Let us take flight from our fears and dry those tears. As we enter the 62nd year of our collective national existence, we are about to achieve a new milestone. If 2007 was the year of people’s awakening, people’s realisation that the only and only way we could live peacefully and ensure justice, progress and prosperity, is through rule of law, through unadulterated adherence to the Constitution. In 2008 we are on the verge of ensuring that even those in power and authority will adhere to the word and the spirit of the Constitution.
The controversially elected president, who managed the country to the best of his own personal, institutional and contextual limitation, entered his second presidential term through unconstitutional means. He did so in violation of the Constitution. A uniformed candidate who made adjustment with his political foe Benazir Bhutto, negotiated the controversial NRO to make his election process appear legitimate, sent the judiciary packing, imposed impartial law, tried his best to keep political leaders out of the country during the elections, made a public commitment to get a vote of confidence from the electoral college i.e., the new elected assemblies. He may soon exit from Pakistan’s presidential slot. The indirect and direct communications in May and July between the president and the PPP did not lead to the president’s departure. The Americans were also part of the May communication.
Musharraf has done his best for Pakistan–he was the man in the wrong profession, in the wrong mode and in violation of the Constitution ever since he set foot on the political stage. But then on each occasion there was a section of politicians and us, from civil society and media, who supported him in many of his actions. The MMA supported the seventeenth amendment. Many defended his post-9/11 policy as one "getting us out of the firing line," most parties agreed with his India policy. Despite his government’s unforgivable Bugti killing many political parties, including the PPP, engaged with him.
Musharraf is no Pinochet. Musharraf has been a blundering, quasi-democratic dictator who–supported by the army and, until January 2007, assisted mostly by different sections of politicians, society and even the media–mutilated Pakistan’s Constitution and politics. His cardinal crime was the way he handled La Masjid, the Bugti question and the extradition of Pakistanis in the war on terror. But in that too he was partnered by many in high places.
The main culprits, after Musharraf himself, have been the PML-Q leaders, who incidentally are being welcomed in the ruling coalition’s ranks, rather than being kept away because they partnered the crimes that the ruling coalition holds Musharraf responsible for. Now they defend him with lame reasoning.
Today Pakistan’s democratically elected parties, minus the MQM, seek the president’s exit. If it is the controversial PPP leader Asif Zardari who is vying for the Presidency, although he has denied it, there are all the elected parties which will keep him out or bring him in. It will be a democratic process. And no civilian president will dare be the king almighty. That is the Pakistan of today. All power will be held incessantly and publicly accountable. Coup-makers are out!
Those who are tutoring the president that he has a case to fight back are not his friends. Yes, the president must have the right to present his case. But case for what? The case of his nine-year performance. He must have the right to recall what he believed was his contributions towards the well-being of Pakistan. He must have his say. His will not be the last word. The debates will go into time and space endlessly. But one which will have everyone’s input.
The controversy over the president will, Insha Allah, pass without too much strain on the system, too much waste of time and too much antagonism among institutions and individuals who currently run the affairs of the state.
As we begin our 62nd year, with all the challenges notwithstanding, there are clear signs that we are attempting to walk away from irresponsible exercise of power. At least that is what the awakening of 2007 now demands. In a nutshell, what did we live with over the last 61 years? We carried on within a context of depleting respect for law, of increasing exercise of unaccountable authority, of weakening law enforcement systems and of continuing violation of democratic values. Business of the state and government has been run mostly outside of the parameters laid down in the Constitution and the rules of business. Instead, in the mode of emperors and empresses the khakis and the muftis have conducted have managed the state, government and society through clique "wisdom" and "wishes," non-transparent illegitimate kitchen cabinets, personalised interlocutors and handpicked favourites.
All that is changing. With the president’s exit we will focus then on the exercise of authority by those we elected. No matter how powerful they may be, no parliamentarian and party leader is more powerful than the accountability of a responsible and aware society and media.
Brighter, even if complex days are ahead. We are on the right track. We need patience and perseverance.