War on Constitution,
Or War on Pakistan?
Dr.
Tarique Niazi
THERE
is only one person who stands between Pakistan and its Constitution:
General Pervez Musharraf. Deep down, he knows that the day Constitution
comes into force, he will be out of job.
Small
wonder that he is sitting tight on more than 70 of its Articles,
which, if enforced, would lead to his eviction from both places
of his residence – Army House and President's House. His
dream work of Legal Framework Order (LFO), a capsule of 29 amendments
in Constitution, is thus no more than a hokum to evade this impending
eviction. There
are, however, three major Constitutional issues that neither sleep
nor let him sleep.
First,
Article 63 (k) that prohibits a serving officer to run for public
office, such as Presidency, dictates him to swap his fatigues
for a change of civvies. Once in civvies, the same article further
requires him to wait as long as two years before he can run for
President.
Second,
Constitution lays out well-defined procedures for electing a President
through a pre-determined electoral college that is made up of
Parliament (Senate, National Assembly, and four Provincial Assemblies).
In contravention of Constitution, however, Gen. Musharraf rushed
to claim Presidency on November 16 without even the electoral
college having been completed (Senate had yet to be formed, and
provincial assemblies had yet to be sworn in).
Third,
the Constitution does not substitute a referendum, such as the
one that he called on April 30, for a presidential electoral college.
Supreme Court upheld this Constitutional criterion in its March
2002 ruling. Unless these issues are resolved, Constitutional
deck is stacked against Gen. Musharraf.
As
of now, he cannot survive into his job unless he garners a two-thirds
majority in Parliament to have it swallow his Constitutional infractions
as Constitutional amendments. But Parliament, despite his rigging
feat -- before, during, and after elections -- stands evenly divided
between his hangers-on and his democratic opposition. He is resolving
this split by pressing and bribing his way to the opposition.
He
is drilling holes into the country’s most unified political
vehicle, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to steal away its
vulnerable members. On November 21, he decamped with ten of them
to have his nominee for Prime Minister elected. Later, the ten
switchers were rewarded with six cabinet posts. Yet it took the
vote of what the press described a terrorist-turned-turncoat to
help deliver a Prime Minister who thinks, sounds, and acts like
his creator. The opposition called the vote for Prime Minister
less a triumph of “zamir” (an Urdu word for “conscience”)
than a triumph of Gen. Zamir, one of the head honchos at Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI).
Gen.
Musharraf is thus corrupting the democratic process and, as a
result, making the 1973 Constitution irrelevant. He is using a
three-blade knife to stab democracy:
First,
he is keeping the defection clause -- Article 63 (A) – suspended
to bid for any member of Parliament who has a price.
Second,
he is using the criminal justice system to help the Muslim League
of turncoats into government -- both in Islamabad and in provinces.
In Balochistan, he swung open the prison portals on those who
reportedly reeked of corruption, smelled of narcotics, and dripped
with the blood of the innocent in exchange for their patrons’
vote for a government of Muslim League.
Third,
he is using naked police force to end so-called “no-go areas”
in Karachi to enlist the support of Muttahida Qaumi Movement to
form a Muslim League government in Sindh. Perversely, he has been
patronizing the keepers of these “no-go areas” –
Muhajir Qaumi Movement – for three years in an attempt to
turf out his bete noir -- Altaf Hussain.
In
the process, he is wrecking the 1973 Constitution, which could
herald a re-making of Pakistan. On his watch, we have already
seen the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) – a
cluster of ethnic minorities of Sindhhis, Pukhtuns, Balochis, Seraikis,
and Muhajirs – regrown into a force to reckon with. PONM’s
key argument is that Pakistan is dead as a Federation. It need
be remade into a “confederation” of autonomous states
comprising Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhaw, Balochistan, Seraikistan,
and Muhajiristan. To make this happen, PONMM first wants to tear
up the 1973 Constitution that under girds the federal structure
of Pakistan, and thus stands in its path to confederation.
Imtiaz Ahmed Sheikh, who leads Sindh Democratic Alliance (SDA),
adds his sonorous voice to this chorus of confederates. Mr. Sheikh,
who also is Gen. Musharraf’s buddy, has made a public demand
for restructuring Pakistan into a confederation. To top it all
off, PONM has a most important proponent in Sardar Mumtaz Bhutto
of the idea of a confederal Pakistan. Sardar Bhutto, too, has
been close to Gen. Musharraf for the past three years as a likely
antidote to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). He has been consistent
in articulating his demands for a confederal Pakistan. His articulation
has gained an added strength from his urban cohorts in Muttahida
Qaumi Movement and Muhajir Qaumi Movement. Both are in favor of
redrawing Pakistan into a confederation.
In
the southwest sits Balochistan that forms half of Pakistan in
territorial heft. “Radical” Balochs (burnt by a 75%
poverty rate, as reported in Dawn, every Baloch is now
radical) simply want outright independence from Pakistan. Mir
Surat Khan Marri, a former diplomat, has recently published in
The Frontier Post his historically informed analysis that
substantiates the independence thesis. Mir Marri argues that Balochistan
has always been an independent nation, until Pakistan colonized
it in 1947-48 through a military action. The succeeding generation
of Balochs had since kept nursing these wounds by putting “Balochistan
First.” A case in point is Mr. Akhtar Mengal, who is a leader
of the younger generation of Balochs. When he was sworn in as
Chief Minister of Balochistan in 1997, wrote Mr. Abdul Qadir Hasan
in Jang, he switched his pledge of allegiance from “Pakistan”
to “Balochistan.” His transformed oath read: “I
shall remain “loyal” to Balochistan (omitting Pakistan
altogether).
These
voices may sound shrill, but they do anticipate in the wreckage
of 1973 Constitution a bloodless path to “confederation,”
or even outright “independence” in the case of Balochistan.
Their major grievance is that the federation never worked for
ethnic minorities in the past 55 years of Pakistan’s existence.
They argue that a Punjabi-dominated civil and military bureaucracy
has hijacked the federation.
Gen.
Musharraf’s LFO that further entrenches the civil and military
bureaucracy even deepens such suspicions of federation. It is
largely because Sindh and Balochistan have near-zero representation
in Army, while it always takes a tragedy for Seraikis, Pakhtuns,
and Muhajirs to make it to the top (Gen. Zia’s [a Punjabi]
air crash led to Gen. Aslam Beg’s [a Muhajir] ascension
as Chief of Staff; Gen. Asif Janjua's [a Punjabi] mysterious death
paved the way for Gen. Waheed Kakar’s [a Pakhtun] succession;
Gen. Jehangir Karamat’s [a Punjabi] falling out with a Prime
Minister brought Gen. Musharraf [a Muhajir] into power). Balochs,
Sindhis, and Muhajirs have no broad base in Army, nevertheless,
from which the command routinely draws energy.
On
top of it, Generals, according to a Baloch leader, Sanaullah Zehri,
own $6 billion in businesses. Each year, they suck out $3 billion
in the cost of defense. While all these benefits flow to a Punjabi-dominated
military leadership, goes the argument, costs are dispersed among
the minorities such as Balochs and Sindhis who go unrepresented
in the military. To further keep them down, the federation denies
minorities even the fruit of their own labor.
Pakhtunkhaw and Balochistan, for instance, are respectively denied
royalty for hydel power and natural gas production. Similarly,
Sindh that accounts for one-third of the national economy, renders
more of its tax revenue to the Caesar of federation than it receives
in social spending.
Confederal
forces ride high on these “injustices.” Their goal
– “confederation” – may not be shared
by every Pakistani, but their indictment of federation has takers
even among the Punjabis. Confederates envision that they can work
their way out of a failed federation by forcing it into rewriting
the federal Constitution into a confederal one.
The
major hurdle in their path, however, is the 1973 Constitution
itself that has weathered 30 years of battering, beating, and
bouncing and is yet alive, well, and kicking. They desperately
want to see it thrown out. They, then, hope that there will never
be consensus on a new Constitution unless it concedes autonomous
status to each state within the “confederation” of
Pakistan. This hope is not that frivolous either, given the deep-running
divisions in Pakistan. If Pakistan cannot reach a consensus on
a commonplace development project such as Kalabagh Dam for the
past 20 years, how can it build a consensus on the most sensitive
of all projects – the Constitution?
Gen.
Musharraf’s three years in power has bumped up the confederal
movement, indeed. He has grounded the forces of federation in
Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League –
a grounding that helped confederates to barrel down the road to
their dream – a confederal Pakistan. Three years on, Gen.
Musharraf is again offering them his shoulder to stand on: He
is doing their dirty work by beating out of shape the 1973 Constitution
with his self-serving LFO.
His Constitutional transgressions may not help him survive into
his job, but they will create a job boom for confederates, nevertheless.
His war on Constitution, thus, leaves us with a stark choice to
make: Should we keep Gen. Musharraf, or should we keep a federal
Pakistan? Parliament and Supreme Court must answer this question
by putting Pakistan First!
The
writer is a Professor of Environmental Sociology at the University
of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.
