Revive political parties

ONE of the issues frequently raised by political parties is that the crises of the state and the plight of the people have been aggravated by the failure of political institutions. New institutions have not been developed, it is said, and the institutions created in the olden days have been destroyed.

Political leaders usually do not include political parties in the list of institutions that have decayed. This, perhaps, because of their feeling of guilt. Whenever the matter is broached they attribute the decline of political parties to state repression, especially during authoritarian rule. But no honest political activist will deny that party leaders also have made a large contribution to the process.

As regards political parties Pakistan has been unfortunate since its very inception. The largest party at independence, the Muslim League, was more an organisation in form than in substance. After the Quaid’s death even respect for form was given up. After a brief experiment separating the party from the government the Muslim League became a permanent maid at the prime minister’s house. Until Iskander Mirza added the making and breaking of political parties to his functions as head of state, whoever became prime minister also became the League chief. The party had little say in the wars of succession that began with the Quaid’s demise or in the management of public affairs.

The other parties in existence during Independence were paralysed after losing out to the Muslim League. When they tried to resurrect themselves, largely in defence of provincial rights, they were easily suppressed. A challenge to authority could be mounted during elections only by loose gatherings of estranged members of the elite and the establishment replied by rigging elections in the western wing. When it failed to do so in the eastern wing it abandoned the formality of elections altogether and eventually preferred praetorian rule to representative government.

For 50 years now political elements have been fighting authoritarian regimes, and more than that among themselves, on the strength of intra-elite alliances and their ability to gather the people in one movement or another. They have done wonders but fostering strong democratic parties does not figure in their accomplishments. The field has been dominated by political outfits that prefer to call themselves movements and spurn democratic elections and regular party structures. Some parties have relied exclusively on periodic elections.

The stark reality is that political parties have been competing with autocratic despots in inventing ever new excuses for denying the people their right to democratic choice. They have been functioning as little more than contractors for seats in elected bodies and waiting for moneyed candidates who can buy tickets for offices that offer the highest possible return on their investment.

Since the state started moving away from its democratic moorings soon after Independence it had no interest in helping political parties consolidate themselves as fully operational democratic machines. Indeed, it drew comfort from the disintegration of political parties. Instead of removing the obstacles to the flowering of democratic organisations, by avoiding restraints on the right to assembly and to dissent and by reducing the cost of electoral contest, among other things, the state has tried to exceed its authority by arbitrarily regulating political parties and their activities.

The first attempt in this direction was made in 1962 when Ayub Khan’s all-out campaign to destroy party-based politics was halted by the assembly elected through his own devices and he reluctantly reconciled himself to the existence of political parties. As a result, the Political Parties Act of 1962 was designed largely to check the founding and functioning of parties that could be assailed, however wrongly, for being foreign-aided or inspired by a foreign ideology.

The first PPP government imposed in the 1973 Constitution only two conditions on political parties — they could not work against the state’s integrity and were required to account for their funds. It kept the Political Parties Act of 1962 in place and amended it only to facilitate action against the parties it considered undesirable. Gen Zia added some conditions for parties desirous of contesting elections including their compulsory registration but this condition was struck down by the judiciary. The quasi-civilian governments that followed Gen Zia showed little interest in strengthening political parties.The Political Parties Order authored by the Musharraf regime does acknowledge that “the practice of democracy within the political parties will promote democratic governance in the country for sustaining democracy” (the excessive use of the word ‘democracy’ in this short sentence could well have been meant to hide aversion to it), but the measure merely prescribes easy standards for parties for participation in elections.

It can be argued that this order of 2002 has inhibited political parties from democratising themselves. All that is expected of them is a party constitution, a list of members, a certificate about election of office-bearers, and a statement of audited accounts. This is easy work for professionals. After meeting these legal obligations political parties tend to believe they have become democratic entities and nothing more needs to be done in this area.

That the political parties were in disarray on the eve of the last general election cannot be disputed. The enforced absence of the heads of the two major parties did matter but that alone could not have rendered these organisations dysfunctional to the extent actually noticed. Their preparation for elections was no more than haphazard improvisation. The change wrought by the people on Feb 18 was without much help from the main political parties. And these political parties, with rare exceptions here and there, have not been heard of since then.

The conventional argument is that when a party comes to power priority has to be given to the fundamental task of managing the state, to meeting the threats of disturbance and turbulence, and party affairs have to be put on the backburner. In practice, governance has essentially meant efforts to undermine all other parties (including allies), or score points over them, and providing for self-aggrandisement by a few. The point that is consistently missed is that the availability of organised party cadres will make governance both easier and better. Such cadres are vitally needed to maintain a living link between the rulers and the ruled.

Throughout the past many weeks party mobilisation has been sorely missed. If the coalition partners had cadres to mobilise a few hundred thousand people the task of restoring the judges and getting rid of Musharraf could have been completed in a shorter period and quite cleanly. So long as political parties are not revived and raised to due strength the democratic experiment will remain vulnerable to disruption by praetorian guards.

No to another Cold War

WHEN President George Bush first met President Vladimir Putin, he claimed that having looked into the latter’s heart he had found in it a good man with whom he could do business.

One wonders what Bush is saying in the wake of Russia’s incursion into Georgia. Not surprisingly, the western media stirred up quite a sob story in Georgia’s favour, claiming that it was a small, defenceless victim at the hands of marauding Russian soldiers.

The reality however, is far more complex and goes back to the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Truly, its result — the emergence of a sole superpower — represented a historic transformation, for it destroyed the concept of the balance of power enunciated as far back as 1648 in the Treaty of Westphalia. Western politicians and scholars jumped to the conclusion that the event confirmed the triumph of western democracy and capitalism and thus marked the ‘end of history’.

Consequently, the US embarked on a policy that showed scant regard for Russian interests. The chaotic years of Boris Yeltsin were taken advantage of, while Russia lay supinely in a state of drunken stupor. Yeltsin’s many transgressions, including his military assault on the duma were overlooked, Moscow’s regional and global issues were ignored, and in the meanwhile, the former communist states of Eastern and central Europe were made a part of the West’s fabric of economic and military alliances.

But Russia is a millennium-old country, with a glorious history of achievements, possessing tremendous resources — both economic and human. It was therefore inevitable that Putin’s strong and resolute leadership would refocus the nation’s energies on economic and military reconstruction. The galloping international oil and gas prices helped in filling up its coffers, enabling it to alter its bargaining power as well.

This newfound confidence enabled the Kremlin to exert influence far afield — claiming the North Pole and renewing nuclear bomber patrols near Guam and Scotland. But it was in the Caucuses where an increasingly assertive Kremlin decided to put its foot down, helped unwittingly by the irresponsible policies of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. By making a rash move to occupy the breakaway province of South Ossetia, Saakashvili may have wanted to prove his ‘nationalist’ credentials and enhance his ‘usefulness’ to the West.

But when Moscow responded with its own military incursion, he could do no more than fret that the Russians were repeating what the Soviets had done in earlier years, while senior US officials made the preposterous claim that such an action could not be permitted in this era. How ironic coming from an administration that had invaded not one but two sovereign states!

Saakashvili’s frustration at having been left to fend for himself was understandable. For long a favourite of the Bush administration, the former New York lawyer was viewed by Moscow as unreliable and an instrument to promote the West’s interests in Moscow’s backyard. As the Economist wrote, his thrust into South Ossetia “was foolish and possibly criminal”, and Gorbachev was right to observe: “Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.” Whether acting alone or at the behest of the US, Saakashvili’s grab for the enclaves has unleashed forces that are likely to have a deep, long-lasting impact not only on the region, but on East-West relations as well.

President Bush and Secretary Condoleezza Rice have threatened to isolate Russia, while others have called for its expulsion from the G-8, as well as for keeping it out of the WTO. There have also been calls to rethink relations with Russia. But the rethinking needs to be directed at establishing a relationship of trust and mutual advantage, not to promote unilateral American advantage.

The US must also be careful not to push Russia against the wall. It has already made the mistake of basing its policy on two major fallacies. One, that Russia was inherently aggressive and therefore needed to be kept ‘encircled’ and two, that Russia had been so weakened by the Soviet Union’s disintegration that it would not be able to ever endanger the West.

It has, however, been proven again that nothing can be a more explosive mix than national humiliation and massive resources! Washington must not forget that it was the West that in inelegant haste brought in the former Soviet republics into economic and military alliances, while converting Nato into a global military force to be used at American behest to promote Washington’s global interests.

The latest provocation has been the placement of US missiles in Poland, ostensibly to counter the Iranian threat, a claim no one takes seriously. All this has only reinforced Russia’s resolve to assert its place under the sun.

Bush may see the Russian action in Georgia as directed against the West but it will have a far greater impact on the other states of the Caucuses and Caspian. Many of them have sizeable Russian minorities and long-established relations with Moscow. They cannot afford to be caught in a US-Russia confrontation. The energy pipelines too originate or go through this region and Europe would not want to see this area in a state of turmoil.

Moscow’s show of strength in Georgia, coupled with Washington’s failure to come to the latter’s aid, has made countries such as the Ukraine and Poland nervous. Some see this as confirming their fears that the bear’s claws remain as sharp as ever.

However, this would be a serious misreading of Russia’s intentions and interests. Any effort to create an anti-Russia coalition would be counter-productive, because Moscow recognises that its strategic objectives, such as bolstering its weight in world affairs, fortifying its presence in the Caucuses and regaining control over the region’s vital oil and gas transport corridor, can only be achieved in cooperation with the West.

The US too cannot expect to tackle the grave challenges of global terrorism, climate control, energy security and even peace in the Middle East, without Russia’s support and cooperation. A new Cold War would be utterly disastrous for us all.

Joe Biden’s selection

BARACK OBAMA, we are told, chose Joe Biden to be his running mate because he needed an older man, more experienced in foreign policy, to fill the gaps in his resume and reassure American voters that the United States would be safe under an Obama presidency.

That’s true, but it is assumed that he also chose him because Biden’s views on foreign policy are not radically different from his own. Since American foreign policy still affects almost everybody in the world that makes Biden’s views very interesting.

Joe Biden, now 65, has been a senator since he was 29. For almost half that time he has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he now heads. He has been around long enough to leave plenty of evidence about his view and his reflexes, and it is safe to say that he qualifies as a liberal interventionist (or, as they say on the other side of the Atlantic, a liberal imperialist). He has never met an international problem that he didn’t think the US should help to solve.

Unlike the neo-conservatives, who are brothers under the skin to the liberal interventionists, Biden does not believe that every problem in the world can be solved by the application of US military power, but he does think that many of them can. He backed the US military intervention in Bosnia, the bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo crisis, the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, and the invasion of Iraq (although he subsequently had the grace to admit he was wrong and apologise for that).

On larger issues, by contrast, Biden has usually been a voice of moderation among the chorus of Democratic hawks vying to outdo their Republican colleagues in their hostility to Russia and their enthusiasm for the “war on terror.” He did support the expansion of NATO right up to Russia’s frontiers (and visited Georgia immediately after the recent fighting), but he has resisted the temptation to paint Russia as the Soviet Union in sheep’s clothing.

“Terror is a tactic,” Biden has said. “Terror is not a philosophy.” It is a mantra that everybody in US politics should be required to chant each morning before work, even if it is slightly inaccurate. (“Terror” is actually an emotion. “Terrorism,” however, is a tactic — a political tool or technique, more precisely — that can be used in support of a wide variety of causes. It is as misleading to declare war on terrorism as it would be to declare war on propaganda.)

Knowing this has enabled Biden to concentrate (most of the time, at least) on the need to eliminate the particular groups of terrorists that had attacked the United States, who were mostly located in Afghanistan and Pakistan. When he briefly supported the invasion of Iraq, he did not do so out of an ignorant belief that Saddam Hussein had links with those terrorists. It was his liberal interventionism that drove his decision, combined with a naive belief that the US intelligence services would not bend the evidence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction to serve the president’s purposes.

So that is Joe Biden’s take on foreign policy, and it probably isn’t vastly different from Barack Obama’s. The difference lies mostly in the “experience” factor, which tells you all you needed to know about the value of experience in these matters. It is Biden’s long residence at the heart of the Washington political/military/intelligence machine that makes him such a conventional character.

All that stuff about Obama being “not ready to lead” is simply a coded warning that he might not lead in the time-honoured, conventional way. John McCain certainly would, and so would have Hillary Clinton if she had won the Democratic nomination The selection of Joe Biden as his running mate is intended to allay those fears by linking Obama to someone who is deeply embedded in the conventional wisdom, but it doesn’t actually prove that Obama is too.

There is still room for suspicion that Barack Obama harbours a secret desire to take American foreign policy in a quite different direction, away from the traditional great-power realpolitik and the occasional forays into liberal interventionism. That would probably appal Biden, and it would horrify the rest of the Washington establishment.

Vice-presidents don’t have a veto, so the choice of Biden poses no problem there. But the Washington establishment probably does have a veto, so whatever Obama intends, Biden will not be disappointed by the outcome.

— Copyright Gwynne Dyer