Democracy in crisis

IT DOES not speak very highly of the democratic credentials of Pakistan’s largest political party when none outside the traditional leadership clan is deemed fit to head it. Pakistan’s political fabric is immature and the Bhutto name still full of charismatic lure, but clearly Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s role as the new party chairman owes only to his DNA, and what personal tutelage he might have received in person from his late mother. However, politics being the art of the doable, aided in no small measure by on-the-job training that so many party loyalists have spent their lives attaining, surely it would have been more prudent and fair to pass the mantle to one of those serving it since the days of the late Zulfi Bhutto. That so especially considering the sweat and blood they have exchanged for what they have learnt. And that is not the only scar on Pakistan’s efforts to regain political sanity following BB’s passing. Now that her party has regrouped and demanded the election schedule be adhered to, the presidency and the King’s Party have suddenly been taken aback, with the opposition now demanding the political slug and the establishment looking to buy time. Of course, President Musharraf’s worries are not lessened by the opposition threat of creating further rumpus if they are deprived of what they see as a sudden sympathy vote to the top, something on the lines of the rejuvenated Congress Party in India following Rajiv Gandhi’s gruesome murder. Such initiatives may seem lacking grace, but politics in the heart of the Third World was never about niceties.
Add to the above the establishment embarrassment and frustration over its version of Benazir’s last moments proving hollow and wrong, and one gets an idea about how strong the cocktail lying before the president really is. Not forgetting the rioting of recent days, Musharraf’s men find themselves, mostly of their own doing, in the unenviable position of having to do yet another fine balancing act. And failure may mean things getting a lot worse than the recent past. The key to maintaining equilibrium the calm, now more than ever, is for the government to move away from its usual high-handed approach and go for a consensus vote, taking all stakeholders on board before announcing the final verdict. Already the BB tragedy has knocked sense into the opposition and pushed it closer. The government is advised to adopt the same strategy — making sure the decision on the vote is taken with everybody in confidence. Failure to do so may not just generate further ill will for the establishment, but bring more death and destruction to the country. And since the government can not plead ignorance about the storm brewing, the burden of command dictates it will be held responsible if its firmest belief that only those in power now know the way forward makes for more bad news.


 

Year of violence

HISTORY will record 2007 as the year when the high hopes at the dawning of a new century finally succumbed to reality. It has been a year of continuing or increasing violence around the world and of the gathering storm clouds of economic recession. For the Middle East, after the Palestinian partition by the Hamas takeover in Gaza, the embers of a Middle East peace settlement were fanned into a weak flame at Annapolis. The Abbas administration once again has Israeli negotiators to talk to, but is already being exposed to the time-honored Israeli tactics of provocation with an eye to wrecking even those tentative talks. Expanding illegal settlements around Jerusalem, despite a commitment not to, is an outrage which the rest of the world watches but remains silent about. In Afghanistan, the Taleban fight continues. NATO forces, operating under a UN mandate, have not made the full military commitment that is required, and the result has been that the insurgents are becoming bolder. Worse, the international community has still not handed over much of the aid it has promised so the Karzai administration which is struggling to deliver jobs and economic growth. In Iraq, the realization by Sunni tribes that their Al-Qaeda allies had no interest in the welfare of Iraqis has led to a dramatic rejection of terrorism. Meanwhile Iran, fearing a partitioned and unstable neighbor, reined in the Shiite militias in Iraq. The effect of that has been to make it seem as if Bush’s “surge” is working. But with the Maliki government still struggling to function coherently and US troop withdrawals already under way, the current decrease in violence looks discouragingly temporary. In addition, Turkish raids in Northern Iraq may light a dangerous new fuse in a once-stable part of the country.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program eased with the US intelligent assessment that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons plans four years ago. But as the old year closed, the US’ other nuclear challenger, North Korea, was failing to deliver on its decommissioning promises. In the Sudan nothing got better. The coalition government resulting from the peace deal with the south seemed to be falling apart and Darfur remained a humanitarian and political disaster with crimes being committed by all. The overwhelmed AU peacekeeping contingent has been reinforced by an alarmingly ill-equipped and muddled UN force. Pakistan, meanwhile, teeters on the brink of chaos following the Bhutto assassination. No one benefits from this murder than bigots and lords of misrule. Finally, triggered by greedy US mortgage companies, worldwide recession looms as market confidence dwindles after a long, heady boom. Potentially radical changes in both the economic and physical climate seem certain with rough times ahead. It is thus with more than usual fervor — and hope — that we wish each other a happy new year.

—Arab News