Replaying the old marching tune

The Austro-Hungarian statesman, Matternich, is credited with the maxim ‘‘Rule and Change Nothing’’—a recipe for survival of autocrats interested in nothing more than staying in power. Pakistan’s rulers claim that they want to change things for the better but their desire for perpetual power is no less than that of Matternich’s contemporaries.

The Pakistani adaptation of Matternich’s maxim seems to be ‘‘Rule, and Exclude Everyone Else’’. The result: Pakistan remains a nation in a state of perpetual polarisation. Every ruler re-writes the constitution to suit him instead of submitting to a constitution framed by consensus.

Soon after imposing martial law in 1958, Ayub Khan appointed the seniormost civil servant, Aziz Ahmed, as Deputy Martial Law Administrator and Secretary-general. Pakistan’s first military ruler seemed to understand, at the outset, that the army alone could not govern such a diverse country.

Ayub’s military takeover represented the first attempt by the army to rid the country of ‘‘evil politicians’’. But the regime that lasted over ten years ruled through a coalition between GHQ and the civil service. It even included several politicians, considered acceptable by the then army leadership. Since then, however, the partnership has become less and less inclusive. General Pervez Musharraf’s military regime seems closer in its approach to the Yahya Khan model than the Ayub-Zia ones. Khan did not think much of civilians and his relatively short military regime ended with the break up of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

Each of Pakistan’s patriarchs have based their claim to power on grounds of US support and their own ability to provide good governance. But good governance is not about some good guys making the right decisions. It is also about allowing ordinary people the right to appoint and remove those that govern them.

The British vice-regal system in India was based on the notion that major decisions about choice of rulers could not be left to the illiterate natives. The natives were allowed to elect local officials for local functions but the Sahibs chose the highest echelons of government. Ayub Khan’s Basic Democracies, Zia’s Majlis-e-Shura and the present regime’s ‘devolution’ scheme are all adaptations of the colonial patriarchal model. The people can choose BD members, councillors or Nazims but they are not allowed to elect or remove the central governing authority in the country.

This we-know-what’s-best-for-the-nation model of governance has done little to unify Pakistanis or provide a system that lasts. Democracy may not be as neat and methodical as the patriarchs might want, but its virtue lies in the fact that it provides for a peaceful method for selecting and removing a country’s rulers. If a system does not lay down procedures for electing the rulers and removing them from office at a specific time, it can hardly be termed as constitutional or democratic.

After every military intervention, Pakistan’s leadership crisis has deepened. The reason for this failure may not be difficult to identify. Military officers are used to dealing with regimented minds. The troops under their command ask no questions while obeying orders. But when called upon to command civilians, military men find it difficult to deal with the constant debates and disagreements. The military mind is used to dealing with issues of black and white. The political world, on the other hand, is at best painted in shades of gray.

Most of Pakistan’s problems can be traced to its failure in creating a viable, self-sustaining political system with in-built checks and balances. There has never been a normal transfer of power in Pakistan, which in turn breeds constant insecurity on the part of rulers and the ruled.

In fact, the kleptocratic practices of the ruling elite are probably related to this consistent insecurity. People try to stash away fortunes for a rainy day when they are not certain about when and how power and money change hands. A stable political system, with well-defined rules of the game in all crucial areas of life, would end this insecurity and the consequent corruption and lawlessness.

(Husain Haqqani is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He served as adviser to prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and as Pakistan’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka)