SOROOR AHMED reviews the role of dictators in Pak politics and says that both major political parties there owe their existence to the dictatorial regimes there.
Now with Pervez Musharraf gone Pakistan’s another tryst with democracy begins. This is a unique situation when both the two leading parties are, one way or the other, sharing power. In some way a parallel can be drawn with India where the Congress and BJP are equally powerful but rely on different sets of regional parties to come to power. But India does not owe this emergence of two-party system to any army rule as Pakistan does.
The time, however, has come to analyse the history of democracy in Pakistan in a totally different way. For a moment imagine the situation in that country had there been no military intervention – perhaps the Peoples Party of Pakistan (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League (PML) would never have been there.
Howsoever democratic the Bhuttos may sound, the fact is that they owe their existence to none else but dictator Ayub Khan, who ruled for about 11 years (1958-69) in that country. Ayub’s own experiment with the so-called basic democracy did not click, though his outfit managed to beat Fatima Jinnah (Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s sister) in the election held in late 1964, months before the 1965 war with India. It was Ayub, who handpicked, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – then in his early 30s – and groomed and promoted him. He went on to become a senior minister, though he later ‘betrayed’ his master. Bhutto then formed his own party, the PPP in 1967, and ruled Pakistan between 1972 and 1977 as a ‘democratically elected dictator’ of that country. True Bhutto later developed strong differences with the Field Marshal Ayub Khan, especially after the Tashkent Agreement with India (January 11, 1966), the fact is that had there been no military rule he would not have reached this position.
Similarly the PML of the present form would never have been in the picture had there been no military takeover in 1977 by General Zia-ul-Huque, still considered by objective historians to be Pakistan’s best bet in the period between 1977 and 1988 when he ultimately died in a plane crash on August 17. Most people see American hand in that as he was no more needed after the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, a few months before that incident. A successful and canny Zia, in the long run, would have become a headache for the West too, they feared.
Nawaz Sharif owes his existence to General Zia-ul-Huque, who earlier tried to win over the Pakistan National Alliance, a seven-party conglomeration of religious and secular parties, which launched an agitation against the then Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The third general to rule Pakistan for a while, Pervez Musharraf, did not succeed in one way. He failed to groom a personality like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif. He broke the PML to float his own breakaway party, which in the last February 18 election could get 23 per cent votes. It is interesting to note that Ayub Khan, Zia and Musharraf used the party having Muslim League as name to promote their own agenda. PPP came into existence in the later days of Ayub rule.
While both Ayub and Zia managed to rule for 11 years each, Musharraf’s innings ended in nine years. For a brief period (about a fortnight) General Iskander Mirza also ruled Pakistan before being dethroned in 1958 by Ayub Khan. Ayub incidentally was also succeeded by a General, Yahya Khan, who had the credit of holding a free and fair election, which ironically led to the dismemberment of Pakistan.
Pakistan’s experiment with democracy is unique in many ways. The only party, which did not owe its existence to any general and which managed to come very near to power was the Awami League. But this party went over to rule an independent nation, Bangladesh, rather than Pakistan.
Apart from Awami League other religious and secular parties, which slogged and worked throughout among the masses and which owed nothing to generals failed to get the due recognition. Though these religious and secular parties at one point of time or the other did side with the General of the time yet they failed to come to power on their own because their leaders refused to become Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif.
Musharraf’s case is unique in another way. Not only he failed to leave behind his own man, his coming to power was not at all greeted by the common masses. In fact his exit was. When Ayub Khan took over he was welcomed by a large section of Pakistanis, especially those living in the then West Pakistan, because it ended the political uncertainty in that country. Similarly Zia’s military intervention in July 1977 was enthusiastically celebrated by a large section of people as Pakistan was in total turmoil since March 7 because of thoroughly rigged election conducted by the then Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Musharraf took over when he was removed by Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif while returning from the tour of Sri Lanka. So he staged a military coup just for his own survival and there were no cheers in the streets of Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi or Peshawar.
While so much is written about the democracy in the West the truth is that many such democracies have dictatorial origin. The same thing is happening even today in Europe. Vladimir Putin may be a democratically-elected President and now Prime Minister but who is not aware that till a couple of decades back he was a top official of dreaded secret service (KGB) of totalitarian and anti-democratic Soviet Union. Similar is the case with Israel, where almost all the Prime Ministers are former Generals, Air Marshals or Admirals who later floated their own parties or joined politics.
In a relatively small country like Pakistan where the bogey of external aggression can be easily whipped up army is bound to emerge as the strongest institution. Rightly or wrongly the generals-turned-rulers fully capitalized on the fear of big countries of the region like Soviet Union or India. Since the army-civilian ratio there is not like that in India there is an inherent scope in Pakistan for more military role than its eastern democratic neighbour.
What is strange in Pakistan is that in many aspects generals ruled more democratically than the democratically elected politicians. While Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, though an elected leader, ruled like a martial law administrator and at times gagged the Press there was relatively greater freedom to media, in most of the General Zia’s rule. General Musharraf followed Zia’s policy and most of the time allowed the Press to function freely.
While Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rigged the election held under him in March 1977 General Yahya Khan, for all his faults, conducted the first free and fair election of that country seven years before. It is quite other thing that it led to the creation of Bangladesh. Similarly Musharraf’s February 18 election was largely free from any malpractices.
For those parties of Pakistan, which never came to power on their own there is a point to ponder. Is military rule necessary for their earlier consolidation? The religious parties, in particular, got this opportunity for a few months during the early days of General Zia but soon they disintegrated themselves.
The irony is that today nobody is appreciating them. Instead the Press, particularly of the West, is all praise for the parties which owe their existence to the military rulers.