And They Call The Shots


Written by Javed Ansari • Region • January 2010

Who really rules Pakistan? The latest buzz doing the rounds in Pakistan is that whatever the ramifications of the NRO having been declared null and void, President Asif Ali Zardari is one person who is not ready yet to call it quits. In fact, from the last central executive meeting of the PPP, it appears he is all set to further entrench himself in the President's House and at least complete his term of five years. He enjoys presidential immunity under the Constitution and, as lawyer Aitezaz Ahsan has been saying so vehemently all these days, Mr. Zardari is well-protected as long as he is the President.

It is from this position of strength that the President does not wish to part with some of the more juicy discretionary powers that the Musharraf legacy has left him with under the 17th Amendment. Apart from the power to dissolve the National Assembly, he also has the authority to appoint and dismiss chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff committee.

Mr. Zardari is said to be nailing his future hopes on the fact that the incumbent Army Chief, General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, is due to complete his tenure in 2010. Considering the near-Arctic conditions prevailing between the Presidency and the GHQ, it is surmised that neither will Gen. Kayani seek an extension in service and nor will President Zardari, if he is still in the driving seat by then, ask the General to continue. Therefore, if the President manages to keep the wolves away until next year in a way that he also does not lose his grip on the more heady presidential powers, he is likely to emerge stronger than ever. He hopes he will have smoother sailing (for himself) from that point onwards as he would have an Army chief of his liking in the saddle.

Those who still believe Pakistan now has a functioning democracy where the role of the armed forces is at last subservient to the civilian dispensation, are way off the mark. Whatever way you look at it, it's the uniform that rules or why would the elected leaders of a democratic nation always want to appoint armed forces chiefs of their choice? And, it was not with much glee that President Zardari agreed to transfer responsibility for the Nuclear Command Authority to the Prime Minister.

In his days, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is said to have never been on the very best of terms with succeeding Army chiefs. He enjoyed a heavy public mandate in his second term so when he became seriously annoyed with General Jehangir Karamat on a remark that the latter had made, he simply showed him the door. He also did not hit it off so famously with the succeeding Army chief, General Pervez Musharraf. In his own wisdom, he made a plan to sack Gen. Musharraf and replace him with his ISI chief, Lt. General Khawaja Ziauddin, when the COAS was on a trip to Sri Lanka but the ploy misfired and the Army took control of the country yet another time.

When General Ashfaq Kayani took charge as COAS, he promised that the Army would stick to its constitutional role of defending the country against external and internal threats. True to his word, ever since taking over he has not shown much interest in involving the Army in the country's political affairs - at least on the face of it. For a change, the Army did not come out to supervise the 2008 general elections. Kayani also saw to it that Army officers serving in civilian jobs were recalled and no senior Army brass met politicians without his permission.

However, Gen. Kayani had to finally step in when President Zardari refused to budge on the issue of the Chief Justice of Pakistan despite several promises. Things came to a head when lawyer activists, in association with Nawaz Sharif and his PML(N), after creating months of din, embarked on a long march from Lahore and threatened to create an ugly situation in Islamabad. It was at this critical juncture that the COAS is said to have made a phone call to the President who readily capitulated and Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was back in his job along with the other sacked judges.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his companions conceived Pakistan as a nation that would uphold the highest traditions and values of a modern democracy. True to form, the country embarked on its journey as a working democracy. Its armed forces at the time of partition were small and ill-equipped and their top brass were quite aware that their only job was to defend the country's geographical frontiers.

What happened then? In the following decade, successive civilian governments became terribly embroiled in political wrangling, botching up matters of governance and sending a wave of discontent and despair through the masses who had dreamily hitched their wagon to Jinnah's Pakistan - a Pakistan that promised peace, prosperity and a lot more. The squabbling politicians, all of them feudal and with not a single beat in their hearts for the masses, played musical chairs at forming governments and wielding power. In the process, they tactlessly allowed the country to become a member of the Western power axis led by the United States. One upshot of this was the disproportionate expansion and modernization of the armed forces of Pakistan at the expense of providing amenities and services and a national infrastructure for the entire population.

Subsequently, one weak government followed another while strong democratic practices failed to take root in the national polity. The Army, emboldened by its belief that it was the country's savior against internal strife as well, took over power in October 1958. General Ayub Khan was enthusiastically welcomed by the people as by this time they had become really disgusted with the civilian misrule. It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs prevailing in Pakistan even in those nascent years of its existence that hardly anyone lamented the demise of democracy. The military regime was greatly encouraged by the positive public response and began to think of itself as the high spot from where all founts of good governance flowed.

In their very first innings, the Pakistan Army, between Field Marshal Ayub Khan and General Yahya Khan, managed to stay in the saddle for more than 12 years. In every subsequent decade, power alternated between civilian and military regimes. Since political parties and their leaders for the most part failed to come up to the people's expectations, every time the nation became distraught, it looked towards the Army to step in. Time and again, the inadequacies and follies of the civilian rulers created a window for the Army to take over and every time when it did so, there was a general sigh of relief. In the true tradition of Pakistani naiveté, people distributed sweets on the streets to welcome their new despotic rulers - and regretted it afterwards.

It was also a lack of trust and an attitude of insincerity towards rivals that prompted certain political leaders to machinate against the party that happened to be in power and, in doing so, secretly invite the Army to take over. In some instances, the Army leadership found itself attracted to the proposition while at other times it simply declined the offer in the interest of strengthening the existing democratic dispensation.

In the opinion of a senior defense analyst, the Army's interference in the Government's affairs has never been liked by the civil society because it feels the Army's sole job is to defend the country against foreign aggression or internal insurgency.

He says that at the most, the Army may be called ‘in aid of civil power' in times of disasters but not ‘in aid of civil power' to run the government. On the other hand, the Army hierarchy thinks that it should not just sit back to watch the country's wealth being looted or the malfunctioning of the government's machinery due to inefficient handling of its affairs. Despite losing some space because of the malpractices of certain senior officers, the Army still considers itself far more honest, fair and efficient when it comes to governance of the country. He feels, however, that an effective system of checks and balances has to be put in place to ensure better governance.

But it is true that whether holding power itself or simply egging civilian setups towards better governance, the Army has always had a role to play in Pakistan. In a recent piece titled ‘The locus of power', senior writer I.A. Rehman sums it all when he writes:

"All those Pakistani heads of state who wielded extraordinary powers, who became absolute rulers, could do so because they enjoyed the backing of the armed forces. A president who is not backed by the defense forces, be he a Leghari or a Zardari, cannot assume to be a powerful head of state. Those gunning for Mr. Zardari have made it clear that his most unforgivable sin is that he does not enjoy the trust of the permanent establishment. The latter's autonomy cannot be trifled with."