Surviving Amidst Chaos

With each passing day, the regime is becoming more and more controversial. If the president is at a loss to find a way out of the quagmire he has landed himself in, caretaker Prime Minister Malik Meraj Khalid is making daily confessions about his government's failure to even get started on his anti-corruption operation. To make matters worse, amid recurring rumours that the caretaker government was about to break up, Law Minister Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim resigned from the cabinet—thereby reinforcing suspicions that all is not well in the Leghari camp.

Ibrahim, who resigned in protest, said the election law was amended to protect the former prime minister and chief of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), Nawaz Sharif. Ibrahim's exit and outspoken remarks were not only an embarrassment for Leghari but also for Pakistan's Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah. Ibrahim claimed that Shah was interfering in executive functions.

According to Hussain Naqi, a leading columnist who works for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the resignation of Ibrahim, a former attorney general picked by Leghari to pilot the accountability legislation, is a severe blow to the credibility of the caretaker set-up. "Fakhruddin has pointed to the undue interference in his ministry by no less a person than the chief justice of Pakistan, who wanted to fill the vacant post of federal law secretary with a man of his own choice," he says.

바카라 웹사이트This has only reinforced the impression that there is no teamwork or collective responsibility needed for efficacious governance. "So much for the much-talked-about accountability process," says Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Information Secretary Iqbal Haider. "This is now nothing else but witch-hunting against Benazir and her party alone. They vowed to root out corruption but at the same time they have allowed those defaulters who have minted billions to contest the elections." He argued that rigging for the elections had already begun.

Such allegations have resulted in a lack of confidence in the Miraj Khalid government. In spite of the campaign to weed out corruption, the caretaker regime is still searching for evidence. And where cases have been registered, the accused have managed to secure bail on the basis of insufficient proof.

Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's husband, was considered the most corrupt person in her government. He was kept under detention for over a month without being formally charged; but during this time he got bail twice from two different high courts. But the second time, before being freed, he was booked for Murtaza Bhutto's murder. So far, nothing has come up in the investigations to suggest that Zardari had masterminded Murtaza's assassination.

The release of Benazir's political secretary, Naheed Khan, and her principal secretary, Ahmed Sadiq, hasn't added to the credibility of the caretaker government either. "If the charges could not be proved, what was the justification for dissolving the assemblies?" Benazir continues to hammer in her defence. There is also a growing impression that only Benazir and her people have been targeted in the process of accountability, which she is exploiting to the hilt.

Her main political rival, Sharif, has been given a free run. Sharif's government too was dismissed on corruption charges in 1993. He was described as the biggest defaulter of bank loans, which he had allegedly secured using his position as prime minister. Even Leghari, who was once Benazir's deputy in the PPP, used to attack him for indulging in unprecedented corruption. But the present caretaker government is not touching him. In fact, the election law introduced by the interim regime, which had sought to disqualify all kinds of bank loan defaulters, was amended in a controversial manner. Besides, rescheduling of loans had also been permitted, thereby making it easy for defaulters to take part in the elections. There is a consensus among political observers that the facility had been provided to bail out Sharif. Ironically,he sees himself as the obvious alternative to Benazir and has moved closer to Leghari, who is himself struggling to stick on.

Meanwhile, nominations for the elections have been filed. Curiously, the two major political parties, the PPP and PML(N) have awarded tickets to more or less the same candidates who had been members of the last three assemblies. "If those members are to return, then the wisdom in holding fresh elections is fatally at fault," points out former caretaker prime minister Mir Balakh Sher Mezari.

The PPP, which was under serious threat of disintegration after Benazir's dismissal, has started to rally around her. Her decision not to give ticket to the unpopular Zardari has helped reassure party leaders. "She is still the sharpest political mind around. And when pushed to the wall, she always fights back," says her spokesman Shah Mehmood.

With rumours that Leghari was trying to promote a political group of his choice, he no longer enjoys a neutral image. Benazir has lost no opportunity to exploit this notion. She has not only accused him of having got Murtaza murdered but apprehends that her husband may be poisoned in custody. She has also levelled charges of financial impropriety against him.

SO much so that the post-dissolution political scene is unfolding into a personal feud between Leghari and Benazir. Rumour has it that Leghari sacked her after reports of a clandestine video recording of his daughter, Faryal Leghari's private meetings with a leading Lahore businessman. The recordings were reportedly made by the Intelligence Bureau, which comes directly under the prime minister.

Meanwhile, the entry of Imran Khan into the electoral fray has added colour to the exercise. Khan is determined to contest from eight National Assembly constituencies, including two against Sharif, one of which is in Lahore. The former cricket star has little if any political credentials but feels he has a fair chance of victory. Says journalist M.A.K. Lodhi: "The PPP has already been lynched by the party's own sponsored president. The scheme of things seems to be to pit Imran against only one rival—Nawaz Sharif. But the situation, because of the bias of the caretaker government, has altered and the PPP is recovering its lost vote bank, thus leaving little ground for an outsider (Imran) to upstage it."바카라 웹사이트

But others feel that the dearth of leaders could provide Khan with an opening. His votebank is expected to be the disgruntled electorate which has lost hope in Benazir and Sharif and the youth who still idealise him as a hero. Political analysts believe that even if Khan does not win very many seats, he could spoil Sharif's chances in at least 20 constituencies in a House of 217.

But Sartaj Aziz, a PML(N) general secretary, disagrees: "The reason why Imran has decided to challenge Sharif is because then it would immediately bring him into the political limelight. But that apart, Imran would get nothing out of it." And Sharif has already accused Khan of playing into the hands of the Jewish lobby by using his British father-in-law James Goldsmith's money (reportedly £5 million). For their part, PPP optimists say the Sharif-Imran tussle goes in their favour as both would split the anti-Benazir vote.

But with the PPP still on the defensive, Sharif is trying to cobble together an anti-PPP front with various parties, including the MQM (Altaf), the Awami National Party and the Murtaza Bhutto faction of the PPP. Analysts believe that the December 22 accord between Sharif and Ghinwa Bhutto, Murtaza's widow, was a step in the that direction. However, this deal has given birth to a severe internal rift in both parties.

But as the situation stands, observers foresee a hung Parliament with none of the parties managing to bag more than 70 seats. Journalist Azizuddin Ahmed says the agenda of the government is gradually becoming clear: "What they want, it seems, is an election that can lead to the formation of a docile government that agrees to every dic-tat of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and which does not, in any way, challenge the hegemony of an establishment which wants to continue enjoying its traditional hold on power."

According to some well-placed sources, what those in power had initially wanted was to get rid of Benazir and Sharif at one go by debarring them both from contesting in the name of accountability, even if it meant delaying elections. The strategy was abandoned only when it was realised that these parties could unite to form a lethal combination against the interim set-up. The idea is now to manage the elections so that no stable government can be formed to challenge the current dispensation.

These electoral assertions notwithstanding, the intense uncertainty has given way to reports that the present caretaker set-up is going to be replaced. The powers that be are disappointed with the way Leghari handled the situation after Benazir's dismissal. Instead of creating confidence in the public, the crisis has deepened and Leghari's team does not appear to be up to the job.

According to Ahmed Rasheed, a leading political analyst, the army high command has finally distanced itself from Leghari. Says he: "There is little doubt that the army's initial hopes after November 5 were that a strong process of accountability and wide-ranging structural reforms would precede the elections. But choices for the caretaker cabinet, divisions within their ranks, their incompetence and inability to deliver, coupled with Leghari's personal agenda, drove the army away from offering even a modicum of support or sympathy for the present caretaker set-up. "

바카라 웹사이트The establishment is said to be seeking a way out, either by changing the caretaker set-up or ensuring non-controversial elections. Or the Supreme Court, where Benazir's petition against the dissolution is pending, might restore the assemblies to pave the way for a consensus coalition. Benazir has already said that she is agreeable to a national government which could steer the country out of the prevailing crisis. The February 1997 polls seem destined to go down in history as having aroused the least enthusiasm among the people. But that doesn't change the fact that they will probably be a crucial test for the future of democracy in Pakistan.