Has the die been cast?

SEVERAL leading members of the establishment, belonging to the federal cabinet or its auxiliary political party, have announced ‘their’ decision to get President General Musharraf re-elected head of state for five years. Is the die then cast? If the conclusion is in the affirmative, it is time the people, at least those possessing a capacity to comprehend matters imminent, started taking stock of the hazards on the road to democratisation.

So long as the official spokespersons had not disclosed their plans for the presidential election it was possible to limit the debate to the requisites of a fair general election in 2007 or 2008. It was possible to sustain the hope that the polls could produce a change in the nature of authority or, in other words, take the country a significant step closer to its democratic destiny. The establishment’s plan has changed the basic assumptions of the political discourse. The honourable members of the government and the party in power seem to have decided to rob the people of their hopes.

The proposition on the presidential election has a strong factor in its favour. It is sweet music to the ears of the incumbent. If the plan to re-elect President Musharraf is duly carried out, by the time he fully completes his new term he will have earned the distinction of occupying the presidency for longer than any of his predecessors. But what will be the consequences for the state and its citizens?

The first result of President Musharraf’s re-election by the existing electoral college, and while he retains his army chief’s uniform, will be that the office of the president, who theoretically represents the non-controversial dignity of the state and its unity, will become even more controversial and divisive than it has so far been. Secondly, the promised general election will become meaningless.

As regards the effect on the presidency, some are likely to argue that the president’s third term (first 2001-2002, second 2002-2007) will not enjoy constitutional sanction, if the Constitution can at all be invoked in such sensitive matters. Further, the two-offices enactment of 2004 which cancelled out the provision of the 17th Amendment, whereby the president was expected to shed his uniform by December 31, 2004, has not won universal endorsement. What the 17th Amendment, supposedly enjoying the status of a constitutional provision, had said was that after December 31, 2004, the president would be subject to Article 63 (1)(d) of the Constitution, which barred the holder of an office from becoming a member of parliament or president.

The President to Hold Another Office Act, adopted by parliament in October 2004 and authenticated by acting President Soomro, to save President Musharraf for once from the embarrassment of signing a law in his own cause, not only nullified the effect of the 17th Constitutional Amendment but also protected for ever President Musharraf, though him alone, from the disability clauses of Articles 41 and 43 of the Constitution and any other law. This operation, the use of an ordinary law to escape a constitutional bar by stretching a phrase in the Basic Law beyond rational limits, did not satisfy all those who recognize politics as a discipline separate and distinct from law and interpretation of statutes. The controversy is unlikely to die soon.

Above all, a large body of public opinion has already recorded its rejection of the idea that the existing assemblies should elect a president, or endorse his assumption of presidency, twice. This school of thought concedes the possibility that it may not have a judicial finding on its side but seems quite firm in its conviction that the proposition is malafide politically and morally. One should also bear in mind the fact that what is being planned may not remain a one-time exception; it could lay down a convention which may be invoked by any president in future to use a single electoral college for getting himself (Is it possible to add herself?) elected twice.

The consequences of having a controversial head of state are extremely debilitating for any polity. Acquisition of legitimacy becomes the overriding concern of such figures, and the time and resources that should be invested in plans of public good are spent on suppressing the opposition or on winning allies and often populism is placed at a premium. The people of Pakistan do not need to be told about these things.

Much more relevant at the moment is the unavoidable effect the establishment’s plan for the presidential election will have on the general election that should better be held in 2007 than in 2008. The most essential feature of a general election is that it offers the citizens an opportunity to change the management and direction of their state by replacing their rulers. In this context, the coming general election in is doubly significant as it must offer the people a real chance to close the chapter of extra-constitutional rule and put the state back on democratic rails.

This will not be possible if the president is elected by the assemblies existing today because the post-election political order will have been in place before the nation goes to the polls and that too at the hands of members of assemblies whose mandate, whatever its value in the first place, will be about to expire when people are asked to determine the country’s future.

Developments since 1977 have made the choice of the president the most critical part of a general election. In other words, the objective of holding a general election in today’s Pakistan will be lost if the process of electing new members of the national and provincial legislatures does not culminate in their (the new legislators) getting a chance to elect a new head of state.

The reason is that Pakistan now has a system of government in which the president enjoys the powers of an absolute ruler and is not subject to the constraints devised by way of checks and balances in the well-known presidential systems of government. Some of the powers wielded by the Pakistan president are not available to the US president, for instance. This is true of Pakistan presidents who are believed to be civilian and truer if they sport a military uniform.

Although the sequence of events that resulted in Pakistan’s parliamentary system being turned into a presidential one, without a formal declaration of war, should be fresh in the present generation’s memory, it may not be out of place to recall some of the changes made in the Constitution that have a bearing on the subject. (The argument that Gen. Zia corrected some constitutional imbalances created by the authors of the 1973 Constitution is of no avail as no two wrongs can ever make a right.)

Article 46 was amended by Gen. Zia to make an indefinite increase in matters about which the prime minister must keep the president informed and that makes way for the president’s interference in day-to-day matters which should be left to a minister or the prime minister. The original Article 56 merely said that “the President may address either House or both Houses assembled together.” Gen. Zia added Clause (3) to the effect that the president “shall address both houses assembled together” at the commencement of the first session after each general election to the National Assembly and at the commencement of the first session each year. (That the president has repeatedly disregarded this constitutional obligation since 2002 is perhaps another matter.)

Article 90 originally envisaged the prime minister as the chief executive of the federation but under a Zia amendment this role was transferred to the president. Similarly, an amendment to Article 99 transferred the authority to make rules for the conduct of the federal government’s business from the federal government to the president. The creation of a National Security Council further increases the president’s authority to override the will of the federal government and the parliament both.

The reinstatement of Article 58 (2) (b), which gives the president the power to dissolve the National Assembly at his discretion and whose deletion vide the 13th Amendment had been hailed by all shades of public opinion, reinforces the president’s position as the functional lynchpin of the political structure, and not merely as a constitutional head of state. In the course of bargains at the time of 8th and 17th Amendments the president’s powers were sought to be curbed by providing for ‘consultation’ with the prime minister. However, the word ‘consultation’ has been defined in Article 260 in a manner that leaves the president free to act in his discretion.

The extraordinary powers the president has been granted through arbitrary changes in the Constitution have always been meant to be used and no parliament has been able to resist him. Sometimes it has gone to the extent of supporting extra-constitutional manoeuvres. Some of the recent developments that were contrary to the essence of constitutionalism are: the promulgation of a series of ordinances after the 2002 general election and till the election of a premier; the adoption of the two-offices law; the removal of Mr Jamali from prime ministership; the denial of opportunity to superior court judges to take an oath to defend the Constitution, and the operation to get rid of the chairman of the Public Service Commission.

Thus, the nature of the post-election regime will be determined more by the president, especially if he is above the Constitution by virtue of his being in army uniform, than the new assemblies to be elected in the 2007 polls. That will rob the general election of its central purpose. Whether the present assemblies have any right to re-elect the President is only one part of the question, the other and perhaps more essential part is the question whether the next assemblies can be deprived of their right to complete the process of the general election. The decision-makers may still have time to avoid an extension of arbitrary rule.

Russia: cuckoo in the nest

ON Sunday, July 1, the Russian rouble will become a fully convertible currency, traded under the same rules as dollars, euros, pounds and yen. The date was obviously chosen by President Vladimir Putin to impress his guests at the G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg in mid-July with Russia’s economic progress, and there really has been quite a lot of progress on that front since he took over. But the Group of Seven, “the world’s most exclusive club,” was originally meant to be an annual gathering of the leaders of the biggest industrialised democracies.

It would be stretching the term to say that the new member of the Group of Eight, as it became in 1996, is not a democracy any more. While sections of the Russian press still conduct raucous political debates, the all-important medium of television has been brought under direct or indirect state control, and more and more power has been concentrated in Putin’s hands. He talks openly of a “managed democracy,” and his chief economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, resigned last December saying that Russia was no longer free or democratic.

It’s equally questionable whether Russia is really an industrialised power any more. The Russian economy resembles Nigeria’s or Iran’s more than those of its fellow G-8 members: oil and gas account for 70 per cent of the country’s export earnings and 30 per cent of its entire economy. Even after six years of Putin’s rule, Russian oil production has not risen back up to the level of the early 90s, and only the high price of oil worldwide gives Russia some prosperity at home and some clout abroad.

Then there is Moscow’s ruthless exploitation of its role as the supplier of a quarter of central and western Europe’s gas to extort a better price for its gas exports. Last January’s crisis over Russian gas supplies to Ukraine, which led to cuts in deliveries to countries further west as well, has made western European countries nervous about increasing their dependence on Russian gas exports. (And the crisis may reignite next week, when newly confirmed Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko faces a Russian demand for a further huge price increase.)

Since the whole purpose of inviting Russia to join the G-8 was to encourage the growth of democracy and a modern free-market economy in the ex-Communist giant, Russia’s fellow G-8 members are filled with consternation at the way things have turned out. However, they are at a loss for how to deal with the cuckoo in their nest. Quiet persuasion doesn’t seem to work, but neither does noisy outrage.

When US Vice-President Dick Cheney criticised Moscow’s democratic deficit and its bullying energy policies during a visit to Lithuania on Russia’s own border last month, Putin counter-attacked by condemning the US invasion of Iraq: “Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat. He eats without listening and he is clearly not going to listen to anyone.” But Putin doesn’t feel the need to listen either — and neither do Russians in general.

The remarkable thing about Putin’s rule is that after six year in office he continues to have the approval, according to reasonably reliable opinion polls, of 77 per cent of his fellow-citizens. Indeed, though Putin has sworn to obey the constitutional ban on a third consecutive presidential term and leave power after the March, 2008 election, there is massive popular support for changing the constitution to allow him to stay on for another four years (59 per cent yes, 29 per cent no). What’s the matter with the Russians? Doesn’t everybody want democracy?

No, not everybody wants democracy. According to Leonid Sedov, a senior analyst at the VtsIOM-A polling agency, about 80 per cent of Russians say that they dislike democracy, although they are less clear on what they do like. Only three per cent want the return of the tsars, some 16 per cent want a tough authoritarian ruler like Stalin, and the rest are scattered all over the political map. But they know they like Putin, because he has given them back stability, prosperity and self-respect.

It’s a reaction to the chaotic process of de-Communisation under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, which was misleadingly called “democratisation,” and it doesn’t necessarily mean that Russians would dislike real democracy. (They were keen enough on it in 1989-91, before “democratisation” impoverished most of them.) Russians are still among the best-educated populations on the planet, and once the middle class feels prosperous and secure enough, the demand for democracy is likely to re-emerge. But that may be years away, and what are the democratic majority in the G-8 to do with this authoritarian cuckoo in their nest in the meantime?

Put up with it, and pretend not to notice that it doesn’t really fit in. Nag it about its more severe human rights abuses, and demand that it give at least lip-service to its democratic principles, but don’t drive the regime out into the cold. When the tide finally turns in Russian society, the survival of formal democratic structures and the rule of law in the country, however much abused in practice, will make the task of building a genuine democracy a lot easier.

In effect, that is what the other seven members of the G-8 have decided, and they are probably right. Of course, the fact that Russia has all that oil and gas to sell may have influenced their decision too. — Copyright

Cellphones to the rescue

LAST week a new mobile phone service was inaugurated in a village in Gashora, Rwanda, giving villagers, hitherto deprived of a fixed link, the opportunity to look for jobs or find out what prices crops are fetching in distant markets without having to go there.

The initiative, a joint venture between the micro-loans bank Grameen and a local telecom operator, was a tiny event in its own right, but symbolic of the power that communications technology has to transform Africa’s economic prospects. In South Africa last week high-speed internet access was brought to townships in the Gautengto province, which do not have affordable fixed-line access.

This means that a township in Africa could well have high-speed internet before some of the more remote places in Britain, as the new information revolution reaches parts of Africa even before the 200-year-old industrial revolution has arrived. Figures recently released by the GSM (global system for mobile communication) trade association, which accounts for over 80% of all mobile phones installed, reported that the two billionth GSM phone had just been purchased.

The first billion took 12 years to sell, but the second billion took only two and a half years, with 82 per cent of all devices being installed in developing countries. The GSMA says this is the first communications technology to have more users in developing countries than in the developed world.

The prospects for bridging the digital divide in underdeveloped countries could be boosted by the plans of several organisations, including the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to produce a sub-$100 laptop to improve education in poorer countries. The GSMA is simultaneously sponsoring a sub $30 mobile phone to accelerate adoption in the developing world. These devices are still expensive items for poor people and organisations to buy - and they are made more expensive by the myopic decision of governments to levy stiff taxes on the purchase price - but they can be shared and there is no reason why prices should not drop further as the price of technology continues to fall.

It would be wrong to raise hopes too much for deprived regions such as Africa, still plagued by poverty, wars, corruption, disease and low economic growth. But it is at least possible that the recent revival of Africa’s economy, on the back of a surge in world trade, could be prolonged by the benign effects of information technology. It cannot happen too soon for the most deprived countries on earth. — The Guardian, London

Having blind trust in big powers

HUSSAIN bin Ali, the Sharif of Makkah, died 75 years ago this month. Together with those of Balfour, Sykes and Picot, his name is entwined with the fate of the Ottoman empire’s Arab provinces and the drama surrounding the end of the Arab dream.

Dejected, betrayed by the powers in which he had placed so much trust, driven out of his ancestral Hijaz and deprived of suzerainty over the Two Holy Places, Hussain suffered a stroke while in exile in Cyprus. He then moved to Amman to be near his son, Abdullah, the king of Trans-Jordan. He died in June 1931.

Sultan Abdul Hamid had sensed danger in him, invited him over to Constantinople, made him a member of his consultative council and gave him all the honours befitting a Hashemite who was the Sharif of Makkah. But there was one caveat: he would not be allowed to leave the Ottoman capital.

Those were days when the Arab world was seething with unrest. The dismemberment of the Ottoman empire appeared inevitable, and the question uppermost in the minds of all nationalities was what course to adopt to ensure their freedom when the empire disintegrated. Secret societies had sprung up in Lebanon and Syria with the avowed aim of seeking Arab sovereignty in the post-Ottoman era, while politicians operating in the open counselled restraint and pleaded for a united struggle by all nationalities for a constitutional monarchy. One proposal visualised a dual monarchy a la Hapsburg. The sovereign at Constantinople would wear two crowns: he would be king of Turks and king of Arabs, while remaining the Sultan-Caliph.

There were constitutional difficulties: as the ruling race, the Turks wanted parliament to have a Turkish majority, though they were in a minority in the empire. This was not acceptable to the Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and the Druze who constituted a majority. While these proposals were being floated, the Young Turks seized power and deposed Abdul Hamid.

Idealists, stung by constant Turkish defeats and dedicated to the unrealistic goal of reviving Ottoman glory, the Young Turks let Hussain return home in the fond hope that by using his position in the Islamic word as the de facto Guardian of the Two Holy Places he would promote the Turkish cause and ensure the loyalty of the sultan’s Arab subjects. Then war broke out, and the Young Turks led by Enver Pasha threw Turkey on the side of the central powers.

Once in the Hijaz, Hussain was free to act, but, contrary to the general impression, the Sharif showed a lot of patience and weighed his chances carefully before throwing in his lot with the western allies. This is no place to go into the details of what history records as the Hussain-McMahon correspondence, the pledges made to the Arabs, and the total trust which Hussain placed in the allies, especially Britain, with regard to what he believed to be the inevitable emergence of a united Arab state on the ruins of the Ottoman empire.

This Arab state under him was to include Iraq and Syria, and it must be noted that Lebanon and Palestine have throughout history been parts of Syria. Unknown to Hussain, Britain and France had their own plans for the Arab world. Under the secret Sykes-Picot agreement Syria and Lebanon were allotted to France, while Britain was to have Iraq and Palestine, the last one to be offered to European Jews for good.

When Hussain discovered the truth it was too late. His guerillas were already spilling Turkish and German blood, blowing up troop trains and destroying telegraph lines, the most daring of the actions being the taking of Aqaba (which the film Lawrence of Arabia would have us believe was Col T. E. Lawrence’s feat. George Antonius in his classic Arab Awakening says the plan was executed by “tribesmen independently of all outside help, for no help was needed in that kind of warfare which was of the traditional kind and one in which Arabs excel”.)

British diplomats and writers have since insisted that Palestine was never part of the deal with Hussain and that the western parts of Syria had been excluded from what was to emerge as a united Arab state under Hussain’s kingship. On the question of Syria, there were differences between Britain and France, for the former said that the latter was to get “only” Lebanon, Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Hama, while eastern Syria was to be part of the Arab kingdom. France, equally determined to have its pound of flesh, claimed that the entire Lebanon and Syria were to be part of the French “mandate”. Britain tacitly conceded this point in return for France giving up its insistence on Jerusalem being placed under international control.

By this time, Faisal, Hussain’s son, had reached Damascus, and a Syrian congress had proclaimed Syria’s independence and made him king. The French sent in their troops — mostly Muslims from Algeria and Senegal — and Hussain lost a key province of his would-be kingdom. Also gone was Palestine, for the British insisted that it was never promised to the Arabs. As a sop, however, Britain made two of his sons, Abdullah and Faisal, kings of states nominally independent. Abdullah was made king of territory east of the river Jordan, while Faisal was proclaimed king of an Iraq that Britain ruled as a League of Nations “mandate”, a euphemism for colonial rule.

His popularity already at low ebb, Hussain made yet another blunder: when Ataturk abolished caliphate, he proclaimed himself the Caliph of Islam. This not only made him unpopular with world Muslims, it served to underscore personal ambitions behind the revolt against the Turks. Britain even objected when he proclaimed himself the king of Arabs, for London was now more interested in befriending a new power that was rising on the horizons of the Middle East — Ibn Saud, who had united the warring tribes of the Nejd and made short work of his traditional enemy, the Shammars.

Then Ibn Saud descended upon Hijaz and attacked and conquered Taif. Now Hussain’s home was in danger. Desperate, he appealed to Britain for help, but Britain was instead keen on delineating the border between Ibn Saud’s territory and British-controlled Iraq, and replied that London could not possibly take sides in a Muslim religious conflict — a reference to the Saudis’ Wahhabi Islam and the Hijazis’ traditional, liberal Islam.

Hussain abdicated in favour of his eldest son, Ali. But Ibn Saud attacked and captured Makkah. Ali moved to Jeddah but later surrendered after a year. Ibn Saud was now master of virtually entire Arabia, and Hussain had lost everything — his Hijaz and the would-be Arab empire that was to consist of Syria, Iraq and Palestine. He chose to stay in Aqaba, but Britain — mindful of Ibn Saud’s sensitivities — insisted that he leave it because the border between Trans-Jordan and Ibn Saud’s territory had not been delineated. He died a broken-hearted man.

Hussain’s tragedy is a warning for all nations and individuals who place blind trust in other powers. The surrender of Czech freedom by Britain and France at Munich to placate Hitler, the Soviet-German non-aggression pact that sealed the fate of Poland, America’s torpedoing of the Middle East roadmap which President Bush had himself unveiled, and the marked shift in US policy towards South Asia serve to underline the fact that ultimately it is economic and military power that decides nations’ fate and that sacred treaties and pledges have no place in this world of realpolitik.