Daily Times Editorial March 29, 2013

SC’s refusal on Musharraf Dr Mubashir Hassan’s plea to seeking the disqualification of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf from participating as a candidate in the elections under Articles 62 and 63 has not been entertained by the Supreme Court (SC). The petitioner’s argument is that Musharraf had violated the constitution by imposing an emergency on November 3, 2007 and suspending the constitution. The petitioner’s counsel, A K Dogar, cited the July 31, 2009 verdict of the SC to argue that the constitution could not be held in abeyance at the will and whim of a COAS. This, according to Dogar, was subversion of the constitution and constituted high treason. There existed a declaration against Musharraf in the SC’s judgement, he went on, and thereby he stands convicted. A raft of other petitions are flowing into the SC against the former dictator, ranging from the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s plea for a treason case to two petitions asking for his name to be put on the exit control list. This is quite apart from the cases against Musharraf on the Akbar Bugti and Benazir Bhutto assassinations and the Laal Masjid operation. The SC’s three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry held, however, that the SC was not the appropriate forum for such a plea and the petitioner should address the election commission’s returning officers regarding the appropriateness or otherwise of the candidature of Musharraf. It must be noted that the court has not as yet addressed the treason charge. It is interesting to ask the question that looms like an elephant in the room. Nobody is inclined to charge Musharraf with the crime of carrying out a military coup in 1999 that overthrew the elected government of Nawaz Sharif. The latter has not approached the SC on this burning but forgotten issue, nor have the petitions discussed above. Why is this? Logically, that coup was the fountainhead of all that followed, including the imposition of emergency in 2007. Could it be that even Musharraf’s sworn enemies are reluctant to stir a pot that might end up raising embarrassing questions about the SC itself? After all, the SC endorsed the coup, went so far as to give Musharraf a three-year stint as Chief Executive, and even bestowed its generous largesse on him by allowing him to amend the constitution. The present Honourable Chief Justice too came to his office in 2005 under Musharraf’s dispensation. Any delving into these prickly events therefore has the potential of embarrassing questions being raised about the conduct of the SC and its relationship with the coup maker in the past. Admittedly, the SC has since vowed to forget the controversial track record of the judiciary in the past vis-à-vis military coups and dictators, but does this not conveniently brush the issue under the carpet? Can the SC find the moral strength to reverse those decisions so as to prospectively block for all time to come the path of future Bonapartes? Of course that would imply going against the most powerful institution of state, the military, which has thrown its weight behind Musharraf’s safe return (through protective bail) and urged the government to provide him foolproof security. Difficult as it is, the expectation from the judiciary is that it would grasp this nettle to lay the ghost of coups and coup makers to rest permanently. Meanwhile Musharraf is waxing eloquent in his defence. He says in a press conference the other day that he has not returned under any deal (perhaps because he himself was a deal-maker while in power), challenges his opponents to do whatever they can against him since he is not afraid, brushes aside al fears of assassination, etc. He also justifies the Laaal Masjid operation and Kargil, denies responsibility for Bugti’s killing, and looks to the MQM for a seat or two. Pakistan’s nascent democracy, faced with the challenge of conducting a peaceful democratic transition from one elected government to the next also arguably faces, but is not so far addressing, the sordid past of military coups in our history, and has yet to find the courage to put those responsible in the dock of history and the law.

The Punjab caretaker CM The parliamentary committee comprising the outgoing PML-N government and the opposition consisting of the PPP and PML-Q finally, after lengthy deliberations, agreed on Najam Sethi as the caretaker Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab. Reports say the PML-N’s hand was forced to accept Sethi despite him being a PPP nominee because they chose their own nominees unwisely without proper homework and then were confronted with the possibility that the matter would end up with the election commission, which may in any case find Sethi the least objectionable candidate, in the process robbing the PML-N of the mantle of mature consensual politics. About the PPP, it is being speculated that President Asif Ali Zardari played his cards cleverly, choosing nominees that ostensibly were distant from the PPP. Whether this assertion stands up to scrutiny, however, is another matter. Outgoing PML-N Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, one of the members of the parliamentary committee, while announcing the decision, tried to put a brave face on it by saying the decision was in the greater interest of the nation and province, and that they had confidence in Sethi and hoped he would be as impartial as caretaker CM as he was in his political analysis. Both parties, the PPP and the PML-N, seem to be suffering from memory loss. Najam Sethi started life as a revolutionary Marxist and joined the Baloch resistance against Zuklfikar Ali Bhutto’s military campaign in that troubled province in the 1970s. Arrested, tortured and imprisoned in 1975, he was finally released from Hyderabad Jail where he and many others were incarcerated in the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case a few months before the case was finally withdrawn by the General Ziaul Haq regime. He returned to his native Lahore, set up a publishing house and later an English weekly that continues to date. In 1999, he was arrested and mistreated by Nawaz Sharif’s second government on charges of treason related to a speech he gave in New Delhi, which the then Pakistani High Commissioner Ashraf Qazi (lately of the bin Laden raid commission fame) presented to the government as anti-Pakistan. After his release in 2000, Sethi had to undergo heart surgery because of the physical and health damage incurred during this incarceration. In 2002, he became the founder-editor of this newspaper and remained at its helm until 2009, when he fell out with its publisher the late Governor Salmaan Taseer on, amongst other things, working for another media house while being editor of Daily Times. Currently, he was hosting a talk show on a private TV channel until his appointment as caretaker CM, for which he has taken oath yesterday. Sethi’s statements after taking oath and comments in the media converge on the most important task before him: ensuring far, free, transparent elections are held in Punjab, arguably the real battlefield of the coming polls. Consistency has not been one of Sethi’s strong points, his pendulum swings between the PPP and PML-N, depending which party was in power, being the only constant. That, however, has not stopped his march to the caretaker CM’s office now. However, if there is any consistency in Sethi’s long journey from a committed Marxist in his youth to becoming a successful part of the political culture that has overtaken the polity over many years, it is his ability to land caretaker jobs. In 1996-7, after then President Farooq Leghari booted out his own PPP’s government under Benazir Bhutto, Sethi was appointed federal caretaker minister for accountability. In that role, some assert, he prepared the grounds for the later cases Nawaz Sharif’s second government instituted through Saifur Rehman’s Ehtesab Bureau against Benazir and Asif Zardari. None of this has stood in the way of Sethi’s climb to one pinnacle after the other. Now the expectation is that he will rise to the challenge and prove all his critics wrong by fulfilling the heavy responsibility on his shoulders to ensure a credible election in the province under most contention in these polls.

Daily Times Editorial March 27, 2013

Public versus vested interest An unfortunate aspect of our polity as it has evolved over the years is the dominance of the ‘philosophy’ that public office is to be obtained purely for the purpose of private gain. Thus the concept of public service has been abandoned. Across the board, the suspicion of all parties pursuing this practice is not without weight. Particularly in the dying moments of an outgoing government, there is a flurry of activity in evidence to leave behind facts on the ground in the form of decisions intended to favour favourites and privilege the already privileged. Something along these lines seems to have occurred according to a story published in Daily Times yesterday. The story speaks of a number of decisions taken amidst the dying embers of the outgoing PPP-led government by the short-lived Finance Minister Salim Mandviwalla, who replaced Hafeez Sheikh. The story says that while the jury is still out on the performance of Dr Hafeez Sheikh as the Finance Minister, his successor managed to get decisions through in a hurry (time was short after all) that had been either rejected earlier or lay pending because of reservations about their impact. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources pushed through several dubious decisions for which the fertilizer industry, oil refineries, natural gas industry and oil marketing companies had been lobbying for years. The first decision related to the supply of gas to fertilizer factories in direct violation of the Gas Allocation Policy of the ECC. This gas has been diverted from power generation, which is arguably the number one problem for the economy. This decision was rushed through despite the objections of the Planning Commission on, amongst other grounds, the fact that the cost of power generation from oil is three times higher than from gas. Another decision relates to the oil refineries and marketing companies. The approval of Inland Freight Marginalisation (IFEM) for a coastal refinery, which had been twice turned down by both the ECC and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources itself, was done over the objections of OGRA and the Planning Commission. Another decision concerned deemed duty, which originally was intended as an incentive for oil refineries to carry out modernisation. Except one, none of the refineries did, but nevertheless got the benefit of deemed duty from the outgoing government. Last but not least, oil dealers’ margin was increased at the cost of the consumer without any apparent rhyme or reason. These examples, while causing concern, are perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. Government decisions favouring favourite vested interests have become a routine fact of life in Pakistan’s polity. What lends the above examples added resonance is the timing. An outgoing government uses the last possible moments of its tenure to take decisions that favour some interest at the expense of the public interest. If the petition moved in the Supreme Court by Dr Mubashir Hassan regarding last minute appointments, postings, transfers, regularisation of contract employees, development funds’ allocations to make electoral gains by the incumbents is any guide, the iceberg of this form of corruption is titanic. Over time, the country and society at large have seen the exponential growth of a culture of throwing principles, ethics, integrity out the window and replacing them with the Machiavellian approach of achieving personal ambition and aggrandizement without scruples or hesitation. While democracy is in the process of being consolidated, the thoughtful amongst us also need to reflect on the downward spiral we are caught in in terms of becoming a lawless and unprincipled society, where success has many fathers, and ‘failure’ (to achieve, get somewhere, be someone) is an orphan. A sad statement on our collective state and one that needs the most determined effort by those who see this as more destructive of state and society than any other threat it faces to start a public consciousness campaign for the elimination of this spreading evil that has us in its octopus-like grip.

Daily Times Editorial March 26, 2013

A caretaker prime minister at last Tortuous though it may have been, there is room for satisfaction in the fact that at the end of the day, the country has a caretaker prime minister. When the procedure as laid down in the constitution failed to achieve agreement on a consensus caretaker prime minister between the outgoing prime minister and the leader of the opposition, and then the parliamentary committee set up with equal representation of the treasury and opposition benches, the task fell to the election commission, which has after due deliberations, delivered a majority decision in favour of Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso from Balochistan. The election commission chief, Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim revealed to the media the decision and also underlined the fact that it was taken by a 4-1 majority, the member from Punjab, Justice (retd) Riaz Kiyani, dissenting and casting his vote for Justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid, the PML-N’s nominee. The election commission had been trying for a consensus, but when it became clear that Justice (retd) Kiyani was sticking to his guns, the committee voted by a majority in favour of Justice (retd) Khoso. Justice (retd) Khoso has since taken oath of office from President Asif Ali Zardari. He had an interaction with media on Sunday in which he committed as his topmost priority the holding of free, fair and transparent elections and facilitating the election commission in carrying out this task. He also sought to put all conspiracy theories and speculations to rest by asserting that the caretaker setup would not continue a day beyond its tenure, and if it did, he would go home. He promised to have good relations with all political parties and induct a small cabinet of 12-15 members to handle the country’s affairs in the interim until the elections. Given his Baloch background, Justice (retd) Khoso was asked about the possibility of his playing a role in calming things down in troubled Balochistan and ensuring the elections were held in a congenial atmosphere in that province. While the caretaker prime minister promised to do his best to bring this about, scepticism exists whether the complex insurgency-hit situation in Balochistan can yield to normality without a political dialogue and settlement with the estranged Baloch leaders and people. In the same context, Justice (retd) Khoso said that while law and order was the responsibility of the provinces, his administration would help and facilitate them in ensuring a conducive and peaceful atmosphere for the upcoming polls. From the president down, most political parties across the divide have welcomed the appointment of Justice (retd) Khoso as the caretaker prime minister, despite continuing disquiet over the inability of the politicians to grab the historic opportunity they were presented with. One should nevertheless be grateful for small mercies that the three-layered process laid down in the constitution finally provided the desired end result. The only reservations as such over Justice (retd) Khoso’s appointment have been voiced by PTI and JI, but they lack any solid grounds for their objections. Even the PML-N, whose nominee/s did not win out, has accepted the election commission’s decision with good grace. Pakistan has certainly turned a corner from the past when caretaker prime ministers were appointed five times before this through a non-transparent, behind closed doors process, with objections from one side or the other almost an inevitable fallout. The broad acceptance, if not near-consensus on the caretaker prime minister’s appointment is a sign of the maturing of the democratic process in the country. However, as he has promised to do, the caretaker prime minister must so conduct himself as to allay any lingering objections to his appointment or suspicions that he is the PPP’s nominee. As the constitution envisages, the caretaker prime minister, no matter who may have nominated him, once he enters office, must show impartiality if the goal of a free, fair, transparent, credible election is to be achieved.

Daily Times Editorial March 25, 2013

Imran Khan’s rally The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI’s) rally at Minar-e-Pakistan on March 23 was huge, with the vast majority comprising youth and women, the main support of the party. While the rally was well organised and managed, all the speakers who came before Imran Khan droned on and on, full of sound and fury, signifying little or nothing. Whether this annoyed the gods or not, a storm and heavy rain cut short Imran Khan’s speech and did not allow him to announce his party’s manifesto or complete the oath taking of the party’s newly elected office bearers. Nevertheless the turnout and enthusiasm on display amongst the crowd will strengthen Imran Khan and the PTI’s claim to have emerged as the third alternative to the PPP and PML-N. In the time available to him before the deluge, Imran Khan vowed to build a ‘New Pakistan’ and made six promises. He pledged to always remain honest, wage jihad against oppression, keep his assets inside the country, not misuse power if elected, protect the taxpayers’ money, and protect the rights of overseas Pakistanis. He said he would not indulge in false promises like raising the minimum wage to Rs 18,000 (a dig at the PPP and PML-N), and would commit only what he was able to deliver. He went on to assert that if brought to power, he would convert the Governor’s House into a public library and sports ground. He pledged that his party workers and newly elected office bearers would have the right to remove him as chairman of PTI if they found him dishonest or guilty of dishonouring his promises. Imran Khan has been trying to present his PTI as a different kind of party from our traditional mainstream. To the extent that the PTI has recently held intra-party elections despite the risks (and some friction) involved, certainly sets PTI apart from the dynastic political culture of most of our political parties. However, some objective realities have to be faced regardless. The support to the PTI from youth and women reflects more the disillusionment with and reaction against the traditional parties than something substantially different and positive. The cries of ‘change’ that ring through every public event the PTI mounts do not, despite ‘revolutionary’ pretensions, boil down to more than a change of faces rather than the system, which the PTI claims it can manage better, including the elimination of corruption. Second, big rallies do not necessarily an election victory make. Constituency politics, revolving around in the rural areas the influence of large landowners, clan and family ties, and in the urban areas interest groups, determine electoral fortunes. The PTI’s outreach in the rural areas is weak to non-existent, while it is in the urban areas its real constituency of the middle class youth and women reside. When the crunch comes on election day, therefore, it remains to be seen whether the ‘tsunami’ Imran has been boasting of is wishful thinking or real. On a rough guess, the best estimate for the PTI is from a low of 15-20 national seats to an optimistic 30-40. This will not provide Imran with the ability to make a government. If it gives him the possibility of holding the balance of power in what will once again probably be a hung parliament, his role may be diminished by his intransigence so far to cooperating, let alone allying with, any other party. In that sense, while the PTI may have seen benefits in its solo flight to keep itself free of the taint of being sullied by association with ‘corrupt’ parties, it may cost the party after the elections if its role remains marginalised in the new parliament.

Politicians miss the bus While Pakistan Day came and went yesterday with all eyes fixed on a few significant developments, there was a sense of disappointment that the mainstream political parties had failed to reach agreement on a caretaker prime minister. The eight-member parliamentary committee charged by the constitution with fulfilling this responsibility, with equal representation of the outgoing government coalition and the opposition, signally fell out on the rock of intransigent insistence on their own candidates. It is a matter of profound regret that the politicians chose their respective candidates unwisely, without taking into consideration the other side’s view, and then failed to show the necessary maturity and flexibility to arrive at a consensus. Thereby a great historic opportunity to establish a precedent that would have strengthened the democratic forces was unfortunately lost to partisan considerations. By the time these lines appear in print, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will be entering the last day for deciding the matter, having failed also to reach agreement on Saturday, the first of the two days at tts disposal to apply closure. These developments have further accentuated the climate of uncertainty surrounding the upcoming elections. The hope is that the ECP will complete the task and allow the country to breathe a sigh of relief that the process continues to move forward despite fits and starts. The ECP has in the meantime announced the election schedule for the May 11 elections. It has fixed six days from March 24 to 29 for filing of nomination papers. Scrutiny of these will be carried out from March 30 to April 5. Defaulters of even small amounts of any state-run department will be given short shrift. Candidates can file appeals against the decision of a returning officer by April 9. April 16 will be the last date for decisions on the appeals by election tribunals, whereas the candidates can withdraw their nomination papers by April 17. Final lists of candidates will be published by April 18. While this finalisation of the schedule is welcome, all eyes will be on the ECP’s decision regarding the caretaker prime minister today. As though the breakdown between the politicians at the Centre on the question of the caretaker setup was not bad enough, outgoing Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has delivered himself of a broadside against the nominees of the PPP for caretaker chief minister Punjab. Three provinces, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have agreed the caretaker chief ministers, but something similar to what is happening in the Centre seems to be at work in Punjab. The hardline lobby in the PML-N, led by outgoing Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar and which arguably includes Shahbaz Sharif, seems bent on sabotaging any effort to arrive at a consensus on the caretaker setup in the Centre and in Punjab. Chaudhry Nisar’s press conferences before and during the sessions of the parliamentary committee clearly indicated that no agreement was in the offing, and so it turned out. It appeared as though the (changed) members of the PML-N on the parliamentary committee had no mandate to decide anything and that their party leadership (particularly Chaudhry Nisar) effectively scuttled what would have been a historic development. Meanwhile eyes also turned yesterday to the PTI’s massive rally at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore (more on that some other time) and Pervez Musharraf’s expected return to the country (finally) via Karachi after obtaining protective bail from the Sindh High Court against arrest on arrival in the Nawab Akbar Bugti and Benazir Bhutto assassination cases. The electoral fray is heating up, and all men of goodwill will hope that the process of holding the elections goes ahead as smoothly as possible and with the minimum violence from various non-state actors.

Daily Times Editorial March 23, 2013

Jalozai camp attack A timer-detonated car bomb carrying up to 35 kilograms of explosives and mortar bombs went off in the largest Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in the country at Jalozai, killing at least 15 people, including three women and two children, when the IDPs were lined up to receive rations and register new arrivals. Forty one persons were wounded, of whom four are reportedly in critical condition. The force of the blast can be estimated from the two-foot crater carved out by the bomb and the fact that the engine of the Suzuki vehicle used was flung 50 feet away. Clearly, the bombers’ intent was to inflict maximum casualties on the defenceless IDPs. Tens of thousands of IDPs reside in Jalozai, having fled from Akakhel, Bara and the Khyber Agency. The last in particular has been the scene lately of intense fighting between the military on an offensive to clear out the Tirah valley of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its ally the Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), which are also being confronted by the pro-government Ansar-ul-Islam (AuI) militia. The strategic significance of the Tirah valley, a redoubt of many rebel movements in the past, lies in the fact that it is less a valley and more a warren of ravines and caves that offer cover and a base to the TTP and its affiliates. It is also important as a conduit linking Khyber Agency to the neighbouring Orakzai Agency and Afghanistan. The Tirah valley provides access to the settled areas beyond FATA and even threatens Peshawar. It should not come as a surprise therefore that the TTP and the LeI are fiercely contesting the military and AuI’s efforts to clear the area of terrorists. The military’s strategy appears to be based on an ‘encircle and destroy’ strategy, which has the advantage over previous efforts of attempting to cut off the escape routes of the terrorists so they cannot slip through the net, a tactic they have employed in the past and which the forbidding terrain facilitates. While there has been no claim of responsibility so far, the TTP has denied it is involved. Police authorities suspect the LeI may be behind the carnage of innocents. Official reports say the authorities in the camp have been receiving threats for quite some time against the registration of new IDPs in the camp, more and more people being forced to flee their hearths and homes because of the fighting in their area. Four suspects are said to be under interrogation. The TTP and allies have attempted to take pressure of late against them in the Tirah valley by carrying out attacks in Peshawar and the settled areas. This is the pattern of the attacks on Bashir Bilour (in which he was killed), Ameer Haider Hoti (which he survived), the Khyber Agency Political Agent’s office, and last but not least, the Judicial Complex in Peshawar. While the military’s campaign is intended first and foremost to cleanse the strategically important area of the malign presence of the terrorists, it is also aimed at securing Peshawar and the settled areas environs in the light of the upcoming elections. Fears are being expressed across the board that the terrorists have launched a concerted campaign of bloody violence in order to sabotage the elections, with the TTP openly threatening people who may be inclined to attend the rallies of the mainstream parties opposed to the terrorists, such as the PPP, ANP, MQM, etc. The real test, and victory over the dark forces represented by the terrorists lies in ensuring the elections go through, ensuring to the extent possible that violence, if not eliminated, is kept to the minimum possible.