The boycott revisited

MANY of us, who come from very different backgrounds — academics, analysts, activists, citizens — argued over the course of October and November last year that civil society actors and political parties ought to boycott the elections which were announced by Gen Pervez Musharraf, and which were eventually held on Feb 18.

It was clear that once the term of the Shaukat Aziz government came to an end, elections would be held to elect a new parliament.

In the closing months of last year, political groupings like the All Parties Democratic Movement and the Pakistan Muslim League-N announced that they would not contest the polls, primarily because they felt that the elections would be neither free nor fair, and nor were these parties willing to accept any rules of the game announced by the uniformed general-president.

The efficacy of the decision depended much on whether the Pakistan People’s Party would also come on board and hence give some credence to the boycott call. Many were sceptical that if either of the two largest parties chose to participate in the elections, they would gain legitimacy and those who boycotted would be left out of the political process.

Eventually, both the two largest parties agreed to contest an election which resulted in a resounding victory for the anti-Musharraf political forces and put Pakistan on the way to a military-free democratic future. Today, we can all celebrate the democratic process and look back and say that the decision to contest was the best decision that political parties could have taken.

Two weeks into the swearing-in of the new parliament, it seems that almost all the fears and concerns that the boycotters were allaying have been proven to be wrong. The judges are free, and are likely to be reinstated, and President Musharraf just might be pressurised into make some sort of hurried exit. The script could not have been written any better and democracy seems to have triumphed over all other forms of politics.

Having said this, it would be naïve to think that the parties are taking these steps in a vacuum. There is no ignoring the momentum and uncompromised push for these demands coming consistently from the lawyers’ movement, civil society and perhaps within the parties too. In fact, rather than waiting detachedly for some unproven exercise of sovereignty from parliament, the people chose to actively vote out the government and then exerted continued political pressure for their demands to be met.

It is only a small section of those we call the ‘apologists’ within and outside the political parties who seek to dilute principles and encourage leaders to backtrack on promises for their personal gain, and who call democratic pressure a ‘confrontation’.

Those of us who were in favour of the election boycott were under no illusions that we were anywhere near a revolutionary situation similar to France in 1789, or even 1968, but felt that a boycott by the main political actors would put enough pressure on the Musharraf government where it would have to back down and make major concessions. The lawyers’ movement was still vibrant, and the Nov 3 martial law and the playing with the constitution under the PCO energised and united diverse sections of civil society and political actors as well.

We were confident that had the PPP joined the lawyers’ struggle and been more active in its anti-Musharraf politics rather than indulging in deals, perhaps the general may have been forced out earlier. The boycott decision was based on a reading of the limited strength of the street, and had the two largest parties participated we could have been near an Indonesia- or Philippines-like situation where political power overthrew authoritarianism.

We will never know what would have happened if both the PPP and the PML-N had agreed in November 2007 to work together to boycott the polls. If agreements and a workable coalition can be formed after the election, a more uncertain and unstable agreement could have been possible in agreeing to boycott. However, we will never know.

While the boycott decision may have become far less important as the numbers who supported the move dwindled, and more and more political actors and civil society representatives decided to contest or support the elections, if nothing else the boycott issue did raise the level of debate and exchange in the political public arena.

While there was a complete consensus in condemning the martial law imposed on Nov 3, and there was continued support for the lawyers’ movement with the reinstatement of the judges a real demand, the divisions amongst those who were in favour of boycotting the elections and those who supported participation raised the level of discourse in the Urdu and English press manifold. There was a lively debate not seen since the time of the 1999 coup — and even that was rather one-sided, in favour of the coup. The op-ed pages of all major newspapers had raised the level of debate and argumentation to a lively level not seen in many years. The otherwise dry and staid political public sphere had come alive.

This taste for political debate acquired by the media has also been simultaneously attributed to Gen Musharraf’s personal largesse and equally dismissed as cacophonic laundry washing by the elite. The point of democratic choices and transparency, as articulated by the fourth estate, needs to be dealt with carefully now on. There should be no calls for going soft on the new parliament simply because it is nebulous in its formation. The democratic role of the media must by definition be challenging and expository rather than conciliatory and uncritical.

Many of us who supported the boycott decision are now happy to have been proven wrong, and support the larger democratic process to further strengthen and deepen both democracy and civil society. We recognise, however, the role of the movements which helped bring about this new democratisation in Pakistan beyond electoral politics. We hope that the processes under way and the promises made will move towards a further fruition of democracy with the reinstatement of the pre-Nov 3 judiciary and with the removal of the former general-president who was resoundingly defeated in the Feb 18 elections.

Those who argued for the elections boycott now need to organise themselves democratically to fulfil the unfinished agenda of democratisation in Pakistan and to ensure that these tasks are accomplished. Clearly, democracy has to be taken far further than before and needs to be strengthened. If parliament is to be sovereign — the new mantra of the elected representatives — the role of those outside the assembly has to be one which ensures that parliamentarians accomplish their democratic mandate.

And if they don’t state or tackle the peoples’ issues due to fear of being de-tracked, then it is our work to set the agenda for them — on behalf of the electorate, not the elected. While happy to have been proven wrong over the boycott decision, we would hate to turn around a hundred days later to say, ‘we told you so’.

Some areas of concern

LAST week I indicated in this space why it was so necessary for the new administrations taking office in Islamabad and the provincial capitals to come up with programmes and policies aimed at providing relief to the people under economic stress.

Not only that, there is also the need to set the economy on the right course. This is necessary in order to demonstrate to the citizenry that democracies are better at managing the economy than governments dominated by a few people who trust only their own judgment.

That was certainly the case for the period between 1999 and 2007 when basically two persons called most of the economic shots. The first, of course, was the president. The other was the person placed in charge of the economy for this entire period. The latter, in particular, was loathe to receive advice from people who had better knowledge of the economy and were better equipped to formulate strategies for its development. The result of this concentration of economic power in two pairs of hands was to create a number of serious economic crises.

That, of course, was the wrong way to manage an economy as large as Pakistan’s. Economic management needed to be decentralised with more powers assigned to the governments at the sub-national levels, not just to the provinces but also to the institutions of local government. This would have resulted in a different economic strategy with greater focus on providing basic needs and services to the people. Had that been done during the Musharraf period, the political party that supported him may not have suffered such a major defeat in the elections of February 2008.

The first part of the exercise that should be undertaken by the new governors of the economy is to identify the areas that need urgent action. What are the main economic problems that were apparent in 2007 to all those who were prepared to be objective about the situation in the country? The list is long but I will focus only on six areas since these are the ones that need to be addressed by the new administrations quickly, preferably in the first hundred days.

The first two of these — shortages of various items of consumption and interruptions in the supply of some basic services and also widening income disparities — I will discuss in today’s article.

The first problem that appeared in the economy in the concluding days of the Musharraf period was the extreme shortages in the availability of basic goods and services to the people. Some of these shortages were partly the result of global developments over which Islamabad had little or no control. Sharp price increases in wheat flour and cooking oil were caused in part by the jump in commodity prices across the globe. Even here a better informed government would have taken steps to protect the people from wide fluctuations in international prices.

It would have been fiscally imprudent to cushion the impact of these price movements by providing consumer subsidies. The government, nonetheless, could have developed a food security plan to deal with periods of surpluses and deficits. Pakistan has always experienced fluctuations in food production, some of which can be extreme. The best way to handle these is to put in place a food security plan that has many components including the building of buffer stocks, creating a fund for managing the building of stocks and establishing a forward trading market for stabilising prices. This was not done.

The previous government, however, had no excuse whatsoever for allowing shortages to develop in the supply of electric power and natural gas. This happened to the point that outages in supplies began to cause discomfort to the citizens and serious economic losses for producers, in particular those that are small and don’t have the wherewithal to install their own generators.

The Musharraf government was made aware of these problems as early as 2003 when the president was given a detailed presentation by the World Bank. The main thrust of the presentation was that unless investments were made quickly Pakistan could face serious supply shortages by the end of the decade. This was not done, shortages materialised and the people suffered.

Once a serious analysis of the electoral results from the polls of Feb 18, 2008 is carried out, it will be found that the Musharraf administration and the PML-Q, the party that supported it, paid a heavy political price for this neglect.

The second serious problem produced by the way the economy was managed in the early 2000s was to allow income disparities to widen among different segments of the population and also among different regions of the country. A few people, constituting a very small proportion of the total population, did extremely well. Sharp increases in income inequality always cause political and social problems. That some of the wealth this small number of people acquired was displayed conspicuously worsened the political impact of the misguided economic policies and most certainly led to the electoral defeat of the governing party.

This need not have happened had the government adopted policies for promoting the development of the sectors that provide productive employment to the poor. Value-added agriculture, small-scale engineering, domestic commerce, inter-city and intra-city transport, and domestic tourism are some of the sectors that could have benefited from the government’s attention.

Instead, Islamabad encouraged foreign direct investment in the areas that exacerbated income inequalities. Also worrying is the growth in inter-regional disparities. This has happened within the provinces and among the provinces.

For a variety of reasons, Punjab led the country’s economic recovery and growth. The provincial GDP of Punjab probably increased at a rate one to two percentage points more than the national average — by 8-8.5 per cent, compared to seven per cent for the country in 2002-2007. The difference is even more significant if we compare the rate of growth of Punjab with the combined rate of growth of the three remaining provinces. This suggests that the share of Punjab in national GDP may have increased from close to 60 per cent in 2002 to 63 per cent in 2007.

Within Punjab large cities such as Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi performed much better than other urban areas in the province. There are areas in Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and even in southern Punjab that have fallen so far behind the more prosperous parts of the country that they have already begun to pose serious security problems.

The total breakdown in law and order after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Dec 27, 2007 is one indication of how economic deprivation can erupt so easily and turn into widespread violence. Pakistan’s rush for growth during the Musharraf period has developed deep fissures in society. The wounds so created will have to be healed.

There were other aspects of the country’s economic performance and the management of the economy by the policymaking elite that have resulted in some serious problems. I shall next discuss what I believe should be the agenda for the administrations that are currently taking shape.

New agenda for new beginning

THE new prime minister has taken the oath of office. The post-election euphoria is now over. The time for serious business is here. Perhaps never before in the history of Pakistan has any prime minister faced bigger challenges.

But all hope is not lost and with the new government there is talk of a new beginning. This can definitely be a fresh start for a democratic dispensation. This writer would like to suggest some measures that the new government should be taking in its first hundred days.

Turn the president’s house into a library: We are no bibliophiles. Our literacy rate, the number of books published and per capita readership of newspapers is sufficient proof of that. However, this does not mean that we do not have centres of excellence or the country is without impressive libraries. Quaid-i-Azam Library in Lahore, one of the finest around, has been housed in a palatial building that once accommodated a club. Its conversion into a library has symbolic meaning and importance. I propose that the new chief executive should set a precedent by relocating the National Library of Pakistan to Aiwan-i-Sadr. The latter, situated in the heart of Islamabad and representing the spirit and mood of the city, is an ideal location for the library. Placing it at a pivotal point will give the library the prominence it deserves and will symbolise the furtherance of a tradition of scholarship and learning.

Move the PM to ‘modest’ premises: The prime minister currently lives in a Spanish/Portuguese-style villa hidden well behind the Federal Secretariat in the middle of nowhere. This newly built outhouse is reclusive though exclusive and creates the impression of someone living in solitary confinement. The prime minister represents the people of Pakistan and should ideally live amongst them, and if possible in a house similar to theirs. Think of 10 Downing Street in London which, at least from the outside, looks like the same house I lived in as a student in a relatively poor and run-down area of Manchester.

I would propose to the new prime minister that he leave the PM House and move to the ‘Minister’s enclave’, a well-guarded but less secluded locality. It is also in the hub of Islamabad and with scores of houses of similar design and size in that street, it also looks less exclusive. In an elitist society like Pakistan’s, no one expects the prime minister to sit on a prayer mat like Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran or live in a mud house like so many rural Pakistanis, but it is not unfair to expect him to live with other ministers. After all, he is the first among equals.

Dissolve the Prime Minister’s Secretariat: The Prime Minister’s Secretariat is an ever-growing necropolis of bureaucracy. It has centralised, in the name of coordination, many functions that should be performed at the ministry and department levels. The government’s weakening grip on power and decline in credibility are perhaps directly proportionate to the increase in directives being issued from this monolith. Ad hoc orders issued for gaining interim political mileage are followed and coordinated by the PM’s Secretariat to ensure their implementation. That sets the pattern for the chief ministers who also have their own separate secretariats. It so seems that otherwise no one pays heed to the orders of either the prime minister or the chief ministers.

It is pertinent to note that the PM’s Secretariat did not exist at the time of Z.A. Bhutto. In his days, the task of assisting the prime minister in office was performed by the Cabinet Division. The secretariat was created when insecure prime ministers wanted to be seen as well above their cabinet colleagues. Let the new prime minister rely on the Cabinet Division and dissolve the PM’s Secretariat.

Rationalise the privatisation programme: Pakistan has adopted privatisation as an essential component of its economic reform package. Unfortunately, this privatisation looks more like ‘piratisation’ or ‘internationalisation’ of government assets. There have been instances of rogue privatisation deals where public enterprises were sold to interest groups for peanuts. The abortive sale of Pakistan Steel — which was reversed by the Supreme Court — is an example of a dubious transaction that could have taken place under the umbrella of privatisation. I would propose that the new government should adopt a cautious policy towards privatisation and should divest prudently to local investors who can steer flagship Pakistani companies in the international arena.

Milbus: The incumbent army chief has recalled a large number of army officers working on civilian posts. While this needs to be appreciated, there is a need to do more. According to The Washington Post (June 27, 2007), the military reportedly runs a $20bn portfolio of businesses ranging from banks to real estate to bakeries. The new government should ensure that the armed forces of Pakistan are not engaged in business activities. No serving officer ought to be posted in any of its so-called welfare trusts; only retired officers may serve there. The tradition of army generals patronising and heading different business ventures should end.

According to Georges Pompidou, a former French prime minister and president, a statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service. The new prime minister has proclaimed that he will act as a servant of the people. We all wish him well but he needs to do more than just rely on his good luck.

The writer is a Visiting Fulbright Scholar from Islamabad currently based in the University of Florida, USA.