ON POLITICALCONFRONTATION





A nation that does not produce its own prophets should not expect any miracles. Although ideologically Pakistan has abjured producing any prophets, during the past sixty years it has managed to fabricate at least three generations of persuasive orators, convincing demagogues, plausible soothsayers and voluble charlatans. Each for a while has caught the attention of the multitude, fed them the manna of hope, and then disappeared into the mists of oblivion.


Today, 160 million Pakistanis wait for any Moses who will free them from bondage and lead them out of their Promised Homeland, someone who can perform the miracle of striking a rock and making oil flow from it, someone who will cast his rod and through its serpent swallow all the plagues of poverty, illiteracy, sectarianism and terrorism. If there is such a deliverer, he has not made himself manifest yet. Every Pakistani must learn to be patient and, like Pharaoh's daughter, to wait for the unborn to be born.


Meanwhile, our country is sliding perceptibly into a free-fall that can be arrested only by timely miracles, despite having at least six governments nominally committed to control that decline. Three elected governments ensconced in the saddle at Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi and three shadow ones that actually control the reins of governance.


In countries where Shadow Cabinets exist, a Minister has a 'shadow' counterpart. Only in our subcontinent, can one find Shadow Cabinets in Government, and the real Government in the shadows. In New Delhi, for example, it is now an accepted fact that all key decisions are taken not in the Cabinet Room but in Mrs Sonia Gandhi's kitchen Cabinet. Mrs Golda Meir, Israel's first woman prime minister, made such decision-making a practical reality by actually gathering her Cabinet colleagues into her kitchen where she served them home-made chicken soup with matzo balls.


Such diagonal command structures are not contrary to the norms of democracy. There are some who would argue that so long as the directions to an incumbent Government come from the political leadership in the country (an obvious example is the Communist Party in China), government expediency should remain subservient to political imperatives, in the larger national interest. However, there are others who feel that if the Westminster model is to be imitated, then it should be followed more closely, with the leader of the Government being also the leader of the political party that propelled them to office.


In Pakistan, there is an interesting mutation of this concept. In Islamabad, the Prime Minister oscillates between being the Head of Government and being a mere figurehead. In the Punjab and in Sindh, the Chief Ministers function as seat-warmers, another set of caretakers replacing the ones who have just vacated office.


Under ordinary circumstances, such elliptical contours of governance would work. In our present predicament, it is difficult to see how they could. The Interim Caretaker Cabinets postponed many critical decisions pending the outcome of the elections. Now that elected governments are in place, they themselves are waiting for the outcome of the by-elections which will bring the true leaders out of the shadows.


Can our country afford to wait until then? Can any country anywhere grow and prosper in a vacuum of indecision? To watch the countless television channels and to listen to the ceaseless chatter in chat-shows, one would be lulled into believing that Cabinet and Parliamentary Sub-Committees are in fact superfluous. The solutions to our national dilemma are so obvious. They are already there, splayed on the screen - if only someone else could be found to implement them.


Meanwhile, the two major political parties - the PPP and the PML (N) – close in inexorably towards the Presidency and its embattled incumbent. The recent agreement between their two leaders in Dubai to restore the deposed judges has done more than remove an impediment to the consummation of their Murree Declaration. It has dislodged yet another cornerstone of President Musharraf's presidency and caused it to list even more precariously than before.


What does the future hold for him? Only he and his closest advisors (hopefully they are also his well-wishers) as well as those inimical to him can know for sure. Something that is becoming increasingly clear is that the laurel wreath that he has been wearing for the past eight years is rapidly atrophying into a crown of thorns. In a sense, his resolve over the past eight years or so has remained singularly consistent. It has been to survive. That was as true in October 1999 while he sat strapped in his seat in the PIA aircraft as it hovered over Karachi airport, and it is equally true in May 2008 as he sits trapped in his chair within the presidency.


He has never been a man though to concede defeat. The word is not in his lexicon. Nor come to think of it was it in the vocabulary of Charles I of England. But Time can be a cruel teacher. During the English Civil War, challenged and routed by the democratic Roundheads, Charles and his Cavalier supporters had to learn its meaning the hard way.


Democracy, as Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto predicted, is the best form of revenge. Revenge can however come in different guises, in unexpected ways and at unexpected times. For example, after the decisive Battle of Naseby in 1645, one of King Charles' vanquished Royalists taunted his Roundhead parliamentarian opponents in their moment of victory: "Now that you have done with us, go fight amongst yourselves."


Perhaps Musharraf's loyalists are praying for just such satisfaction –whenever that miracle may occur, however belatedly.