World financial architecture

FOR many people all over the world, the appeal of globalization lay in the belief that mankind would better run its affairs if some national sovereignty was surrendered to international institutions devised to advance common good. A few institutions were created after the Second World War. The United Nations systems brought together all nations of the world to reflect on — and sometimes also to act upon — what was good for their citizens seen not as citizens of a particular nation but as the citizens of the world.

The United Nations Security Council was given the power to enforce some UN decisions. At times the Security Council succeeded. In 1990, it voted to act against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. When Iraq failed to pull back, a UN-backed force led by the United States pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait. But sometimes the UN failed. It failed when its members — in particular those that wielded the veto power — were unable or not prepared to carry out the collective will of the international community. The Kashmir dispute has simmered for more than half a century, bringing war to the subcontinent of South Asia on two occasions and a series of “near-wars.”

The latest of these continues to drag on. Similarly, the dispute over the control of territory in Palestine continues to take a heavy toll of life among both the Palestinians and the Israelis. In spite of several UN resolutions aimed at settling this dispute, there is still no light visible at the end of what has been a long and dark tunnel.

The United Nations was not the only institution to rise from the ruins left in Europe and East Asia by the Second World War. The countries that triumphed in that war had learnt that economics was often at the root of conflict among nations. They wished to hand over the management of economic crises to international institutions that would be expected to act not out of the interest of the world’s dominant powers but in the interest of the world at large.

The Bretton Woods conference, held in 1944 at a resort of that name in New Hampshire, United States, expected to create institutions to deal with national and international economic crises. Those attending the conference, including Lord Maynard Keynes from Britain, were of the view that future turbulence in international economy would be largely the consequence of three factors — underdevelopment and economic backwardness, financial disruptions caused by currency misalignment, and disputes about trade.

The New Hampshire conference managed to create two institutions. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) was established to help the world’s economically backward nations to grow and become more prosperous. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created to help countries manage financial crises by drawing upon the resources contributed by all member countries into a common pool. The Bretton Woods conference did not succeed in establishing a World Trade Organization. That happened much later, towards the close of the 20th century.

The establishment of the WTO was not agreed at the time of the creation of the World Bank and the IMF since the nations assembled at Bretton Woods were reluctant to surrender their authority over trade to an international body. Control over trade among nations affected powerful groups in all countries. These groups were reluctant to allow their governments to acquiesce in the creation of an international organization that could act independently, devise rules for the conduct of trade that went against the interests of individual countries, and develop the legal capacity to enforce these rules.

On the other hand, the creation of the IBRD and IMF did not breach in any significant way the exercise of power by the world’s dominant states. They saw themselves as contributors of resources to these institutions. They did not envisage that they would ever be in situations when they would have to accept the diktat of international bodies run by faceless international bureaucracies.

The closest the Bretton Woods conferees came to accepting some international oversight over the functioning of developed economies was to include Article IV in the charter of the IMF. According to this Article, the Fund was authorized to hold periodic discussions with the economic managers of all member countries, developed and developing. These “Article IV” discussions form the basis of country reports the IMF prepares for the institution’s Executive Board for discussion.

A world trade authority would by its very nature be very different from the two international financial institutions established at Bretton Woods. Since the bulk of world trade was among the rich nations, an international body managing trade could be effective only if it exercised control over trade. This the rich countries were not prepared to countenance at that time.

Both the IBRD and IMF evolved in significant ways over time. The former developed into what is today called the World Bank Group, a cluster of institutions that includes not only the original IBRD but also IDA, IFC and MIGA. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) was established in 1956 to provide equity and loans directly to the private sector without guarantees given by the government. The International Development Association (IDA) was established in 1961 to provide interest-free loans to developing countries who could not afford to borrow on IBRD terms. India and Pakistan were the largest recipients of IDA assistance for the first few years. In 1988, the World Bank, by establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, expanded further its assistance to the private sector. Private entrepreneurs operating in the developing world could now obtain insurance and guarantees against all kinds of non-commercial risks, including appropriations by governments of their assets.

The IBRD experiment — having a well financed institution to tap the world’s financial markets for resources and then lend them to developing countries at rates they could not themselves obtain — was considered so successful that it prompted replication at the regional level. Accordingly, developed countries worked over the years with regional governments to create a number of regional banks. The Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the African Development Bank were all modelled after the World Bank. Later the world’s Muslim nations founded the Islamic Development Bank to develop Islamic instruments of finance for providing resources to the poor Muslim countries. The bulk of the Islamic Bank’s capital was provided by the rich oil producing and exporting countries (OPEC) of the Middle East.

Still later, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the grant of independence to the countries that were once part of the Soviet empire or were under its influence, prompted the countries of Western Europe, North America and Japan to establish the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The element of “reconstruction” in the original mandate of IBRD referred to the need for rebuilding Europe and Japan, two parts of the world that had been left devastated by five years of the Second World War. The “reconstruction” in EBRD was aimed at rebuilding the economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia as they began the difficult process of moving from socialism to management by the markets.

The expansion in the developmental role of the IBRD through its own evolution as well as the establishment of regional and sub-regional banks was not matched by the IMF. Nonetheless, after the collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange rate system following the decision, in the early 1970s by the US President Richard Nixon to de-link the dollar from gold, the IMF lost its original purpose — stabilization of exchange rates around the globe with reference to the US dollar denominated in terms of gold. This decision by Washington occurred at a time of extreme economic uncertainty in the world, which was exacerbated by the OPEC move in 1974, to quadruple the price of oil. That meant a dramatic change in the terms of trade of oil-importing countries. Developing countries importing oil were especially hard hit. With their economies seriously damaged and their external accounts under great pressure, they turned to the IMF for assistance. The Fund now had a new mandate to help countries deal with crises.

In the following quarter century, the Fund’s programmes were to rescue a number of countries out of deep economic problems. Most large countries of Latin America negotiated their way out of the debt problem of the 1980s with the assistance of the Fund. In late 1994, the Mexican peso came under great pressure when it was revealed that the country had borrowed a larger amount of money from the international financial markets and built up a heavy burden of short-term debt. Tesebonos, the instrument used for purchase of foreign debts, brought the country close to bankruptcy. When a new administration took power on December 1, 1994, it decided to deal with the situation by readjusting the value of its currency. What followed was extreme economic turmoil and a plunge in the value of the peso.

The Mexicans once again turned to the Fund for help which it received in January 1995 in the form of a large package of assistance to which contributions were made not only by the IMF, but also by the World Bank, the IDB and several rich countries, including the United States. These multibillion dollar packages were to become a popular instrument for addressing serious country crises that had the potential of disturbing, through contagion, other economies in the developing world. Such a contagion was the defining characteristic of the debt crises of the 1980s.

In the late 1990s, another set of crises burst upon the global scene. Starting first in Thailand in July 1997, the East Asian financial crisis touched most countries of the region, some — such as Indonesia — with devastating consequences. A year later, Russia defaulted on its foreign obligations and a few months after that, first Brazil and then Argentina, had to face a severe loss of confidence in their economies on the part of international financial markets.

The IMF stepped into all these crises, once again, with large, multi-billion-dollar programmes of support and rescue. Some of these programmes involved draconian measures required of the countries in the region which caused a great deal of pain. The Fund’s approach in East Asia drew criticism from a number of well-informed sources. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in Economics, was particularly sharp in his criticism of the IMF stance. Stiglitz was of the view that the enormous amount of financial power wielded by the Fund with reference to the countries in economic crisis was often misapplied. He questioned the application of the same economic philosophy across the board no matter what were the immediate causes of the crisis. He was not persuaded that the fiscal retrenchment sought by the Fund in East Asia was needed. It only helped worsen the pain that the citizens living in these countries were already feeling.

American policy in Middle East

AMERICAN strategists were totally baffled when the Arabs used oil as a weapon during 1973 Israel-Arab war. This was the first wake-up call for the Americans to realize that the Middle Eastern oil-rich states could make them totally helpless by reducing their oil production.

Resultantly the oil prices soared to nearly thirty dollars from four dollars per barrel. While it brought a sudden economic boom for the Arabs, the American thinkers started worrying that their trillions of dollars would ultimately move into the pockets of the former. The Americans therefore came out with a grand design to counter this threat.

They developed huge oil stockpiles for any such eventuality and decided to physically control the Middle East. A physical occupation of the Middle East then was not possible because of a strong reaction from the Soviet Union. In the 1950s the Americans had developed a strong infrastructure in Iran to ensure that the Soviet Union did not approach the Middle East through land routes and no outside power disturbed the free flow of oil from the region. However, once the Shah’s government was replaced by the Khomeini regime, the Americans were thrown out of Iran.

The Americans identified the Soviet Union, Iran and the oil-rich Arab states as their next targets to deal with at an appropriate time. To achieve this aim they adopted the old British colonial strategy of divide and rule. They exploited the Shia-Sunni differences and created a scare among the Gulf littoral states of an Iranian expansionist threat. Iraq, therefore, was tasked to neutralize the Iranian military and damage its economic base. Iraq was heavily armed and Saddam Hussein was promised rewards for decimating Iran.

Interestingly, Col. Oliver North of CIA was detailed to supply enough weapons to Iran. Iran-Iraq war continued for nearly eight years and cost billions of dollars and of deaths to both the countries on a totally useless issue. Once Iran was enfeebled, Iraq demanded the promised reward from the United States.

The Americans had already started the proxy war in Afghanistan once the Soviets moved in there in 1979. Eventually the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Americans, the sole superpower, became the police man of the world. Soon after, the Americans winked at saddam Hussein to annex Kuwait as a promised reward for decimating Iran. Once Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait the Americans changed side and moved in the Gulf countries for their defence. Americans overprojected the military power of Iraq and created a false impression in the minds of the world through propaganda that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The world media portrayed the Iraqi army as the most powerful force in the region capable of holding the entire Middle East through the threat of use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to bondage. Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries fell into the trap and provided all the infrastructure and ground facilities for the Americans to establish the required military bases here.

Consequently, Iraqis were humbled within days. The UN as a tool in the hands of the West passed a strong resolution against Iraq and prescribed economic sanctions against it. Saddam and his regime were purposely allowed to exist and from time to time the American and the British forces launched strikes against Iraq on the pretext of the latter’s violation of 70-fly zones.

The Americans extracted billions of dollars from the Arabs for liberating Kuwait and for providing protection to them against possible Iraqi military threats. It is about twelve years that the Americans along with British troops have held bases in all the key Gulf states and have refused to depart despite the destruction wrought on Iraq. The Arab governments kept paying billions of dollars to the Americans who have stationed their forces in the region. The Saudi economy is in bad shape and their GNP has dipped considerably, and after the Gulf war its annual budget has gone into deficit.

The American grand design after 1973 oil war was finally achieved: Russia was no longer a superpower, Iran and Iraq both have been neutralized and the oil-rich Arab states are now tied to America’s apron strings.

The Arab rulers felt totally helpless and the nationalists started to rise and started opposing the presence of American and western forces on their soil. Osama bin Laden, an American hero in the Afghan war, accepted this as a challenge. He had the will and a highly motivated group of militant followers to fight for this cause.

During the presidency of Bill Clinton, Arabs had a strong hope that Palestinian issue would be resolved justly and peacefully. Osama and his Al Qaeda outfit were assisting the oppressed and down-trodden Muslims elsewhere in the world too. They had no intention to target the US. However, things changed dramatically when George W. Bush moved into the White House. Bill Clinton’s peace efforts in the Middle East were shelved, Israel was encouraged to back-track on its earlier commitments to reach a settlement with the Palestinians. This change of policy not only infuriated the Arab states but also forced Osama bin Laden to turn against the West with even stronger determination.

The unfortunate attack on the World Trade Centre in New York was a manifestation of this frustration and helplessness against an unjust superpower. All Muslims seriously condemn such terrorist attacks in which innocent lives are lost. However, big powers like the US should also realize that there is a limit to tolerance by the oppressed and once that limit is crossed, desperate actions, no matter how illogical or deplorable, become inevitable.

It is also time for the American people as a great and noble nation to judge the performance of George W. Bush. Since the time he has taken over, the Americans economy has been in a mess, serious corporate scandals have come to light, confidence in the corporate sector has been shaken, innocent lives in Palestine are being lost. America is turning into a police state and its image in the world as the champion of freedom and justice has been tarnished.

If the present American government does not change its current policies, the world order will soon turn into an anarchic and immoral one. George Bush’s doctrines of ‘pre-emtion’ and superpower ‘unilateralism’ are a sure recipe for disaster, particularly in the context of the increasingly volatile and restive Middle East.

The writer is a retired air commodore of the PAF.

The challenge ahead

I should be writing about elections, casting pearls of wisdom how they will impact on our lives. I am, however, not a political person and though I count among my friends, some politicians, it is their friendship that I value, and not their great passion to serve the public and save it from itself.

I am glad that we went through with the drill. A deck of cards should be shuffled. Who knows that the jacks of a previous deal may become aces in the new one. But beyond that, I see no danger to the status quo. When Faiz Ahmed Faiz had been asked how he visualized Pakistan five years hence, he reflected, a little sadly, that it would remain pretty much the same as it was.

Pakistan has not had too many elections and these have been held on an ad hoc basis rather than being a part of a political calendar. And all of them have been to restore democracy, as if, a gift was being bestowed, an act of largesse. The political process in Pakistan is, forever, making new beginnings. It may be true that the cast of character is, willy-nilly the same, but every election brings a new resolve, as if the representatives of the people were being empowered for the first time.

The new government, no matter what its composition, may well be presented with a challenge of the gravest consequences. In the event that the United States decides to go for war against Iraq, with all guns blazing, as seems likely, the repercussions will not be confined to Iraq or even the Middle East but Pakistan will be faced with some hard choices.

Pakistan is a member of coalition in the War against Terror. Will the war against Iraq be a continuation or will it be a different war? So long as terrorism was the enemy, Pakistan, itself a victim of terrorism, became an ally. One would have to be honest and admit that there were some misgivings once it became apparent that the war against terrorism would involve the bombing of Afghanistan and collateral damage. Both the bombing and the collateral damage far exceeded what had been expected.

What had meant to be a ‘search and destroy’ mission, in George Bush’s own words “hunting down the Al Qaeda” became a full-scale military operation. Afghanistan became once more a war-ravaged country and though a year has passed, there is neither any sign of peace nor of re-building the country. The hunt for Al Qaeda goes on and though victory has been declared, no one knows the fate of Osama bin Laden or Mulla Omar. They could be dead. On the other hand, they could be alive. There is now a new urgency. Osama bin Laden has been superseded as the world’s number one public enemy by Saddam Hussein. In the case of Osama bin Laden, George Bush wanted him “dead or alive” as if, re-enacting a John Wayne role in a western movie. In the case of Iraq, he wants a regime-change and disarming it of weapons of mass destruction. What the fate of Saddam Hussein will be has been left unspecified. Perhaps, he will hole up in a bunker as Hitler did. Saddam Hussein was compared to Hitler during Gulf War-1. Hitler seems to have become the patron-saint of all enemies of the United States.

In Gulf War-1, Pakistan had joined the coalition. It was not a popular decision with the people of Pakistan but Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and was thus, in violation of the United Nations Charter. That, at least, gave the war some legitimacy. No such legitimacy exists this time, though efforts are being made to strong-arm the United Nations and provide some moral justification. Though, the possession of weapons of mass destruction, by itself, does not appear to be a violation of any international law. All the permanent members of the Security Council have weapons of mass destruction.

It remains to be seen whether the United States will expect Pakistan to line up in support. I don’t think that it will be an easy decision for Pakistan to do so. A great deal has changed since George Bush Sr waged his war against Iraq. There was a great deal of sympathy for the United States immediately after September 11, 2001, in the Muslim World. This was a great opportunity for the United States to have thrown its support for peace in the Middle East.

Instead, it gave a blank cheque to Israel to do whatever it liked and Israel chose to make war on the Palestinians. Not only that, in the name of Homeland Security, it started to target Muslims in the United States, treating them with utmost suspicion and contempt.

The new government in Islamabad will be confronted with having to take a decision if there is a war in Iraq. It will be mindful of the success of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal in the elections. We conceded that in the past, religious parties had street power but not ballot-box power. This has changed and one does not have to be a genius to know that it was an appeal to anti-Americanism that helped it. On a more materialistic level, a war in Iraq will send prices through the roof. It will be a heady mixture. Elected members will find out the true meaning of there being no such thing as a free lunch.

Aid for a flagging economy

HERE’S the war report from home: Consumers have been in the trenches battling a double-dip recession with their own spending, but they may be starting to lose the struggle. Congress is caught up in the White House’s obsession with Saddam Hussein, and neither the administration nor lawmakers are doing anything significant to battle the slump.

Far from being isolated from the economy, a war with Iraq is linked to it. The prospect of war is increasing business and investor uncertainty. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that war could cost the United States as much as $9 billion a month. Oil prices could shoot up as well. The cost of reconstructing Iraq is unclear, but would be significant. Partly because of the threat of war, the U.S., Japanese and European economies are seeing a contraction in manufacturing demand. Businesses are taking a wait-and-see stance.

The economic numbers are so anaemic that normally they would be impossible to ignore. Last year, the number of Americans living in poverty increased from 31.6 million to 32.9 million. Median household income declined 2.2 percent. The ranks of the uninsured increased by 1.4 million, to 41.2 million. Car sales are slumping despite continued loan rate-cutting, and retailers are anticipating a dismal Christmas.

Congress and the Bush administration should take more steps to increase confidence in the economy and to stimulate it, beginning with the corporate reforms that have somehow evaporated. The Bush administration has failed to back legislation requiring companies to report stock options as expenses, for example. Legislation to make 401(k) pension investments more worker-friendly is stuck in Congress; tough restrictions on offshore tax havens have gone nowhere. A handcuffed Andrew S. Fastow, former chief financial officer of Enron, doing the perp walk Wednesday makes a good photo op but doesn’t fool investors.

Nor has Congress put its own financial house in order. It keeps passing stopgap measures to avoid a government shutdown, but it hasn’t approved any of 13 required spending bills. It’s also the case that in the next five months, about 3 million workers and their families risk losing unemployment benefits unless Congress extends a temporary programme providing extra weeks of benefits.

The Bush administration and the House are proposing to boost spending on homeland security but cut spending on higher education, job training, public housing, community health centres and child care. It is social spending, however, that most quickly alleviates the worst effects of an economic slowdown and stimulates the economy.—Los Angeles Times

Carter as promoter of peace

“THERE you go again”. This phrase was used almost sneeringly but effectively against Jimmy Carter by the “Great Communicator” Ronald Reagan in the 1980 United States presidential debate he had with then US President Jimmy Carter. A week later “at the hands” of Reagan, Carter almost literally had had to “go down” in one of the biggest election landslide defeats of an incumbent US president.

Yet in the fields of peace, development and promotion of human rights Jimmy Carter has been “back” in the international scene again and again since his “going” from the US presidency. As he tellingly put it with his characteristic smile in a speech at the 1984 Democratic Party convention: “Here I go again”. Jimmy Carter continued: “... and I am speaking about the same things: peace, a fair go for all and human rights...”. One could add that he had been assiduously working on these issues for more than two decades since he left office after his (so-called) “failed presidency”. Now, the Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee has deservedly awarded 2002 Nobel Peace Prize to the 39th president of the United States from among a record 156 nominations it received this year.

The late renowned Harvard palaeontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his 1992 book Bully for Brontosaurus that Carter was not only the “most intelligent of the US presidents since (Franklin) Roosevelt” (with the quip that “though of late the competition has not been that tough”) but also a “wonderful and gracious man”.

Gould narrated that Carter phoned him to inquire about Gould’s health after Gould’s successful recovery from a rare form of cancer. Following Gould’s praise of the term “Brontosaurus” for a certain type of dinosaur in his book Bully for Brontosaurus one might delightfully and admiringly, indeed affectionately, say “Bully for Jimmy Carter” and the good people of the Carter Centre which was established 20 years ago in 1982 and which has now received the honour that they well deserved.

No Nobel Peace award would go without comment and controversy, dissent, criticism and even condemnation. The Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for 2002 Guna Merge has been criticised by some for his comments that he made when he announced this year’s award to Jimmy Carter.

Gunna Merge stated that the award “should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [United States] administration has taken [against Iraq]”. Gunna Merge added that the award to Jimmy Carter “is a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as that of the United States”. Though two members of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee has “distanced” themselves from the Chairman’s comments not all have done so.

Indeed one other member has explicitly endorsed Merge’s statement. The criticism of Gunna Merge’s comment so far has come from one BBC commentator who said the comments “politicized the Nobel Peace Prize process” and that it (in effect) “marginalized” and perhaps even “demeaned” the award to Carter in that (according to him) Carter may have been “used” to send a message to the current Bush administration.

The comments are reflective of and amounted to (in Edward Said’s or some other scholar’s words) “depoliticizing the political considerations”. Activities and awards like the Nobel Prize Committee — even for those “technical” subjects like chemistry, physics, medicine, economics and especially literature — are partly suffused with the “political” at least in the broad sense of the term. Especially in the context of a possible costly and bloody war against Iraq what is politically, morally and perhaps even diplomatically wrong with sending an explicit or implicit political message to the current cowboy (from Texas) in the White House when the world’s most prestigious peace award is bestowed on his presidential predecessor and a former peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia?

As far as “using” Jimmy Carter is concerned the former president has only said that he has been “humbled” by and is “grateful” for the award. In his news conference Carter — though he did not directly criticize the Bush administration — emphasized his strong belief that the current crisis concerning Iraq, in part engineered by the Bush-Blair “duo”, needs to be solved in accordance with international law and through the auspices of the United Nations: the same message that was stated in the Nobel Peace Committee’s citation.

A comparison — almost explicitly — has been made or at least had been “engendered” between the “tireless efforts throughout the decades for peace” of Jimmy Carter and the exploitative, opportunistic, indeed almost jingoistic predilections of “Dubya” as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned. Sadly, the “message” of the Nobel Peace Committee may well be treated with contempt. As far as the situation in Iraq is concerned, the US-UK administrations’ aggressive “bilateral” efforts to wage war against Iraq may prevail over the wishes and efforts of that of the “peace-makers” like Jimmy Carter and the Nobel Peace Committee not to say millions of peace-loving people across the world.

Jimmy Carter states that he accepts the award on behalf of the “suffering people of the world”. The “born-again” — though non-evangelizing — Christian and political liberal may not fully appreciate the following quotation from Marx but it is worth reproducing and paraphrasing since Carter himself has mentioned the “suffering people of the world”.

Marx once wrote about the desirability if not the necessity of making “suffering people think” and “thinking people suffer”. It is gratifying to see that one “thinking” person’s thoughtful and dedicated efforts — in a “small way” as Carter himself has graciously stated — to relieve the suffering of some people have been recognized in the award of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter.

Women & election 2002

THE national election 2002 would for sure prove to be a watershed for women’s rights in political annals of Pakistan. At least 205 women will be elected to the national and provincial assemblies and the senate through proportional representation system as nominees of political parties.

The number of reserved seats for women includes 60 for the National Assembly, 17 for the Senate, 66 for the Punjab provincial assembly, 29 for the Sindh assembly, 22 for the NWFP assembly and 11 for the Balochistan provincial assembly. This would be in addition to the women making it to the assemblies on the general seats in the national polls.

The women reserve seats in the assemblies will account for about 17. 52 per cent of the total seats of the National Assembly, the Senate and the four provincial assemblies. Women tried to make the most of the opportunity and as many as 633 candidates are in the run for 128 seats of provincial assemblies. The largest women candidates (212) are in the run for 29 seats in the Sindh province.

Their presence in our legislatures including the Senate would reflect a quantum jump in one leap that puts the country ahead of even most of the western countries including the US where women got the right of franchise even before the creation of Pakistan. Women got the right of vote in the US in August 1920 through the 19th constitutional amendment.

In England, Representation of the People’s Act was passed in the House of Commons in June 1917 and by the House of Lords in February 1918. Under this act all women of age 30 or above received complete franchise. An act to enable women in the House of Commons was enacted shortly afterward. In 1928 the voting age for women was lowered to 21 to place women voters on an equal footing with male voters. Despite the creation of liberal political environment for women in Britain there are only 121 women members in the present 659-member House of Commons. The percentage works out to 18.04, slightly more than women representation in Pakistan’s national assembly. The 713 strong House of Lords has 115 peeresses.

In America, in 2002, women hold 73 or 13.6 per cent of the 535 seats in the 107th US congress. This includes 13 seats or 13 per cent of the 100 seats in the Senate and 60 or 13.8 per cent of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Sixty women in the House of Representatives come from 27 states and of them 42 are Democrats and 18 are Republicans.

Women in Pakistan got the right of franchise under the 1956 constitution which was abrogated after two years in 1958. The 1973 Constitution provided 20 reserved seats for women under Article 51(4). These reserve seats for women were provided for a period of 10 years from the commencing day of the Constitution or the holding of the (third) general election to the National Assembly, whichever occurred later.

However these seats lapsed and elected governments of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif neither revived these seats nor increased their number despite demands from the women organizations. It is ironic that women seats were both revived and enhanced by the present un-elected government.

Regrettably there are still some areas in the country that oppose grant of right of suffrage to women. According to a recent report women of an entire village (Lalee) in Punjab had not been allowed to cast vote by male members of the village. A recent newspaper report quoted tribal elders in Khyber Agency near Peshawar as saying that it was un-Islamic and against their traditions to allow the women to vote. However some women are reported to have cast votes in the national election in the Tribal area.

It is learnt on good authority that the leadership of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal Pakistan (MMAP) an alliance of religio- political parties, insisted on exclusion of any woman from the panel to interview its chief in the ‘election hour’ programme telecast by the PTV in the run up to the national polls. Only two male members interviewed the MMAP chief Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani in the programme.

However the campaign for election 2002 radiated a silver lining for the women community. It witnessed a change of heart among politicians for extending more political rights to women.