Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 35-36

The Subcontinent

A Government Survives in Pakistan, While a Government Falls in India

By M.M. Ali

Uncertainty is the only certainty in the contemporary political affairs of India and Pakistan. In the first week of December, Indian Prime Minister I.K. Gujral had to resign because he had headed a precarious coalition, put together hurriedly to keep out the Hindu nationalist BJP party, and he no longer commanded majority support in the lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha. Gujral had depended on backing from the Congress Party, India's second largest, for his political survival and that was withdrawn by Sita Ram Kesri, the Congress Party chief. This was a replay of what had happened to Gujral's predecessor, Dev Gowda.

To the west, Pakistan's veteran prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, has just survived a constitutional crisis of his own, although his party, the Muslim League, enjoys a safe majority in the National Assembly.

He locked horns with President Farooq Ahmed Leghari, an appointee of Sharif's predecessor and bitter rival, Benazir Bhutto. Outmaneuvered, Leghari resigned and issued a bitter statement. Pakistan's new acting president has ousted Sharif's other bitter foe, Supreme Court Chief Justice Syed Sajjad Ali Shah, and replaced him with a new acting chief justice.

Sharif therefore staked his all in conducting two political battles simultaneously and won both, at least for the time being. After a month of the highest tension in Islamabad, the changes were achieved in a matter of hours with the decisive intervention of Gen. Jehangir Karamat, Pakistan's army chief of staff, because Leghari was reportedly about ready to fire Sharif.

The Crisis in Delhi

Gujral's troubles were not of his making. He was a victim of a power play that started with a Congress Party debacle in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), heartland of the Hindi-belt and the home ground of many leaders vying for the highest national office in New Delhi.

It started when the ruling coalition of Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh lost its majority when several Congress members crossed the floor to join the opposition. In a bid to stave off formation of a new UP state government by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress Party leader Sita Ram Kesri rushed to Delhi and asked Indian Prime Minister Gujral to recommend suspension of the UP Assembly and imposition of the President's Rule. However, Indian President K.R. Narayanan declined to oblige Gujral.

At this juncture findings by the government's Jain Commission were leaked that reflected gravely on a party in Gujral's coalition, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK). The commission blamed security laxness by the DMK in Tamil Nadu state, where it was in power in 1991, for the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that year.

Kesri then demanded that Gujral expel the DMK from his governing coalition and threatened to withdraw Congress support from the United Front coalition in Delhi. Gujral refused and decided instead to resign and call for fresh elections.

From day one everybody knew that the United Front (UF) was just that—a front. It was put together to keep the BJP from forming a central government. In fact the UF's 13 parties were going in 13 different directions and Gujral had been brought in only to keep the UF intact while the Congress Party pulled the strings. Congress, however, had supported Gujral's UF in the Sabha, but it did not join his government.

The one party that appears to have gained from the pandemonium in Delhi is the BJP, which might make further gains if elections were held tomorrow.

Although Kesri's and Indian Defense Minister Mulayam Singh's efforts to put together yet another UF failed, the BJP has shown no great interest in forming a government itself at this time. As a matter of fact it had resigned itself to waiting for the next regular elections in the year 2000.

Finding no one in a position to form a government, President Narayanan has ordered new elections within 90 days. However, even this drastic measure may not result in the formation of a solid government.

The truth about Indian politics is that no matter how the Congress and the splinter left-wing groups may try, they can only delay but cannot prevent the extremist BJP from attaining power, probably by the opening years of the 21st century. In spite of its own internal problems and leadership conflicts, BJP is still the most organized party and it represents the ethos of the Hindu nation, which is the essence of India.

It is now evident that as long as the Congress Party remained unchallenged, "the largest democracy on earth" worked well. However, since the Congress Party's control over the Indian electorate has declined, India's claim to be a secular democracy seems increasingly in question.

In fact, political instability likely will continue in India until a single party gains a majority in the Lokh Sabha. That single party is not likely to be the Congress or any other moderate group in the foreseeable future. Coalition governments formed by combining small parties will not provide a lasting solution to the more serious problems inherent within India's present system.

It is sad that the administration of President Bill Clinton has waited until now to pay serious attention to South Asia. As a result, President Clinton's planned February 1998 visit to the subcontinent is likely, for good reasons, to be postponed.

Swift Actions in Pakistan

On Feb. 4, l997, when Mian Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League was elected to power with a thumping majority in the National Assembly, it should have been clear to everyone, including President Farooq Ahmed Leghari, an appointee of Benazir Bhutto, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, another Bhutto protegé, that Sharif would take steps to consolidate his political position and would not let anyone derail his government before the end of his five-year elected term, as had happened to him once earlier. All he needed to do to stay in power was keep the military in good humor and on his side. The developments of Dec. 2, when Leghari quit and Shah was ousted, have shown that Sharif had done his homework this time.

The Backdrop

The drama started rather auspiciously when Sharif's Muslim League Party captured a two-thirds majority in the elections held in February 1997 after the dismissal of Bhutto's People's Party government on charges of corruption and mismanagement. Twice with Bhutto and once with Sharif, Pakistani presidents had used the authority vested in them through the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution and prematurely dismissed the elected governments.

Therefore, there was consensus between Bhutto and Sharif that the Eighth Amendment had to be repealed. This was done summarily by Sharif in 1997 and was endorsed by Bhutto, who was now in the opposition. Even after the curtailing of the president's authority to dismiss governments, no bill could become a law without the signature of the president, but this was considered a mere formality.

However, President Leghari had other ideas, which brought him into direct conflict with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and to an ignominious end of his term.

Unfortunately, in winning his battles with the president and the chief justice, Prime Minister Sharif has had to allow the military to become the referee and, once again, a partner in the political management of the country. It has been blatant military interventions in the past that have caused untold damage to the development of democracy in Pakistan. This time another element that has gained strength and is operating surreptitiously behind the scenes is the intelligence community, which is digging up dirt on almost all major politicians.

Fortunately, Army Chief of Staff General Karamat has emerged as a restrained and calm person who realizes the importance of keeping the army away from politics. In recent weeks he was seen shuttling among Prime Minister Sharif, President Leghari and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Sajjad Ali Shah. According to The Washington Post, on being informed that President Leghari was planning to dismiss Sharif, General Karamat delivered a message of his own: the army would not back Sharif's ouster. In a later conversation Karamat asked Leghari to name a new chief justice. Instead, Leghari left in a huff.

The Underlying Corruption

The underlying problem that has plagued all political evolution in Pakistan, particularly in recent years, has been the rampant graft in government and widespread maladministration. A major promise made at the time of elections was that there would be Ehtesab, accountability, for everyone, with no exceptions.

Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who had developed a reputation for corruption, was jailed and a charge sheet prepared. Many other politicians and civil servants have been dismissed from their jobs and are awaiting trial.

So there has been enough guilt to go around. Businessmen, civil servants and politicians from both the People's Party and the Muslim League all bear their share.

When Bhutto was charged with amassing illegal wealth, she pointed an accusing finger at Sharif. Consequently, in the past 11 months or so, the Ehtesab courts have made little or no headway.

Additionally, just-dismissed Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was one of the judges who had not sided with Sharif when he challenged the dismissal of his previous government. Shah, who comes from Sindh as does Bhutto, was appointed chief justice by Bhutto, superseding other senior judges.

Shah also had declared unconstitutional a bill passed by Sharif's Muslim League party banning crossing of the floor from one party to another by elected officials in the National Assembly. Then, as Sharif was using the National Assembly to clip the wings of the Judiciary, Shah summoned Sharif on charges of "contempt of court." In spite of the several interventions of Gen. Karamat, the two showed no signs of resolving the matter.

The rift between the prime minister and the chief justice has caused breaches in the ranks of the Muslim League as well as the judicial community. Several Muslim League stalwarts, including Ejaz ul-Haq, son of the late president, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, who has ambitions of his own, vainly counseled Sharif to back off. Two of the Su-preme Court judges meanwhile had asked Shah to step down.

The Supreme Court building was mobbed by supporters of Sharif when the court was hearing the contempt case. The situation was getting uglier by the day when the army chief of staff, although he later denied it, finally intervened on behalf of the prime minister.

In the aftermath of the weeks of repeated crisis, the country heaved a sigh of relief. But, while people generally supported the preservation of an elected government, Pakistanis also have cherished an independent judiciary. How much damage has been done to the latter in the recent crisis remains to be seen.

Furthermore, so long as charges of corruption and the issue of non-repayment of huge bank loans remain before different courts, politicians of all hues are walking with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. An opponent can always use that to settle political scores. Thus the calming events of the first week in December in Islamabad left many potentially destabilizing questions still unresolved.