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How
have the recent events affected the prospects of free and fair election in
Pakistan? A PILDAT team led by its Executive Director Ahmed Bilal Mehboob,
has analysed the recent developments in the perspective of the coming
elections.
Please make no mistake about it. Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Gen. Pervez
Musharraf’s proclamation of “State of Emergency” on November 3, 2007 is
nothing but a naked Martial Law. Suspension of Constitution of Pakistan is
the ultimate violation of the Rule of Law and these actions have destroyed
whatever little possibility of holding Free and Fair Election existed in
Pakistan. The key target of Gen. Musharraf’s “Saturday afternoon Massacre”
is the Judiciary, which for the first time had started to assert its
independence. Unlawful removal of such a large number of senior judges of
the Supreme Court and the High Courts is simply unacceptable in any
civilised society. Sensing the impending crisis, PILDAT and members of its
Dialogue Group on Civil-Military Relations had warned, during a public
seminar in Islamabad on November 1, 2007, of serious consequences for the
stability and integrity of the country if another military intervention
was attempted. The seminar was addressed by prominent leaders of public
opinion and six former generals of the Pakistan Army. Unfortunately all
pleas for restraint went unheeded.
The latest actions by General Pervez Musharraf are one of deadliest blow
to democratisation efforts in Pakistan. The utter disrespect for the rule
of law demonstrated by the government is expected to further strengthen
the logic of power in the country and provide new sympathisers to violent
extremist groups trying to take law in their own hands in various parts of
the country such as Swat at present and Red Mosque Seminary in Islamabad
just a few months ago. The trampling of the basic law of the land at the
hands of the Chief of Army Staff, under the guise of emergency, is a set
back to the campaign against extremists and terrorists. General
Musharraf’s actions and the brute use of force on the peaceful protesters
across Pakistan following the “Martial Law” has made the government the
greatest violator of law and thus has robbed it of any moral authority to
act against extremists and violators of the law.
Whereas the judiciary is the key-target of these illegal and
unconstitutional actions of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, he seems to have moved
to take care of another irritant, the electronic media in particular and
print media in general, through the imposition of martial law in the garb
of emergency. A couple of hours ahead of the imposition of emergency in
Pakistan, the independent news channels were shut down. With the exception
of state-run Pakistan Television, which is the mouthpiece of government,
cable TV consumers in Pakistan, a majority of the population as satellite
dish users are almost non-existent in the country, have not been able to
obtain news from an independent news channel including international news
channels such as BBC and CNN etc., since the afternoon of November 3,
2007. The government and its Ministry of Information maintain that until a
“Code of Conduct” is agreed with the independent news media, the
electronic channels will remain off-air. Hours after independent news
channels were taken off air on November 3, Gen. Pervez Musharraf
promulgated two separate ordinances to impose curbs on print and
electronic media. Under these ordinances which amend the Press,
Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration Ordinance, 2002, and the
Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, 2002, the print and
electronic media have been barred from printing and broadcasting “anything
which defames or brings into ridicule the head of state, or members of the
armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organ of the state.”
Non-compliance of the new curbs is subject to discontinuation of newspaper
publication for up to 30 days, and in case of television channels up to
three years of jail and Rs10 million fine or both will be imposed on the
broadcast media licensee or its representative and their equipment and
premises will be forfeited.
It is largely believed that the government’s black-out of independent news
media has been managed so as to curtail public reaction against the regime
likely to spill on the streets in the wake of news of judiciary and
lawyers resisting the government’s imposition of emergency. It is hard to
imagine how free and fair election can even be attempted under this state
of affairs.
The country stands clearly divided between ‘Collaborators’ of the regime
and those struggling for the Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law, who
enjoy the sympathies of the public at large against Gen. Musharraf as
suggested by recent public opinion polls (over 70% of people wanted Gen.
Musharraf to resign from the post of Chief of Army Staff as of October
2007). The collaborators comprise the current establishment – pitted
against the rest of the people of the country. The divisions caused by the
emergency and the use of force against the judges, lawyers and ordinary
citizens are expected to further polarise the society and mar any chances
of early reconciliation. It seems that the Pakistani society may never be
the same again.
Although this struggle is basically the struggle of the people of Pakistan
and it is their actions and conduct which will largely determine the
outcome of this struggle, the positions taken by the foreign governments
and international organisations working for democracy and human rights
across the globe will probably also remain deeply engraved on the public
conscious and memory for a very long time. While many governments and
almost all international human rights organisations clearly and
unequivocally condemned the proclamation of so-called emergency and
demanded immediate reversal of these steps, some governments who claim to
support democratisation efforts in Pakistan, have shown regrettable
ambivalence at this defining moment for the democracy and rule of law in
Pakistan. Any demand for “free and fair election in Pakistan” is
meaningless without the demand for immediate restoration of the
Constitution and reinstatement of all those judges who the government
claims to have removed including Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the lawful
Chief Justice of Pakistan. The British Secretary for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs has set a good example by demanding the complete
reversal of the ‘proclamation of emergency’ and its consequences.
Only time will determine the citizens and civil society’s capacity for
persevering their resistance and struggle against the martial law,
although at the current time, the majority seems to be very angry and
bitter with sentiments seething against the actions of Gen. Pervez
Musharraf. The leadership expected from the judiciary and lawyers will
mainly set the course for a continued resistance. This leadership has
already been witnessed through the heroic defiance by the judges of the
Supreme and High Courts who refused to take oath on the so-called
“Provisional Constitutional Order – PCO” and declared the PCO illegal. The
peaceful protest by the lawyers and other citizens in the face of brute
state force indicate strong association of conscious citizenry to the rule
of law. The courage, professionalism and conviction demonstrated by the
non-government media – both print and electronic – in the face of
suppression of independent media by the government is another source of
optimism in the country’s struggle for the rule of law.
Most of the crises being faced by Pakistan today including the latest one
are essentially the crises of the rule of law. It seems that the struggle
for the establishment and preservation of the rule of law in the country
will assume the central stage now. The battle lines have already been
drawn.
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[1] Recent
Public Opinion Polls by International Republican Institute (IRI) and the
Gallup, Pakistan as of September and late October 2007
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