HEGEMONY OF THE RULING ELITE
On October 12, 1999, eleven years of democratic rule came to an abrupt end when the army seized power and dismissed the government of Nawaz Sharif who tried to sack the Army Chief of Staff, General Musharraf. It was the fourth time since 1958 that the army had seized power in Pakistan's 52 years turbulent history. However, the latest take over was different than the previous ones. In the previous coups, it was the army that toppled the political governments while in Oct. 1999, it was a political government that tried to sack the Army Chief.
It cannot be denied that political power and authority were snatched away by the bureaucrats and generals after the assassination of the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, in October 1951. This happened not because there was a political vacuum since many stalwarts of the freedom movement were there who could shoulder the responsibility. This was because the powerful bureaucrats both in Mufti and in Khaki, joined hands to seize political power.[1] With the appointment of General Mohammad Ayub Khan as Pakistan's first Pakistani commander-in-chief in early 1951, the civil and military bureaucracy, operating in tandem, began to tighten their grip on the institutions of governance. General Ayub Khan , who later confessed to his own political ambitions, teamed up with the Defense Secretary, Major General Iskandar Mirza, to consolidate his grip over the levers of power. In bargain, they also secured the United States' support for modernizing and expanding the armed forces and virtually made Pakistan part of the US strategic objective of containing communist expansion in the region. In this they enjoyed the support of another former civil servant, Ghulam Mohammad, who had served as Finance Minister under the Quaid-i-Azam and had, in 1951 took over power as Governor General when Khawaja Nazimuddin relinquished the office to become Prime Minister.[2] The bureaucracy ultimately became the rulers. Governor-General, Ghulam Mohammad, dismissed the Nazimuddin ministry with General Ayub's backing in April 1953 although his government had won the confidence of the House only a fortnight earlier. General Ayub himself admitted at a news conference at the Governor's House in Karachi in October 1964, that "when there was a conflict between him (Khawaja Nazimuddin) and Governor-General, I decided to side with the Governor-General."[3]
Only 19 months later, Ghulam Mohammad dismissed Mohammad Ali Bogra's government, a creation of his own and took the arbitrary and unconstitutional step of dissolving the Constituent Assembly itself, at a time when it had almost finalized the draft of the constitution, only because the members of the Assembly's sub-committee had decided to curtail his powers. And this he did with the active support of General Ayub Khan. His action was condoned by the federal judiciary. Bogra who was touring the United States as Pakistan's Prime Minister, was sacked and literally captured on his return to Karachi by General Ayub and Defense Secretary, Iskandar Mirza, only to be presented in the court of G.G. Ghulam Mohammad. He forced Bogra to form another cabinet in which General Ayub Khan was taken as a full-fledged minister in full uniform. Mirza and Ayub were the two dominant leaders of the civil-military oligarchy that had decided that Pakistan could be governed best by tightening the grip of these two institutions on its government and people.
Major General Iskandar Mirza who acted as a bridge between bureaucracy and the Army, entered the Governor-General's house through political manipulation and Ayub Khan's backing. To perpetuate himself into power General Mirza divided the Muslim League to form a party of his own - the Republican Party - which had neither any organizational structure nor roots in the masses. It died its own death and could not be resurrected when parties were restored years later. As many as four governments fell during the 30-month period (March 1956 to October 1958) of his presidency since he could manipulate politics in the National Assembly through his Republican Party. General Ayub Khan succeeded in seizing power because he had the support of the military and could control the actions of Iskandar Mirza, who abrogated the 1956 constitution and imposed martial law. Later when Iskandar Mirza was still president, General Ayub disclosed that it was at his initiative that the president imposed martial law. "I said to the President: Are you going to act or are you not going to act? It is your responsibility to bring about change and if you do not, which heaven forbid, we shall force a change." [4]
President Ayub Khan, in 1962, "gifted" the nation a constitution rooted in the concept of controlled democracy (Basic Democracy). It provided for a central, rather than federal, structure. Nothing contributed more to alienation between the two wings of Pakistan, than the ten years of Ayub Khan's regime. Effective power was concentrated in the hands of Generals and civil bureaucrats, a class in which East Pakistan was poorly represented. President Ayub's "Decade of Development" (1958-1968) proved a masterly piece of deception. It made the rich richer, and the poor received plenty of promises. With the breakaway of East Pakistan, Yahya Khan and his coterie of Generals were swept from power.
After the rule of two military dictators viz, Ayub and Yahya, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became a civil dictator. A champion of the poor and downtrodden, he had no patience for the dilatory dictates of democratic debate. Bhutto introduced his own constitution, duly providing for a democratic and parliamentary form of government. In trying to sweep away all obstacles in his way he assumed presidential powers and then came round to devise a constitution in which the Prime Minister became the chief executive and the President was assigned a ceremonial role. The popular concept of personal power is so strongly entrenched in our mind that the name of the constitutional president - Choudhry Fazal Ilahi - became a common joke in our society.[5] However, once the constitution had been passed by the National Assembly by acclamation, Bhutto decided not to lift the emergency which had been imposed during the Bangladesh war and in fact suspended fundamental rights, on the pretext of considerations of security. Bhutto himself did not live up to the standards of his own constitution and allowed his feudal and autocratic nature to violate its spirit as and when he found it expedient to do so.
The political process was once again disrupted when, following the general elections called by Bhutto in March 1977, nine opposition parties teamed up to create the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) determined to dislodge Bhutto by whatever means they could. The PNA launched a mass campaign against the Bhutto government for rigging the elections. Curiously, it is widely believed that Bhutto could have easily secured a comfortable majority even if some of his colleagues had not resorted to selective rigging and manipulation. A segment of the army is believed to have also encouraged the PNA movement because of the proclivities of the army chief, General Ziaul Haq whom, ironically, Bhutto had himself chosen in the belief that he would be more pliable than some of the other Generals senior to him. [6] According to Prof. Ziring, even before the 1977 election campaign began, Army officers were plotting to overthrow Bhutto. These men no longer believed that he was the savior sent to restore Pakistan to a place in the constellation of states. [7]
On July 5, 1977, the Chief of Army Staff, General Ziaul Haq, ousted Bhutto while the talks between the PPP and the PNA for possible fresh elections were well in progress. General Zia's eleven years at the helm of Pakistan's affairs were unprecedented because of his total lack of concern for democracy or even civilized government. He had Bhutto tried and executed on a murder charge which to this day is not universally regarded as quite credible. The General ruled by martial law edicts for the initial eight years (1977-85) and later with the help of a face of an elected party-less assembly (Majlis-e-Shoora).[8] To fortify his position, Ziaul Haq, much more so than any of his predecessors, gave a new emphasis to Islam in national polity. Before he was killed in an air crash, he had almost completely devastated Pakistan of its image as a modern, democratic state, conforming to the ideals spelt out by Quaid-i-Azam. [9]
The above review of the political development of Pakistan has brought out that the in-egalitarian power structure which the country inherited from the colonial era remained intact with power concentrated in the two state institutions -- the military and bureaucracy -- with the backing of the feudal class. These power groups were not committed to establishment of democracy as it eroded their power and privileges. The urban middle class, independent professionals and intelligentsia, who have interest in promoting democracy, have become somewhat politically marginalized.
DECADE OF DEMOCRACY (1988-1999)
The post-Zia structure of parliamentary democracy in Pakistan completed eleven years in October, 1999 when it was once again toppled by the army. This was the first time in the 52 year history of the country that democratic institutions based on adult franchise had continued to function without interruption for the whole 11 years. However, by whatever name we choose to describe our latest experiment with democracy, neither the conservative Locke nor revolutionary Rousseau would have called it a democracy. Perhaps we were following Bagehot who says: "Democracy is the way to give people the greatest illusion of power, while allowing them the smallest amount in reality."
Pakistan's history of the last 11 years (1988-1999), indicates that Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto both proved the spoilers of its democracy and the betrayers of its people. They dominated the national politics all through the 11 years that saw democracy in the country turning it into a farce and the nation into a basket case.
Mutual accommodation, understanding and consensus, the essential hallmarks of a democratic order, meant nothing to them. Intolerance of dissent, abhorrence of criticism and hounding of opponents were their political creed. Self-interest, self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment were their moving passions. Both professed to be sworn democrats but in practice both were proven despots.
The governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who successively came to power after Zia-ul-Haq's death in an air crash in August 1988 blatantly attempted to concentrate all powers in their hands creating a sense of alienation in the smaller provinces and despondency among the people. Indeed, if there is a single factor which has impaired the working of democracy in Pakistan, it was the persistent ambition of the 'elected' rulers to centralize all powers, including economic and development planning, and deny the provinces - the federating units - even the right to exercise the powers which undisputedly should be theirs under the Constitution. The increasing concentrating of powers in the federal list under the 1973 Constitution has reduced the provinces almost to nonentities, whereas the center now enjoys powers to legislate in as many as 114 subjects.
Two successive failures of Pakistan's two main political parties had left the country in a dangerous state. There were just too many destabilizing factors at work. The noise of militant groups, the specter of sectarian violence, the economic problems, corruption, lack of confidence and an overall pervading cynicism and despair were just the apparent contours of contemporary Pakistani society.
In short, Pakistan witnessed a criminalized rule of self-serving political leaders. Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League as well as Benazir Bhutto's People's Party both were long on rhetoric and short on substantive results. The democracy of the few and for the few has done enormous harm to our national body politics.
The former US national security advisor, Robert C. McFarlane rightly observed that the democratic system in Pakistan is comprised of "a few families struggling with one another to achieve absolute power and are inevitably, in Lord Acton's phrase, corrupted absolutely."