faith in politicians because there was so much propaganda against them. If Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif wanted peace with India or wanted to avoid a war over Kashmir, they were dubbed as traitors whereas the military government can do this---and, of course, it needed to be done---without the fear that the generals would take over. The prime ministers were harassed from all sides and had no control over foreign policy. The Afghan policy, the Kashmir policy, the policy on nuclear weapons---all these crucial areas were controlled by the army not the prime minister and his cabinet. This was not democracy and it is ironical that people say the democracy failed in Pakistan. The fact is that it did not fail; it was never born at all!
The constitutional changes proposed by the present military regime go another step forward towards negating the spirit of parliamentary democracy. The president, who will not be directly elected, will be able to throw out a prime minister who will be. The National Security Council, which will be dominated by the military, will be able to decide the fate of elected leaders and institutions. Moreover, the president will be able to sack the PM while retaining the parliament thus negating the principle that the PM remains in power till he commands a majority in the parliament. Other powers of the president subordinate elected persons to unelected ones. They tend to give power to the unelected functionaries of the state while giving responsibility to the elected ones. In short, the Nawab Sahib will retain all the power while relegating the Munshi JI to mere clerical status.
Such an arrangement is not justifiable under the theory of creating a balance of power or checks and balances. In parliamentary government the opposition keeps a strong check on the government in parliament and outside it. Questions are asked in parliament, there are open debates and the government can be forced out by passing a resolution of ‘no confidence’. Above all there is the press which is ready to pounce upon the government the moment it goes wrong. There are other pressure groups, citizens’ committees, academia and NGOs which provide the checks and balances. In no democratic country of the world does the army provide the checks and balances. Another argument provided by the supporters of the proposed changes is that the army will never take over again. That might be true but at what cost? The cost of its assuming supreme control anyway. But why does anyone take over? Only to assert control. So, if we already give ultimate power to the army it need not assume open command. What is at issue is not whether ultimate power is in the hands of people in uniform or in civvies. The issue is whether the system gives both power and responsibility to the elected representatives of the people or not. The issue is whether the people can bring in and throw out their rulers or not. The issue is whether Pakistan will ever have a democratic culture or not. These are the issues and not merely the desire not to see generals announcing to the world on the T.V that they have taken over. Indeed, instead of having an undemocratic constitution which gives ultimate power to the military, we should risk military takeovers but retain our constitution which gives no constitutional authority to the military. By doing this we can hope for democracy one day; by giving the army constitutional power we will say goodbye to the very concept of democracy for ever.
All Pakistani military rulers are attracted to the title of president. They seem to feel, in keeping with the hierarchical nature of the military itself, that the presidential system suits Pakistan more than the parliamentary one. However, in a democratic presidential system the president is elected. In France, in consequence of a constitutional amendment in 1962, the president is elected by direct universal suffrage. The PM is appointed by the president and is answerable both to the parliament (577 directly elected deputies) and the elected president. In the United States the president is elected directly by universal suffrage. The president’s power is balanced by the Congress consisting of a House of representatives (435 members) and the Senate (2 from each state making a total of 100). Congress makes laws about taxation, currency, postage, foreign trade, army and navy. It can also declare war. The president cannot dissolve the Congress but Congress can remove the president through impeachment which is a formal trial. In short, the democratic presidential system is subject to the principle of election and does not allow the military to have any constitutional or legal power in the running of the state. This is not what Ayub or Yahya proposed. They wanted real power and not the rule of the demos.
In the case of Pakistan, the principle which the military promotes is that of legitimizing rule without elections; subordinating the elected PM to the role of a clerk who is kicked out every now and then. This will bring politicians and democracy into disrepute. People will say that democracy has failed as prime ministers keep getting kicked out. Disillusionment with the idea of democracy will increase and democracy will never take root. If these proposals are implemented the president and the army chiefs will reamin the Nawab Sahib while the elected prime minister will become the hapless Munshi Ji.
Dr. Tariq Rahman