New National Assembly: Expectations & challenges

THE 13th National Assembly took the oath on Monday in an ambience thick with people’s hopes and expectations, but, ironically, juxtaposed against equally daunting challenges that it inherits from eight long years of misrule and poor governance. Given the all-pervasive hopelessness that had gripped the national political landscape for so long, it indeed is the beginning and the first step on a new journey. It appears to be marking the watershed that clearly separates a contentious political past from a future full of hopefulness and political positivism. If the would-be treasury leaders are upbeat because their victory has vindicated their struggle for democracy, the would-be leadership on the other side of the divide has promised to shun the highly polarized past and to act as a constructive parliamentary opposition. Even when the country is mired in multiple troubles, ranging from terrorism-bred insecurity to high inflation and painful energy deficits, the very sight of newly elected members taking oath has dramatically lifted the national spirit. The oath-taking in the teak-panelled circular chamber of the National Assembly was a heart warming and satisfying spectacle. As they say well begun is half done, but in this case that half which has to be done in the weeks and months to come is formidable. It will test the moral and political strength of the emerging political leadership. The challenges that the new assembly would be confronted with are both procedural and substantive. Apart from electing its presiding officers, it has to elect the prime minister, a task which presently appears to be problematic but there is no reason why it would not be resolved sooner than later. The cabinet formation too is almost settled, in that the PML (N) will join it but not some of its stalwarts like Makhdoom Javed Hashmi and Chaudhry Nisar Ali who are not ready to take oath from President Pervez Musharraf. However, restoration of deposed judges, the pattern of equation between the presidency and parliament, the new government’s policy and plans to tackle the growing menace of terrorism, which would require a review of its co-operative alliance with the West, and grappling with the economic situation are the substantive challenges that PPP-PML(N)-ANP coalition would have to deal with.
Since the coalition would have no serious difficulty in mustering two-thirds majority to enable it to amend the Constitution, the first two challenges would not be impossible to meet, but the next two would demand patience, hard work and innovations. Therefore, there is the danger that a perception may come to obtain that the new leaders have ‘pocketed’ the government and the ministries but have done nothing to provide security and give economic relief to the people at large. Of the new legislators who took oath on Monday, 119 are those who have been elected to the National Assembly for the first time, the rest of them being old timers. But even when about two-thirds have come back, it is the time for the new National Assembly to completely disown its inheritance from its predecessor. The 12th National Assembly did complete its full tenure, which is a highly misplaced credit, because it was kept alive while it was doing practically more than waiting to re-elect Pervez Musharraf. Had there been snap elections two years earlier, the political chaos that permeated in the last year or so would not have been there. Another thing that the new assembly should try not to inherit is a partial Speakership. The outgoing Speaker, Amir Hussain, who was twice subjected to a vote of no-confidence, a rare distinction in parliamentary history, would stand out as one of the most controversial presiding officers.




Reports on disaster

As US Vice President Dick Cheney landed secretly in Baghdad yesterday at the start of a ten-day trip to the region, which will include a visit to the Kingdom, three international reports were published ahead of the fifth anniversary of the disastrous US-led invasion. The International Red Cross reports that 40 percent of Iraqis are living on less than a dollar a day, the UN measure of extreme poverty. It also says that most of the population is deprived of clean water, proper sanitation and reliable power. It further notes with deep concern that the educational system has collapsed and that the health service is in an even worst state. There are insufficient qualified medical personnel, equipment and drugs which are needed to treat the injured who are taken daily to hospitals as a result of terror attacks. Amnesty International in its report concludes that while security may have improved in recent months, human rights abuses are almost as bad as under Saddam’s regime. Police and security officials have been reliably implicated in widespread torture and murder but, says Amnesty, no one has been brought to trial and worse, the American occupation forces seem content with this situation. The one high-profile prosecution of a senior Health Ministry official collapsed last month for lack of evidence - though it is widely assumed that key prosecution witnesses were intimidated into withdrawing their testimony.
The third report, based on a poll of 2,000 Iraqis commissioned by four international media organizations, including ABC and the BBC, concludes that Iraqis do feel that the security situation is improving and as a result are becoming more optimistic. In one way this last poll has some validity, since it is the latest in a series conducted since the US-led invasion. Yet the findings are hardly surprising. Though the terror continues, its scope has abated. Al-Qaeda, while far from beaten, is somewhat in the shadows and thanks to Iran’s intervention, most of the radical Shiite militias have ceased their nightly butchery of Sunnis, which provoked reprisals which were no less bloody. It is thus hardly surprising that Iraqis, with their fund of resilience, are feeling more positive about their future. If Cheney and his chief seek to claim any credit for this improvement, thanks to the much-touted surge, they should also admit that it was their crass lack of post-invasion planning that pushed and kicked an advanced and stable country back into the Dark Ages. The big US contractors who dreamed of multibillion-dollar contracts to rebuild the shattered Iraqi infrastructure that US arms destroyed have long since quit. Thus the work of restoring regular power and clean water merely creeps on. And the national unity government led by Nuri Al-Maliki continues to struggle to find any unity, let alone do much governing. The real improvements have nearly all been achieved by ordinary Iraqis, despite their fumbling government. If these people can prevail, even in the chaos Bush and Cheney brought them, how much better will they do when peace finally returns?

—Arab News