Pakistan's Revolving Door Politics Producing Declining Living Standards

By M.M. Ali

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been in power for less than a year, but the talk of "how long?" has already started in Islamabad and Washington. The question stems not from lack of performance on the part of her government, but from the extra-constitutional manner in which governments have changed in Pakistan in recent years, although each change has been regularized through elections.

This is Benazir Bhutto's second term in office. Her first administration was brought to a premature end in 1990 by the machinations of then-President Ishaq Khan in collaboration with the then and now leader of the opposition, Mian Nawaz Sharif. Sharif succeeded Bhutto but then met the same fate when he was forced out by Ishaq Khan last year. At that time both major political parties, Bhutto's People's Party and Nawaz's Muslim League, demanded an end to the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution that allows the president almost free authority to dismiss a constitutionally elected government. However, this legacy of the late Gen. Zia Ul-Haq remains on the books.

What followed the departure of Nawaz Sharif was the installation of an interim government at the behest of the army when Ishaq Khan, too, was forced to step down. Retired World Bank official Moeen Qureshi was invited to become a caretaker prime minister to insure "free and fair" elections. None of this was in accordance with the constitution or any law of the land. The army approved it and no one openly questioned it. Qureshi, who therefore was accountable to no one, not only held the elections but made radical changes in Pakistan's financial and revenue structures and exposed corruption in the government.

When Qureshi departed, the successor Bhutto government was left to choose between two courses of action. She could continue his austerity program, approved by the IMF, World Bank and the U.S., along with the army, and be accused of being the handmaiden of the military and external forces, or she could disown the financial restructuring and face a new crisis and the ire of the army. Enjoying a very slender majority in the National Assembly, she has had to engage for the last 12 months in a balancing act to accommodate the fiscal belt-tightening while at the same time striving to keep the populist aura of the People's Party. To accomplish all this while absorbing the jabs of opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and problems created by her own family members, Benazir has been riding a rough road. Nor can she forget that, in spite of her constitutional right to rule, she has to keep Gen. Abdul Waheed, the army chief of staff, in good humor. No wonder Pakistanis continue to ask The Question.

Country's Polarization

The Eighth Amendment was not the only headache the late General Zia left behind for the nation. To suit his own narrow objectives, he created serious cleavages and divisions in a multi-ethnic society.

His obsession, the records now make clear, was to destroy the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), established by Benazir's father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in the Sindh province. To this end, Zia caused splits among residents of the province. By transferring the nation's capital from Karachi, Sindh, to Islamabad, Punjab in the early 1960s, then-President Ayub Khan already had planted discontent among the Sindhis and the neo-Sindhis, meaning the Mohajirs, who had settled in Sindh after fleeing India when the subcontinent was partitioned between India and Muslim Pakistan. Punjabi-speaking Mohajirs who fled India settled in Pakistan's Punjab province, while Urdu-speaking Mohajirs settled in urban Sindh province. The now more than 10 million Mohajirs compete in Karachi, Pakistan's port and a major industrial entity, for jobs with the local population as well as migrants to the city from the Punjab and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Zia's military government encouraged the Pathans, the Punjabis and the Mohajirs to form their own political organizations, and then pitted Pathans and Punjabis against the Mohajirs. Later the Mohajirs and the native Sindhis became bitter political rivals in Karachi. This rivalry, which still continues, degenerated into ugly gang warfare. Abductions, carjackings, kidnappings for large ransoms, torture and murder became commonplace, and once peaceful and culturally diverse Karachi slipped into a city of deep divisions and distrust.

A quota system deprived Mohajirs with merit of a fair share in the national or Sindh province public sector jobs, and severely reduced their chances of getting into professional schools of higher learning. Polarization on the political level was nearly complete. Mohajirs voted for Mohajirs and non-Mohajirs voted for non-Mohajirs. The sense of deprivation among the Mohajirs was further accentuated as growth of the city's infrastructure and physical amenities lagged behind the astronomically increasing population. (This, unfortunately, now is true for all of Pakistan's cities.)

Polarization on the political level was nearly complete.

The Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) led by Altaf Husain, who now lives in exile in London with criminal charges pending against him, has been in and out of favor with both Mian Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. The MQM has also fallen into disfavor with the army. MQM demands have ranged from proportional representation in the federal and provincial governments to calls for autonomy for Karachi.

MQM's bargaining chip has been the 15 to 16 seats it held in the National Assembly. However, that has vanished because of Altaf's decision to boycott the last general elections. Whatever his motive, his movement lost its ability to bargain at the federal level, and rumors abound about his decision.

Fending for Themselves

Governments in Pakistan appear to be adhering to the adage that the government that governs least governs best. With recurring breakdowns of law and order in some major urban areas, particularly in Karachi and Hyderabad, private security agencies have mushroomed. Anyone with army or police experience who also has money or connections (most do) can get into the security business. Private homes or whole neighborhoods are barricaded behind electronically controlled gates. Armed private guards check visitors at entrances. A new face in the neighborhood is viewed with suspicion and is checked out by the private security agencies. No one wants to drive an expensive car. Only the courageous shop after dark.

Drinking water companies deliver potable water for a fee. People with money buy a truckload of water each week because of the severe water shortage. Water trickling through municipal pipelines is highly contaminated. Intestinal diseases are common and chronic. In Islamabad, a planned capital city, a recent drought forced the government to permit private residents to dig wells in their backyards to meet their drinking water needs.

Power generation plants are inadequate and aging. Because available power is inadequate for both domestic and industrial use, power outages are almost a daily routine. The electricity is often out for hours or even days. In Lahore and Islamabad, the power supply is rationed for fixed hours of the day in a procedure popularly known as load-shedding. In Karachi, the electricity goes off at random. Commerical retail outlets and wealthy homeowners have installed their own private generators to substitute during outages. The daring and the foolish attempt to install unauthorized direct connections from the main street power lines into their homes. Accidents, many times fatal, are not unknown.

The quality of life in Pakistan did not deteriorate overnight. For 11 long years, General Zia's military government did little to alleviate the decaying infrastructure and dwindling basic amenities of life. For the past six years, since Zia's death, it has been a sad political tug-of-war between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, with the army and President Ishaq Khan playing either the arbitrator's or the spoiler's role. Pakistan now has a falling literacy rate, while the annual population increase has climbed above 3 percent. Both are dubious, but probably interconnected, distinctions. For a country with decaying infrastructures and declining resources, they are catastrophes.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia.