At present US support is on the side of the PPP-led government. Can that ensure a balance of power in Pakistan? In the last few weeks politics in Pakistan has exhibited volatility that could have ended with an explosion. Either the military would have carried out a coup or the civilian government would have fired COAS General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and DG ISI General Ahmed Shuja Pasha. In the past, such extreme contests have always been won by the military, but this time both sides confronted each other eyeball-to-eyeball and then blinked. Does that mean that a new balance of power has acquired equilibrium in Pakistan? It is too early to tell, but it is worthwhile putting into historical perspective this showdown and then unique climbdown in Pakistani politics. A balance of power is obtained when no single state or nation is able to dominate or interfere with others. The balance of power ensures peace of sorts between entities suspicious of one another and seeking to enhance their discrete national self-interest. Ordinarily, the notion of a balance of power should not apply to the situation within a state because in the internal sphere a coherent and unified chain of command is supposed to exist to which subordinate units comply as a matter of routine. Such a chain of command can be based on a clear distribution of powers between the three branches of the government the legislative, executive and judicial or a mix or concentration of power in one or more key institutions. Most importantly, the military is subordinate to the civil government. I will demonstrate in this two-part series that Pakistan represents a balance of power relationship rather than a coherent chain of command. In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is the head of the government, deriving his power and authority from the people and constitution. On the other hand, the head of state normally enjoys titular or ceremonial powers with some advisory and emergency powers as well. India and Pakistan inherited the political and administrative framework established through the 1935 Act. It privileged the Governor-General, representative of the British Crown, who enjoyed superior powers over the prime minister, who was to be an Indian representing the people of 1 / 5
India. It has been described by scholars as the vice-regal system. The presumption was that as independent nations, India and Pakistan would make necessary changes so that the parliamentary system, with parliament and prime minister representing the will of the people, will be properly institutionalised. The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, decided to become the Governor-General instead of prime minister. As the father of the nation, he could have shunned public office. Mahatma Gandhi did that. When India became independent, Gandhi was among the Muslims in Calcutta ready to lay down his life with them if Hindu fanatics were to attack. Alternatively, Jinnah could have chosen to become prime minister. Jawaharlal Nehru did that. By doing so, Nehru lent prestige, dignity and legitimacy to the office of the prime minister and by that token to parliament and the people of India. It is worth quoting Viceroy Mountbatten who took up this issue with Jinnah. Mountbatten has noted: When I pointed out to him (Jinnah) that if he went as a constitutional Governor-General, his powers will be restricted but as prime minister he really could run Pakistan, he made no bones about the fact that his prime minister would do what he said. In my position it is I who will give the advice, and others will act on it (Transfer of Power, Vol XI, 1982: 898-99, London: Her Majesty s Stationery Office). If Jinnah did not trust Mountbatten, as is often the reason given for not making Mountbatten Pakistan s Governor-General then some other Pakistani dignitary could have been made the Governor-General. Anyhow, the vice-regal system was perpetuated. After Jinnah s death in September 1948, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan (assassinated October 1951) asserted his authority vis-à-vis a weak Governor-General, Khawaja Nazimuddin, but established another precedent: he never held general elections under one pretext or another. Governor-Generals Malik Ghulam Mohammad and Iskander Mirza further demeaned the status of prime minister by their make-and-break tactics that resulted in recurring falls of government. Consequently, no coherent chain of command subscribing to parliamentary practice was institutionalised and instead different organs of the state, nay different individuals, act as if engaged in a balance of power contest. The inevitable casualty was constitutionalism. The 1958 coup, masterminded by Iskander Mirza and General Ayub Khan, established the military as the de facto power calling the shots. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto tried to challenge that but in the process ended up establishing his own personal dictatorship, which cost him his life. Suffice it to say that General Zia s 11-year dictatorship unambiguously established the military s overwhelming power over Pakistani politics. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were twice elected prime ministers and twice thrown out of office by the so-called establishment with the top military commanders at the core of power. There was no balance of power anymore. An exception to the set-pattern was COAS General Jehangir Karamat who decided to tender his resignation rather than precipitate a showdown with an obdurate Nawaz Sharif. His successor General Pervez Musharraf was not enamoured of such constitutionalism and gentlemanly behaviour in his confrontation with Nawaz. Consequently, their showdown in October 1999 2 / 5
unequivocally demonstrated where power really resided in Pakistan. However, Musharraf was practically ostracised by the Clinton administration. The famous five-hour stop in Islamabad by Clinton in March 2000 made that all too obvious. The American president predicated the virtues of democracy and civilian rule to the Pakistani nation on Pakistani state television and ensured that he was not seen in the company of Musharraf. After 9/11, Musharraf became the doyen of the Bush administration because he joined the war on terror. Musharraf ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds something that slowly but surely made the Americans suspicious, because the Pakistan military and the ISI delivered only selectively on the US demand to hunt down al Qaeda and the Taliban leaders. When the Pakistani lawyers community launched protest marches and demonstrations against Musharraf in spring 2007 for humiliating Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, government repression failed to quell the popular upsurge. The Americans cautiously joined the chorus about fresh elections and restoration of democracy that was reverberating throughout Pakistan at that time. They were betting on Benazir who promised to be more forthcoming in fighting terrorism and letting the Americans interrogate the father of the Islamic bomb, Dr A Q Khan. Benazir s gruesome assassination in December 2007 was indicative of the challenges to US influence in Pakistan. The sympathy vote that followed Benazir s assassination brought a PPP-led coalition government to power under Yousaf Raza Gilani in March 2008. General Musharraf, badly bruised because of the persistent lawyers movement menacing him since spring 2007, continued as president notwithstanding all indications that the people wanted him to leave. He did that finally in August. It brought the Zardari-Gilani government into power. Pakistan s main patron, the US, extended the carrot to both the Pakistani military and the PPP-led government in the form of massive economic and military aid. Understandably the aid stipulated services from both in the fight against terrorism. Zardari expressed views on India that were anathema to the deep state that in every Pakistani there was an Indian and in every Indian a Pakistani; that the Kashmiri mujahideen were terrorists; and, that Pakistan will not resort to a nuclear first strike against India. Obviously Zardari had dared to cross the red lines sensing he enjoyed US blessings. The military immediately described his views as personal, while right-wing politicians and the media were hysterical in their condemnation of such views. During 2008-2010, the terrorists wrecked lives in Pakistan, including hundreds of military personnel; the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) carried out terrorist attacks in Mumbai that could have escalated into a war between India and Pakistan; after Obama became president the Americans tightened their screws on Pakistan especially on the military through the AfPak strategy and the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act. Beginning with 2010, US pressure on Pakistan to deliver on al Qaeda and other terrorists increased enormously. Top US officials openly began to express distrust in the Pakistani leadership (read, the military and the ISI). 3 / 5
And 2011 brought out in sharp relief the tension and distrust between the US and Pakistani military. On January 26, Raymond Davis, a US undercover agent, was arrested for slaying two Pakistanis, who later turned out to be ISI operatives trailing him, on a busy Lahore road. He claimed diplomatic immunity for committing murder. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi denied he enjoyed diplomatic status something that cost him his job primarily because of US disapprobation. Davis paid blood money, notwithstanding the hysterical calls to hang him from the public, and left Pakistan. On May 2, the Americans hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad. The military and the ISI failed to prevent the flagrant violation of Pakistani airspace and sovereignty. The Zardari-Gilani government maintained silence for a couple of days and then the Foreign Office issued a statement condemning the violation of Pakistani sovereignty. The generals joined that refrain. However, WikiLeaks cables released at that time suggested that the drone attacks the military had been publicly denouncing were connived at by the same something the military denied. Thus, not only the civil government but also the military maintained a public face and concealed the real one. Iss hamaam mein sabb nangay hain (all are naked in this public bath) applied famously to the Pakistani situation. American pressure on Pakistan increased dramatically as influential voices in the CIA, Pentagon, the US Congress and State Department cried for action against the notorious Haqqani group, which they claimed enjoyed protection and sanctuary in Pakistani North Waziristan. In some utterances, linkage between the ISI and the Haqqani group was identified as the main reason for recurring attacks on US-NATO troops in Afghanistan. The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen threatened stern action against Pakistan. In October, an American businessman of Pakistani-descent, Mansoor Ijaz, published an op-ed in the Financial Times in which he accused Pakistan s ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, of approaching him to pass a secret memo on to Admiral Mullen in which a plea had been made to the US to intervene and help reform Pakistan s military and intelligence agencies. The alleged origin of such a request was from the Pakistani Presidency. On November 26, NATO aircraft from Afghanistan opened fire on Pakistani outposts, killing 24 soldiers and injuring many more. This created an uproar in Pakistan. An immediate halt was imposed on the movement of NATO supplies through Pakistan; hundreds of tonnes of supplies were stopped on their way to Afghanistan. Moreover, the Americans were ordered to vacate within 15 days the Shamsi Airbase from where they had been flying their drones. They complied. Opposition leader Mian Nawaz Sharif and others submitted a petition to the Pakistan Supreme Court requesting it probe the so-called Memogate scandal. The Supreme Court ordered relevant government branches to submit their position on Memogate. The Ministry of Defence replied that it has no control on the army/isi operations. On the other hand, in a rejoinder submitted to the Supreme Court, General Kayani opined that the memo was a reality and it was meant to demoralise the military. In a rare and unprecedented outburst, Prime Minister Gilani chided the military and the ISI for 4 / 5
behaving like a state within the state. He asserted that the Pakistan parliament was sovereign and no institution was above the law. He expressed the suspicion that a coup was being planned to overthrow his government. It was reported in the Indian press that the Americans were going to support Gilani. General Kayani responded with a statement that the military was not planning to overthrow the government and democracy will not be derailed. It was followed by Gilani saying that he had full trust in General Kayani and General Pasha. Things turned bad again when Gilani told the Chinese press that Kayani and Pasha did not follow proper procedure when submitting their rejoinders to the Supreme Court. General Kayani warned Gilani of grievous consequences for precipitating a head-on clash. The standoff continues. At present US support is on the side of the PPP-led government. Can that ensure a balance of power in Pakistan? I wonder. However, we are far away from anything resembling a normal chain of command that would institutionalise civilian supremacy over the military. That sad reality remains incontrovertible. (This essay, in a slightly different version, was first run by the Daily Times. It has been posted here with author s permission) The writer is a Professor billumian@gmail.com Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior 5 / 5