This 2:53 pm UK Time. I am sitting right now in front of the Pakistani Embassy in where the protest is going on. There are about 200+ people here. A while back a gentleman was singing a very beautiful “nazm”"Aisay dustoor ko mein nahin ma’anta” and the rest of the crowd was chanting with him. Local leaders are addressing the gathering. There is great sense of excitement. However, I am also thinking that somehow this is inadequate. We need to do more. When we talk about the people of Pakistan and on behalf of people of Pakistan, I keep on thinking as to where those people are? The majority of 160 million or so Pakistanis are still silent, as always.

No matter what we do here, and what we say, Pakistan will not get democracy unles Pakistanis–a vast majority of us–demand democracy. Where are the people???

As the imformation blockade continues in Pakistan, thoughts are racing through my mind at the speed of light. I will try to pen more of my thoughts on this blog in the coming days. Ahmad Faraz has written the following about my country…

Meri bustee say paray bhi meray dushmun hongay    (There might be my enemies away from my land…)

Per yahan kub koi aghyaar ka lushkar utra                   (But when did a foreign army invade here….)

A’ashna haath hi aksur meri janab lupkay                       (It always familiar hands that attacked me…)

Meray seenay mein humaisha mera khunjar utra…        (It was always my own knife that tore through my chest…)

I leave you with Faiz’s famous poem “Hum Daikhain Gay” and its video depiction adopted from Adil Najam’s All Things Pakistan that comes to mind as a very apt representation of the present circumstances…

Signing off Now.

Athar Osama

P.S. I have a confession to make to UPP audience. I’ve been kept away from UPP for the last month or so because of some domestic issues. I intend to return to our Story of Pakistan as soon as I can–hopefully within a week or so. The battle for constitutional rights of Pakistanis must go on and is never ending. Our country needs us today more than ever before.

Pakistanis are joining hands to protest the recent actions of the Military Regime. They’re defying section 144 in Pakistan and holding protests in front of Pakistani Embassies around the world. This is all very necessary, but is also perhaps inadequate. Not only are our numbers inadequate but what we’re trying to do now is perhaps too little, too late.

What are we–the educated Pakistanis–to do? How are we to bring other Pakistanis along? Where are all the Pakistanis, in whose name we are demanding the restoration of democracy? These are questions that confuse us all and beg a thoughtful consideration. For example:

- What is the real cause of this emergency - Judicial activism or religious extremism?

- How should Pakistanis abroad react? Should we call attention of our host governments towards situation in Pakistan? Should we force them to take sides even at a detriment to Pakistan, as a whole?

- What can we do, other than protesting, in the short, medium, and long-run to promote democracy and constitutional rule in Pakistan?

- Can majority of the Pakistanis shed aside their differences and agree on a single point agenda for their country?

- How do we engage with the political leadership of our country? How do we, using the principles of Understanding Pakistan Project or others, engage with other Pakistanis?

A journey of thousand years begins with the first step and we must start taking our first steps now.

I believe that we need to go farther than we’ve ever gone before. The present crisis demands this. If we don’t act today, we may not get an opportunity to act for a decade.

I’ve often said that the parha-likha professionals of Pakistan–all of us–would have to throw away our complacency and get into the political field.

Understanding Pakistan Project is proposing a series of informal coffee meetings/chats to discuss the situation and strategize. This could, if the group agrees, launch one or more Understanding Pakistan Activism Committees that would attempt to take on the challenging of doing something — rather than merely reflecting.

The inaugural meeting is being held at a Convenient Starbucks in Central London on the coming Saturday (To be Announced to those who RSVP). Similar Meetings are planned in KHI, LHR, ISB in a couple of weeks (again RSVP here).

Please visit the event website on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7161796721) and RSVP if you’re interested in attending or holding a similar event in your own locality. Please also consider passing on this information to others around you.

Come join us, hear and be heard, and join hands with others to begin the necessary process of grass roots political reform in Pakistan.

If there ever was time for action, it is now and here.

Pakistan Zinadabad

Published in Dawn.com (October 5, 2007) 

“Be patient now, my soul; thou hast endured much worse than this.” –– Odysseus

UNTIL now I never truly grasped the meaning of the Lawrence College motto, ‘Never give in’. When the sky is bright and the heavens are smiling these words mean nothing. They mean something when one is down and out, flattened by circumstances, the last shreds of hope leaving one’s heart.

Then to be able to hold up one’s head and look into the distance with firm eyes is the true test of manliness (or womanliness for that matter). Our circumstances are not promising. Indeed, the entire nation seems depressed. Abandoned to fools and knaves, sold to the United States and therefore not our own masters.

But other countries have undergone much worse. If Vietnam be too distant a memory, there are countries in Africa which have suffered genocide. Afghanistan next door has been destroyed by decades of strife and war. In Iraq hundreds of thousands have died since the American invasion. Millions have been uprooted from their homes. Truly, few hells are worse than those paved with American good intentions.

The Yanks mean well by us too. God help us. About the next army chief, Gen Kiani, it is being said that the Yanks are quite happy to work with him. What a certificate of commendation. Our problem, or at least one of our problems, is the Yank connection. And here we are putting new buckles on it and giving it a fresh coat of paint.

Anyway, what if the high hopes of this just-gone-by summer of discontent appear to have been dashed to the ground? What if the corridors of power remain packed with the same self-serving circus performers? What if the changes armchair revolutionists dreamed of have not come to pass? Progress has still been made and anyone who says we are where we were has not got the measure of things.

The citadels of power stand shaken by the events of this spring and summer. The army has felt the heat too, some of its confidence ebbing away. Is the chastening of authority, never before challenged in this manner, a small achievement?

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Published in DAWN, Oct. 7, 2007

SOME 59-odd years ago, Mussalman leader Abul Kalam Azad, a genuine true maulana, a profoundly educated man, who habitually and openly imbibed of that God-given fine malt drink and made no bones about it, was heard to murmur one balmy evening, `Ummmm, but we must not forget that India is a country whereas Pakistan is an experiment.’

It is truly amazing, and we must thank the Almighty and also founder-maker Mohammad Ali Jinnah, that despite the best efforts of all who have ruled over the past 60 tumultuous years, the experiment, though a failure, still exists in some sort of retarded embryonic form.

President General Pervez Musharraf, whilst discoursing last week before an audience assembled to hear him elaborate on Erra how successfully (truly) Pakistan dealt with the 2005 earthquake, sent out a message to the members of Pakistan’s civil society who tend to criticise and to moan and groan about the country’s lot, that they should not be pessimists, that they should not despair and not spread despondency. As exhorted friend Pundit Ayaz Amir wrote in this space last Friday — `Never say die.’

We must at least congratulate ourselves that we are better than many other lands of our ilk — we at least do not eat each other, we may kill and maim but we stop there. Our president merely tried to humiliate his Chief Justice and has ended up ruing the day. In some countries in the Third World chief justices are often last seen or heard of when the president or king is having his breakfast. After that, they simply disappear.

Much praise must be rendered to Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry who very correctly has desisted from presiding over the benches adjudging the petitions involving the president and his legitimacy to stand for re-election. And more praise to him for having his priorities right — he is worried about the fate of the `disappeared’, the missing citizens of Pakistan casually picked up and either hidden away or killed by our fearsome `agencies’. More power to his elbow!

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[Editor’s Note: This article was written by Mr. Muneer A. Malik in the heydays of the Presidential Reference against CJP. Its context, therefore, is different from the current Presidential Elections. However, given the fact that the Lawyers’ Movement has now extended to the Presidential Election, some of the arguments here are worth revisiting, especially, that there is nothing political or–depending upon how you see it–everything political about this movement. Mr. Malik basically argues, and rightly so, that the country’s politics and the fate of its Constitution are too precious to be left for others to decide and that everyone of us “has a dog in this fight”…]
THE reference against the Chief Justice has placed government spokesmen in a tricky spot. Early on, they realised that a direct attack against the Chief Justice would be imprudent. It would contradict their stated position that the president had simply put certain material about the Chief Justice before the Supreme Judicial Council for assessment and determination, and that the government was entirely neutral in the matter. How then would the government go on the offensive?

It was Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani, that fearless defender of downtrodden dictatorships, who arrived at an ingenious solution. Why not target the lawyers instead? After all, the whole fuss had been created by the bar associations (albeit fuelled by the media). If the legal community could somehow be discredited, the media would lose interest and the opposition parties would get distracted by other issues.

Unfortunately, the resultant government-generated propaganda aimed at discrediting the legal community has been blindly adopted by some in the ostensibly independent media. Even reputed columnists of this paper have chosen to attack the acts of the protesting advocates rather than the cause of these protests.

While devoting all its energy to the single-minded defence of the Chief Justice, the legal community neglected to explain its own actions to the public and left itself open to attack. This article aims at remedying that failure.

The first charge against the bar associations is that they have unduly politicised an issue that should, more properly, be a subject of pure constitutional and judicial debate. Let there be no doubt on this score; our struggle is political to the core.Our struggle is about the independence of the judiciary and the preservation of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. These are not arcane legal issues to be dryly debated in closed courtrooms. They are issues that affect the lives of every single Pakistani.

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ON the issue of Pakistan’s democracy and whether it is still in transition, there are three distinct views. The view from the GHQ is that democracy is a form of government necessary to run a country, but when the country is about to become a failed state then democracy takes a backseat. What comes first is the survival of the country and its ability to serve its citizens.

No one can argue with this reasoning except that it has been raised too often and supported only by one institution. The question we should be asking instead is: can democracy guarantee Pakistan’s strength and development or does it need to be tailored to first ensure Pakistan’s integrity and stability?

The second view is held by the political parties, especially those which are not in government or have not been able to form a government due to the failure of their negotiations with the military. Their view is that Pakistan has never been a democracy in the real sense of the word. Whenever a prime minister tried to act independently and in accordance with the Constitution, he or she was sent home packing. More significantly, the exit of such prime ministers was managed not through an election but by other means.

The third view is a middle ground between these two extremes and acknowledges that there has been steady progress in the restoration of democracy in Pakistan since the military took over the country in October 1999 — but that this is not enough. If Pakistan is to continue to make progress on the road to democracy, a lot more must be done such as establishing the complete supremacy of elected institutions over the institutions of state, symbolised by separation of the two offices held by the president.

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Starting with this first issue, PILDAT will circulate a weekly, and if required, more frequent Election Monitor to update the Citizens of Pakistan, Media and International Community about the Presidential and General Elections in Pakistan. The Issue 1 of the Election Monitor is devoted to assessing the prospects of the upcoming Presidential Election as a free and fair exercise. This issue of Election Monitor tries to explore the answer to the crucial question. What are the prospects for this crucial Presidential election to be free and fair? Following are some of the indicators which may shed some light on what kind of Presidential Election one may expect on October 6, 2007.

Generally Presidential Election is not of critical importance in a Parliamentary Democracy – the system Pakistan espouses at least on paper. But given the special nature of the current political context and the explicit association of the incumbent President / Chief of Army Staff to the current ruling coalition, the upcoming Presidential election holds the key to the coming General Election. The outcome of the Presidential Election will, to a large measure, determine the result of the General Election – which can be held latest by February 2008. The election of Gen. Pervez Musharraf for a new 5-year term as President will send a clear message to the general electorate that in a patronage-based society like Pakistan, only a pro-Musharraf parliamentarian will have any chance to serve his/her electors while others in the opposition will not be able to ensure development, jobs, protection from state high-handedness, etc., for their constituents. That explains the unique significance of this Presidential Election in Pakistan which is scheduled for October 6, 2007 and this also explains why there were persistent suggestions to hold General Election ahead of Presidential Election.

[With that, here are some of the reasons why the upcoming Presidential Elections may or may not be “free and fair” as is necessary for a genuine transition from military to civilian rule…]

1.  Media is Generally Free and Vibrant: Both electronic and print media are generally free, vibrant and, at times, extremely critical of the Government. Despite reports that the Government resorts to behind-the-scene strong-arm tactics to pressurise owners, publishers, editors and reporters, the political debate in the media is generally open and apparently unrestrained.

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[Note: While this editorial was being written, Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed has announced his candidacy for the President of Pakistan as a consensus candidate of the judicial community. If nothing else, this makes a bold and daring statement that men of principle are still willing to take on the mighty and the uniformed. A man of integrity and principles, we wish Justice Wajihuddin best of luck of luck in his endeavor - Ed.] 

With the date for the Presidential Elections now being announced for Oct 6, 2007, the year-long speculation about whether or not General Musharraf will (or will be able to) seek another term in office is coming to an end. Barring any fresh legal or political challenges which are likely, but not certain, Presidential Elections WILL be held on Oct 6, 2007 and in all likelihood, General Musharraf, in violation of the Constitution of Pakistan, WILL still be holding another “office of profit”, namely, his position as Chief of Army Staff at the time of his re-election.

Whether or not he will give up his uniform after–and only if–he is re-elected as President of Pakistan for a second term is really immaterial. Having used every potential trick under his sleeve to first usurp power from its rightful owners–the people of Pakistan and their democtracally elected representatives–and then legimitize his rule through farce–and perhaps rigged–Presidential Referendum and then a democratic facade, the General is now well on his way to using his uniform to threaten, bully, and harrass all his political opponents and to-be defectors from his own party–but most importantly, the people of Pakistan–to “elect” him to office once again.

If one decides to discount the increasingly irritated and hostile public opinion, as evidenced by the Lawyer’s Movement earlier this year, and the increasingly independent Supreme Court as a result, the election of the President on October 6th seems like a foregone conclusion.  It would, however, be rather unwise and shortsighted to discount these recent developments so easily. In this Special Edition of Understanding Pakistan, we look at the Politics of Wardi in the lead up to the proposed Presidential Elections in October 2007. More specifically:

• Justice (Retd) Wajihuddin Ahmed, one of the few honorable Justices of the Supreme Court of Pakistan who refused to take an oath of allegiance under General Musharraf’s Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and chose to retire instead, in article written in May 2007, talks about the Constitutional Position on Presidential Elections. While  some of what Justice Ahmed speculates about is now established reality, his article is refreshing as it is informative about the issues that confront our Supreme Court today… 
• Salman Akram Raja, an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, takes a look at the issues involved in the election of the Incumbant and the challenges that Supreme Court faces in the ongoing legal battle today. The author presents an interesting set of legal arguments including some legal precedence by this very Court that may have restricted the options that the Court now has to rule against the dual office of the President….
• Syed Sharifuddin, a Constitutional Advisor to the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, again addressing the issue of General Musharraf’s re-election brings to bear some international legal practice and evidence to the question. It engages in an interesting legal jugglery to, on the one hand, encourage the current regime to follow the Constitution and stand-down and, on the other hand, to cajole them into avoiding adopting extra-legal means to (once again) subvert the Constitution….
• Athar Osama, in a “History of Failure: The Rise and Fall of Military “Experiment” in Pakistan” argues against the futility of electing a President in Uniform and carrying on with the painful and useless exercise of trying to create a better democracy by practicsing dictatorship–a process whose greatest affectees are the Pakistani people themselves…

Before we provide Understanding Pakistan’s own assessment of the likely Politics of Wardi, we leave you with this somewhat humorous but mostly ironic parody of General Musharraf’s insistence on clinging onto his Khakis. One particular thing that caught my eye and attention as I watched this was a placard that said: “Apne Mulk ko Fatah Kerna Bund Kero”

Returning back to our own analysis, we believe that the potential challenges to the President’s Election can come from four different sources, namely, legal, political, people, and institutional (the army). We describe each in more detail and rate these according to their likelihood and impact.

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In October 1999, when General Musharraf came to power in a coup and declared himself the Chief Executive of the country, he was met by a silent nod of approval by his 150 million compatriots. He charted a six point agenda that included broad-based accountability of those who had plundered the country’s wealth and political reforms that would rid the country of the shackles of “professional” politicians–which many of us, ordinary citizens, thought was a euphemism for a mix of political and land-reforms aimed at weakening, if not eliminating, the hold of feudal and family dynasties from the country.

I, for one, like many of my compatriots was willing to give the General a chance. The resolve that Musharraf showed upfront won him kudos and inspired a hope–a very naive hope, though–that when the General finishes his Supreme Court mandated 3-year tenure, Pakistan would be in a much better position to develop true sustainable democracy than before.

Then something predictable–something that I had not foreseen then–happened. Musharraf regime took a course that is far too similar to the 2 or 3 (depending upon how you see it) military regimes in the past. It is important to look at and understand this general pattern because I think it makes a very important point that many of us, Pakistanis, have not fully understood and assimilated.

Today, as Musharraf seeks to have himself elected for a second term, it is useful to ask a question: Is military rule the solution to Pakistan’s problems? Is Musharraf any different than his predecessor generals? Answering these questions is critical to charting a new course of democracy in Pakistan for it will address and counter the argument at the very center of the ongoing political saga and the impending presidential elections in Pakistan. 
In this article, I would demonstrate, I hope, that military dictatorship in Pakistan’s context has repeatedly proved itself to be incapable of either providing sustainable and stable governance or for solving the country’s long-term problems.

Therefore, when military generals force the civilian rulers out on the pretext that the latter have played havoc with the governance in the country and that they, and only they, can set things right, that makes a seriously questionable claim given the experience of 33-year military rule in Pakistan.

I will argue that there is a clear “pattern of failure” associated with a military regime that can be divided into three phases.

In the first phase, the regime comes to power and seeks legitimacy for it by making promises of cleaning up the mess and announcing a reform agenda. By the time the second phase begins, the regime is losing steam, legitimacy has remained elusive, and demands for return to civil rule are beginning to appear. This leads to creating a civilian face for the regime. The third phase really sees the crumbling of the artificial civilian order and last-ditch attempts by the regime to hang onto power.   (more…)

MUCH has been said and more is likely to be said about the implications and connotations of the constitutional provisions germane to the forthcoming presidential election. The purpose here is to highlight cognate aspects here.

The official version on the subject is simple. They say that, in accordance with Article 41(7) of the Constitution, the presidential term, upon relinquishment of the office of the chief executive by the present incumbent, began on November 16, 2002, and would end on November 15, 2007. Article 41(7), as substituted by the Legal Framework Order, 2002 (LFO), with its proviso inserted by the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) act, is as reproduced below:

“(7) The Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

(a) shall relinquish the office of Chief Executive on such day as he may determine in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan of 12th May, 2000; and

(b) having received the democratic mandate to serve the nation as President of Pakistan for a period of five years shall, on relinquishing the office of the Chief Executive, notwithstanding anything contained in this Article or Article 43 or any other provision of the Constitution or any other law for the time being in force, assume the office of President of Pakistan forthwith and shall hold office for a term of five years under the Constitution, and Article 44 and other provisions of the Constitution shall apply accordingly:

Provided that Paragraph (d) of clause (1) of Article 63 shall become operative on and from the 31st day of December, 2003.”

These being the parameters of the current presidential term, the proponents of the official point of view rely on Article 41(4) of the Constitution to suggest that the ensuing presidential election having been postulated by the Constitution to be held not earlier than 60 days but not later than 30 days before the expiration of the term of the president in office, must take place within the narrow corridor of September 15, 2007, and October 15, 2007. Article 41(4) of the Constitution (continuing unchanged since the inception of the Constitution in 1973) is this:

“(4)Election to the office of President shall be held not earlier than sixty days and not later than thirty days before the expiration of the term of the President in office:

Provided that, if the election cannot be held within the period aforesaid because the National Assembly is dissolved, it shall be held within thirty days of the general election to the Assembly.”

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