The gathering storm?

The record 125 deaths on January 10, (90 in Quetta alone) caused by bomb blasts and targeted killings, countrywide protests thereafter, and demands for Army takeover of Quetta, magnified the threat posed by Dr Tahirul Qadri’s Tahrik-e-Minhajul Quran International (TMQI) to launch his ‘long’ march on Islamabad.

The next day, Governor of Balochistan accepted the provincial regime’s complete failure, confirming its earlier conviction by the Supreme Court. MQM went as far as asking the federal government to resign for its grave failure in containing terrorism and lawlessness.

While Balochistan’s Chief Minister was on a private visit abroad, no provincial minister or parliamentarian dared to face the protesters who had organised a sit-in on Quetta’s Alamdar Road along with the coffins of 87 victims of the January 10 bomb blasts. Yet, the JUI leaders claimed legitimacy of the provincial regime.

Finally, in the early hours of January 14, PM Raja Pervez Ashraf met the protesters assuring them of sacking Balochistan’s government and imposing Governor’s rule, whereupon the protesters agreed to bury the coffins, but only after a written order imposing the Governor’s rule was issued.

While the government’s belated response to the tragedies in Balochistan showed its concern for the masses, it was displayed more distastefully by use of state power to block the peaceful ‘long march’ by the TMQI. Doing so, the regime inflated peoples’ hatred for the state. What an achievement!

Political analysts suggested that if the sit-in in Quetta could undo the Balochistan regime, TMQI’s sit-in in Islamabad may undo the federal government, which explained the ruthlessness with which the regimes in Lahore and Islamabad thwarted TMQI’s long march.

These regimes also taught ruthless regimes everywhere a lesson: shipping containers have another use – blocking protests by misery-stricken masses. But this tactic can block protests for a while; in the end, like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the rulers pay for their sins.

Both these regimes – vociferously pro-democracy – know their fate once out of power. This democracy-loving clan – ably assisted by some in the legal fraternity – has been using democracy for its ends at a killing cost to the nation and the country.

On January 10, in an All-Party Conference (APC) organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, leaders of all political parties (minus MQM) expressed the view that TMQI’s ‘long march’ against a likely repeat of unfair elections, was unconstitutional.

This was despite the fact that, like the Islamabad High Court, the day the APC was held the Lahore Court too permitted TMQI’s long march, because protesting peacefully is an unchangeable constitutional right of the citizens – a right denied by politicians and lawyers.

The legal fraternity resolved to resist with all its might any undemocratic move. Reputed lawyer Asma Jahangir said there should have been a long march against drone attacks and terrorism. Impliedly, flaws in the country’s electoral system don’t warrant expression of dissent.

What she didn’t disclose was the success of the unanimous resolution of the parliament against drone attacks; Impliedly, while that failure justified a long march, the other failures of the parliament didn’t because TMQI’s promised ‘long march’ could hijack or force abandoning the process of democratic transition.

Although the APC resolution didn’t explain why (when a ‘democratic’ regime is completing its term) the process of democratic transition is under threat, the reason there for is the incumbent democratic regime’s convincing failure to deliver virtually any good.

The fact that the APC participants acknowledged that the grave economic crisis, dangerously escalating violence, and an unclear foreign policy plague the country, proves how poorly did the parliament perform for the past nearly five years.

Nawaz Sharif blasted the government for the energy and power shortage saying, had the federal government delivered, the APC won’t be discussing the ‘long march’ and the threat it poses democracy [in fact, to the in-power politicians’ grip over it]. He reiterated people’s loss of faith in the state because of poor governance, a sign thereof being the absence of rule of law in Karachi which is forcing businesses to shift abroad (implying flight of capital), but accepted PML-N’s ‘co-operation’ with the PPP without any rewards, only to save democracy.

Qamar Zaman Kaira repeated the PPP line – blame previous regimes for not adding a ‘single’ megawatt to electricity generation capacity. Reflecting the self-serving PPP vision (and that of the previous regimes), he again claimed that IPPs are the ‘only’ option for plugging the power shortages.

Despite the incumbent regime’s miserable record, APC participants insisted that ‘undemocratic forces’ are trying to thrust their unconstitutional decisions via street power and intrigues to advance the agenda of vested interests that had ruled Pakistan via force or proxies.

APC participants demanded that the process leading to elections must comply with the framework stipulated by the Constitution, and elections be held on time in a free, fair and transparent manner, but condemned TMQI for making the same demands.

ANP’s Afrasiyab Khattak expressed traditional politicians’ big fear ie the ‘long march’ organisers wanting a caretaker setup that isn’t the product of a compromise between political parties. The endless road barricades setup in Islamabad, reflect the magnitude of this fear.

Before the 1997 elections, the then caretaker Prime Minister Malik Meraj Khalid too feared that the discredited parliamentarians adoring the previous parliament will contest, and get elected. He felt that 90 days were inadequate to correct deep-rooted flaws in the electoral system – a continuing distortion.

During the APC, Mahmood Khan Achakzai blamed the PPP for concocting the controversial NRO, which will again empower the corrupt. No wonder Pakistan’s self-centred landlords support its make-believe democracy; under a transparent electoral system (demanded by TMQI) they stand no chance.

Those who genuinely want democracy to become the culture of Pakistan must accept the fact, that regimes installed by unfair elections destroyed Pakistanis’ trust in democracy and parliaments, besides tarnishing Pakistan’s image globally. Before the 1988 elections in Britain, the daily Guardian had pointed out that “governments come and go, but only a committed bureaucracy provides continuity to the state”. The cases of massive corruption in state offices prove that Pakistan’s bureaucracy has been corrupted by successive political regimes, and needs cleansing.

Making all the arrangements imperative for ensuring fair elections alone could assure a stable democratic setup. But this miracle can’t occur in 90 days; a non-political and non-establishment caretaker regime, with a much longer mandate, is now imperative.

Warning Dr Tahirul Qadri about terrorist attacks and using tactics (largely suspect) to stop his ‘long march’ isn’t the way to go about countering his logic; it only manifests fear, and betrays the incapacity of the politicians for confronting forthright adversaries.

(The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the newspaper)