Referendum: Post Mortem
The focus of the pre-referendum political analysis was: ‘Is it legal or not’?. The focus of the post-referendum analysis is: ‘Was it honest or not’?. The pre-referendum question of legality or otherwise is vitiated by the fact that even those who said that the referendum was not constitutionally valid or legal did not generally point out that to begin with, any military rule is neither really legal nor constitutional. Similarly, the focus on the transparency of the referendum ignores the fact that if military rule is not constitutional by itself then acts to continue it, however honest in themselves they may be, cannot make it constitutional.
This preoccupation with the letter rather than the spirit of the law can be seen in two ways. The less charitable explanation is that Pakistanis are hypocritical. They want to be seen as being perfectly legal whereas, in fact, they pervert the spirit of the legal process by bending the rules in their perceived self-interest. The more charitable one, however, is that there is some modicum of respect for at least the idea of rule of law, constitutionalism and democracy in our ruling elite and the people. This means that, unlike military dictators in certain other countries, Pakistan’s military rulers do pay lip service to democracy. This, in my opinion, is a very good thing. If it disappears then Pakistan will not even aspire to democracy as it has been ever since it was created. From this point of view the desire of all military rulers for some kind of democratic legitimacy is a good thing even if their methods are so suspect and they do not actually acquire ligitimacy.
I now want to focus on the essence of the issue: should those who want real democracy support personalities or processes (i.e systems)? In general, both the opponents and supporters of General Musharraf have been refering to personalities. The supporters of General Musharraf point out that he is personally honest and his policies will reduce religious intolerance and a war with India, so he should continue to rule. The opponents are critical of his policies, accusing him of having compromised the country’s honour by selling out to America, and so they want him to step down. Very few people are bothered about that system of governance which is called democracy and which has little to do with the personality of the ruler.
This state of affairs is nothing new. Even when Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin was removed, despite the fact that he had full support of the parliament, people responded to rumours about his personality i.e that he was incompetent, weak and inefficient. They called him Khwaja Hazimuddin (Hazim=one who digests food in large quantities) and Quaid-i-Qillat (Leader of scarcity) because there was a shortage of food in his days. Thus, the people did not react to the unconstitutional act of Ghulam Muhammad, the Governor General, who had actually acted against their will by having removed their prime minister. After this, prime ministers became mere pawns in the hands of the bureaucratic-military junta and Iskander Mirza, the first president of Pakistan, openly said that Pakistanis were not yet fit for democracy. When finally Mirza dismissed the ministry of Feroze Khan Noon he did not realize that he had laid the foundation of the end of civilian rule as well. However, within weeks he was removed and, reacting to personalities the people welcomed Ayub Khan. Again when Ayub violated the Constitution made by him, the people did not protest. Again they waited for the new man to govern them better than Ayub. It was only when Yahya failed in 1971 that the people rose up in anger and Bhutto came into power. Again, when Bhutto was removed, his political opponents (some of whom now oppose Musharraf) welcomed General Zia ul Haq. They did not say that Zia ul Haq’s act was not welcome since it was undemocratic that the military should intervene and that they would sort out their differences with Bhutto. No! They joined the military regime asking it for favours completely unconcerned whether democracy as a system should continue or not. Later, the Chief of Army Staff got so much power---power which the constitution never gave him---because people bothered less about the democratic process and more about grabbing power themselves. When General Musharraf came into power one observed the same phenomenon. Liberal intellectuals, who had opposed Zia earlier, now supported Musharraf because he was an ally in their ongoing battle against religious extremism. They did not care whether the democratic process had been violated or not. They did not say that only the people can remove a prime minister by vote. No! all they were concerned with were the personal qualities of the ruler and, of course, whether his policies were in accordance with their political demands or not.
At the moment also the major camp of opposition to General Musharraf is that of the religious right. These people are against his suppression of their kind of people and his pro-U.S policies. They are not in favour of the continuation of the democratic process. After all, as mentioned earlier, they supported Zia ul Haq because he happened to be in their interest. The liberals who support Musharraf also support him only because he promises to keep the fundamentalists down and out. Both are, in practice, unmindful of the fact that democracy is a system. It is a process in which personality is, at least in theory, subjected to the checks and balances which institutions provide.
One understands that people want good governance and not necessarily democracy. But this is precisely what I call dangerous and wrong. Even a king can give good governance. There have, after all, been examples of good kings. Some authoritarian rulers, especially from the Asian Tigers, have made their countries develop very fast. However, as all this depends on the personality of the ruler, there is no guarantee that his successors will follow it. Moreover, however benign the authoritarian ruler, the norms of authoritarianism are such that it is difficult to oppose authority. This is something which prevents people from becoming truthful and honest and eventually prevents the birth of new ideas. Above all, there is always the fear that another authoritarian ruler will have evil or cruel personal traits or might favour policies which eventually prove suicidal. Such systems do not allow for rulers to be criticized, corrected, restricted, pressurized and changed. That is precisely why one values democracy as a system. It allows rulers to be changed without bloodshed; it allows pressures to be built up on the rulers and, above all, it defers, at least in name, to the will of the people.
It is this process which military interludes puts back. Thus a democratic culture has not been promoted in Pakistan. Our so-called ‘democratic’ interludes have not been democratic too. They have been dominant by civilian authoritarian figures who kept trying to appease the army while trying to cow down the opposition. However, it is wrong to criticize only civilian prime ministers while not criticizing the military power brokers because this ignores ground realities. All this brings us to the question of what will happen, and what should happen, now.
First, the presidency of a military ruler converts parliamentary democracy into a strange form of presidential rule---strange because the president is not elected and has power without responsibility. Second, the military does not lose power even if the military president retires from service. Third, prime ministers keep getting blamed because they have responsibility without having real power. This means that they are removed very often which means that the democratic process is brought into contempt. All this has always happened in military regimes. This time, however, the fear is that the military will carve out for itself a permanent niche in the system of power distribution. This might bring stability but at the expense of democracy. As such, all real democrats must not welcome such a change.
The most pessimistic scenario is that Pakistan will lose democracy for ever without eliminating militant religious forces which can precipitate a war for Kashmir or internal low-level sectarian conflict. The most optimistic scenario is that democracy will get strengthened and Pakistan will find both external and internal peace. Out of these scenarios, what appears realistic to me is that democracy will probably not be strengthened as long as any Chief of Staff continues to rule no matter how many elections are held. If the military government keeps the press free and political and ideological opponents are not persecuted then this country will remain the best military dictatorship in the world but it will still not be a real democracy. However, it is possible that General Musharraf does manage to control the religious militants and ease the tension with India. Under the circumstances, that would be a very welcome development indeed. However, if we want a democratic culture in this country then we must realize that we should go for the process, for the system, rather than the personality alone.
Dr.
Tariq Rahman