By
Muddassir Rizvi
ISLAMABAD:
The constitutional changes that Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf
announced last week betray his contempt for democratic institutions,
even though he says they are part of a road map leading the country
back to democracy, critics say.
Musharraf's
amendments, which would institutionalise and hand more power to the
military, has further united the general's opponents, who wasted no
time in rejecting them as having no legal legitimacy.
In London
Friday, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in an interview with
the British Broadcasting Corp, described Musharraf as a ''tin-pot
military dictator'' who has ''murdering'' democracy in this South
Asian country.
Critics
say the changes, announced Wednesday, would consolidate Musharraf's
position after the Oct. 10 general elections -- which are supposed
to bring Pakistan back to democratic politics after the general's
1999 coup -- and still give him wide-ranging powers under a supposedly
more democratic set-up.
”I
do not need the assembly's approval,” Musharraf said in announcing
the amendments. In April, he claimed victory in a referendum to extend
his mandate as president for a further five years.
”No
individual has any right to make amendments in the constitution,”
said a spokesman for the Bhutto-led Pakistan People's Party (PPP),
one of the parties spearheading the opposition along with religious
parties and the Pakistan Muslim League of the former prime minister
Nawaz Sharif.
Musharraf's
leeway to carry out changes in the Constitution, however, has been
upheld by the Supreme Court which had also given him three years to
rule after the coup and required him to call elections this year.
Musharraf's
'reforms' ahead of the Oct. poll, which he says is aimed at a more
stable Pakistan than what its previous elected governments had provided,
have included holding on to the key posts of army chief and president
until 2007.
More
controversially, Musharraf's constitutional amendments allow him to
dismiss an elected parliament and government, and to appoint and sack
heads of important constitutional offices, powers previously exercised
only by the prime minister.
In effect,
critics say, the amendments will grant the military which has run
Pakistan's affairs for more than half of its life as an independent
nation -- a permanent role over the functioning of a popularly elected
government.
Musharraf
expects to achieve this by establishing an unelected, supra-parliamentary
body called the National Security Council (NSC), a civilian-military
body on which four military chiefs and eight civilian political leaders
would sit. Musharraf, as president, would head the NSC.
Musharraf
has been quoted as saying that the way to prevent the military from
taking a lead role in government is to give it a role that would ensure
its rightful participation in it.
But
his opponents consider the council an encroachment in civilian affairs
over the workings of parliament and the proper role of government.
”We will not allow the military to write the civil-military relationship
on its terms,” said a PPP spokesman.
But
the general said the council's role is ''essential'' for national
stability, and is central to his vision of a ''true'' democracy in
a post-October scenario.
''The
NSC would serve as a forum for consultation on strategic matters pertaining
to sovereignty, integrity and security of the state and for achieving
sustainable democratic order, good governance and inter-provincial
harmony,'' he said.
Still,
opponents discard Musharraf's logic, saying the NSC would supplant
the usual checks and balances in a democracy. ”The constitutional
amendments are likely to destroy the federal
parliamentary system by undermining the cabinet and the prime minister.
They will in fact destabilise the system,” the general secretary
of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (Pakistan Justice Movement), Miraj Mohammad
Khan, told IPS.
The
party is led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, one of Musharraf's
supporters during the 1999 coup. ”Musharraf's plan has created
new confrontations. The upcoming elections would follow unprecedented
chaos and political disorder,” commented the chief of Jamaat-i-Islami
party Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who stands accused by Musharraf for inciting
people against the armed forces.
”There
is no public support for the political order Musharraf wants to introduce,”
he said.
The
general's parliamentary supporters are a band of political parties
with little popular following, which the regime is considering supporting
in the October poll.
''The
package has been finalised (against) the backdrop of my consultative
process,” the 59-year-old Musharraf said. However,
since public consultations for the amendments were opened in June,
Musharraf has dismissed protests by an assembly of political parties,
lawyers' groups, rights-based organisations and the intelligentsia,
all of whom declared the changes an attack on the free will of the
people as exercised by their elected representatives.
”It
appears that the president will now have the balance, while all checks
will be applied to elected representatives,” is how Babbar Ali,
a local businessman, summed up the amendments.
But
the regime has chosen to ignore popular opposition at home, it will
need to consider more seriously the reaction coming from foreign governments,
particularly Washington, which considers Pakistan an ally in its 'war
against terrorism'.
The
remarks by a U.S. State Department spokesman that Musharraf's latest
steps are a setback to democracy are causing concern among government
officials, who are poring over the exact meaning of the statement.
”These remarks took the government by surprise as Washington
itself had been emphasising the 'stability first' principle in its
contacts with
Islamabad,'' said an official in Musharraf's secretariat, who requested
anonymity.
''All
the steps that the President laid before the public are just meant
to ensure economic and political stability,” he added.
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