No Resignation, No Solution, Only Confusion

Ten days after Pakistan gained freedom from the British 67 years ago, we may be on the cusp of gaining another freedom from our own corrupt and incompetent ruling elite. I wrote this article two days earlier when one still didn’t know the outcome of the massive standoff in Islamabad’s D-Chowk in front of the houses of government that Imran Khan has renamed ‘Azadi Square’ after his Azadi or Freedom March. Either Freedom or Azadi are not bad names for Pakistan’s most important square that actually is a circle. Dr. Tahir ul Qadri should rename Constitution Avenue ‘Inqilab Avenue’ after his Inqilab or Revolution March. ‘Freedom Square on Revolution Avenue’ sounds great, what?

July and August have been a difficult months, first with the long Eid holidays and then because of the two sit-ins that are now physically, though not ideologically, merged into one. There’s no gainsaying that this will never happen again, not unless we get our ideological compass right.

This is not the time to discuss mistakes because we are still in stalemate. Talks between government and the two antagonists and the rest of the opposition and the two antagonists started and stalled within hours. For one, the composition of the government and opposition’s negotiating teams seemed to lack seriousness. Then neither antagonist is ready to accept Imran and Qadri’s primary and minimum demand, the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. They say, quite rightly, that any inquiry on election rigging or reforming the electoral system in the presence of the Sharif governments in Islamabad and Lahore will be bootless as evidence will be destroyed, hidden or withheld. Without Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation there can be no solution, only paralysis. So we have a standoff that the ‘third force’ as the army is ubiquitously called, and ‘establishment’ sometimes too, may only be able to break. It has, perforce, become the umpire. In the unwelcome but not unlikely event that were to happen, don’t blame the army for ‘derailing democracy’. Recall what I have been saying for years: the misrule, illegality, corruption and the monarchical style of rulers cause army takeovers. If politics fails it is the fault of its practitioners the politicians, not this or that.

That is being simplistic though. After all, politicians don’t come from Mars and Venus but from amongst us. They are the product of one’s constitution and the political system it gives birth to. It is these two that are to blame and if Pakistan is to improve and become a proper, prospering democracy, both the constitution and its political-electoral system have to be amended drastically and the colonial hangover removed. Only then will we make it. Young Imran doesn’t realize that still. Younger Qadri (surprised?) does, that is why his solutions are substantive even if you don’t like some of them. They can be discussed later too.

A country like Pakistan, nuclear laced and on the brink of official bankruptcy with some 230 million people, cannot remain in turmoil for long. Truth to tell there is no government in Pakistan, only the fiction of it. Something will have to give, and soon, hopefully by the time you read this. In truth, it is our mish-mash political system with many fathers that produces poor governments that soon fail, often leading to military intervention – the inevitable but worst outcome. The failure and paralysis of the three branches of government – parliament-legislature, the executive and the judiciary is on exhibition for all to see free of charge. Not one is delivering. Parliament is slavishly against its dissolution and reelections after improving the electoral system and accountability because they are its beneficiaries. Be fair: they spent a lot of money a year ago to get elected, many of them illegally. How can they let it go without even recovering their costs at the very least? The executive is fiction, a pantomime, a charade. As to the judiciary, if they had insisted on Imran’s demand being met to check only four constituencies for electoral fraud, we would not have come to this. But how can you expect anything better from a judiciary politicized by it former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, a judiciary that is being accused of being hand in glove with election rigging and with some three million cases pending, some for years, some for lifetimes? In other words, it is the failure of the constitution. I cannot stress this enough. Mistakes can be discussed later when it comes to amending the constitution, removing contradictions and the hypocrisy in it, and revamping and rebooting the system.

The wise would realize that we are trapped in the vortex of global historical forces, with the Middle East in turmoil, the European Union in meltdown, the fundamentals of the US (and thus the global economy) in the illogical zone with US public debt outstripping GDP and the dollar at the mercy of China, the standoff between Ukraine and allies versus Russia that is damaging the Russian and Ukrainian economies, and the faster rise of China that is being thrown into a role of greater primacy than it was yet prepared for. Immature US foreign policies have thrown the world into a tailspin with a ‘Made in America’ mess everywhere, including in America itself, and the global centre of gravity shifting to China. There is direct military rule in Egypt and Thailand and indirect military influence on vital decision-making in many more countries, the US not excluded. Not good for business or national or global economies. Political uncertainty makes business skittish throwing certainty of continuity of policies in doubt. The slightest hint of trouble sends stock markets tumbling. Trade and fiscal deficits increase (or surpluses decrease) amongst many other deleterious effects on economies.

At the very least, if not the executive, then the judiciary and/or parliament should insist on respecting the judgment of a sessions court and register cases against the prime minister, Punjab chief minister and others named in the wanton murder by police and party goons of innocent men and women in Tahir ul Qadri’s secretariat in Lahore on the night between June 17-18 this year. That should cool tempers somewhat and show us that some justice at least prevails in this land.

Ah! The third force, our great army. You can be certain that it is not contemplating its navel. But what may have delayed an outcome or even thrown a spanner in the works is the not unexpected US meddling that their blonde spokeswoman cannot make look innocent. We will not accept any unconstitutional step, she proclaimed. Really? Then why did you force the terrible NRO down our throats throwing corrupt and inept politicians back into our political fray? Forgiving politicians wholesale who have corruption and murder cases against them is highly extra-constitutional and illegal. Let’s try them first and find out how many of the cases were politically motivated and which not. Why did the US get Saudi Arabia to force us to pardon Nawaz Sharif and his brother and send them to Jeddah? The Bhutto-Zardari Combine and Sharif Inc. returned with a vengeance and instead of learning lessons picked up from where they had left off. In six years after 2008 they have brought Pakistan to its knees. Unforgivable.

If America doesn’t approve of anything outside the ambit of constitutions, why did they not only approve of but also aided and abetted in the removal of Egypt’s elected President Mohammad Morsi and an army takeover? Wasn’t that unconstitutional? They didn’t even call it a coup for God’s sake. Why have they accepted Thailand’s coup removing its elected prime minister? Why have they heaved a sigh of relief over the departure of Iraq’s elected Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki? Because he resigned? Well, that is exactly what our marchers want, the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and proper reelections? Why the double standards? Because unconstitutional steps are good if they remove rulers with spine or failed stooges and deliver new stooges. America cannot be sure that Nawaz’s replacement would be a stooge, certainly not Imran Khan. Nor would Qadri were he to contest. With such double standards how can America run itself, leave alone the world? That’s why the world is in such a mess.

Why don’t we ask America how it is any of its business what we do? You know the answer. We are heavily indebted to them and perpetually begging for more. Why, our finance minister is in Dubai as I write asking the IMF for more. That is why.

We should take recourse in the International Law of ‘Odious Debt’ as Ecuador did in 2002 and write off most of it. I hope to write on this soon, particularly for Imran Khan, because I see no other leader with the gumption to proclaim our debt ‘Odious Debt’.