The Making of a
President or Unmaking of Pakistan
Dr. Tarique Niazi
NOV 16 will go down as yet another black day in the history
of Pakistan. On this day, a serving army chief, in flagrant violation
of the constitution that he swore to defend, perched himself as
President. The illegitimacy of this farce was, however, writ large
on his face. He stood before a tamed audience of his courtiers
to read an oath from the constitution that had lain tattered under
his jackboot for the past three years.
He
still wore a darker look from having been in yet another material
breach of the law of the land. To make this dark hour a shade
lighter, Gen. Musharraf had the Chief Justice of Pakistan seated
by his side.
This
judicial artifact brought no relief, either. It is now common
knowledge in Pakistan that any judge whom Gen Musharraf suspects
of having been nursing a hoped-far notion of judicial independence
will be gaveled out of his chamber in a jiffy.
In January 2000, he fired the majority of Supreme Court justices
- 6 out of 11 - for accepting a petition against his unconstitutional
power grab of October 1999. He later packed the court with his
nominees that were picked, dropped, and repicked at whim.
He
then crowned his transgression by subjecting the remade court
to an instrument of ultimate humiliation that his “for-sale”
legal talent crafted to stifle future dissent on the bench. Under
this instrument, the Supreme Court judges were ordered to take
a fresh oath of allegiance to the Provisional Constitutional Order
(PCO) of 1999 that put him above all that ever existed, breathed,
moved, crawled, or walked in the land.
In reality, the PCO had placed him even above God by having the
Federal Shariat Court (FSC) barred from calling into question
his power grab, or any of his subsequent actions since October
1999.
His current oath of office was kept under wraps until the wee
hours of Nov 16 morning when he passed another order to have himself
sworn as President in tandem with the swearing-in of newly elected
members of the National Assembly. Until that moment of gloom,
the nation of Pakistan was not clued in this shenanigan. With
the first ray of sunup on Saturday, the country woke up to see
itself even more benighted by a pretend President, claiming five
more years in office.
As
President, Gen Musharraf will continue to be the army chief as
well. This speaks volumes for his trust in the army! He knows,
and rightly so, the day he doffs his fatigues, he will be history
- malodorous at that. Besides, the nation was despaired to see
its Supreme Court succumb again to the power blazing from the
barrel of a gun.
The
Chief Justice of Pakistan and his court was publicly abused to
keep one man in job at the expense of the jobs of tens of millions
of Pakistanis. The court’s alleged subservience to the country’s
military boss has now been challenged by no other than its defenders
on the bar: Supreme Court Bar Association.
The
entire legal community has now come to believe that the Supreme
Court is nothing but an occupied territory of Gen. Musharraf.
Mr Hamid Khan who heads the country’s legal community, was
so incensed by the court’s repeated cave-ins to Gen. Musharraf
that he recused himself from cases before the court in which Gen.
Musharraf is either defendant or plaintiff.
Having
the superior judiciary signed on to his unconstitutional power
grab, Gen. Musharraf has taken the ax to its very foundation -
the court’s moral authority. His three years of hard work
at individual and institutional destruction in the country had
paid off, though. Today, there is not an individual who ever worked
for him, or an institution that ever succumbed to him has moral
edge over him. This stinking equivalency is his saving grace!
Likewise,
he tried to drag down the Parliament, as well. As a sidebar to
his own oath taking on November 16, he had 324 members of the
National Assembly (MNAs) penned in a nearby Parliament House to
have them swear their fealty to a constitution that he has amended
beyond recognition.
To
his dismay, these MNAs, instead, rose from the well of their Assembly
Hall, wave after wave, to revolt against the ignominy of forced
allegiance to his Legal Framework Order (LFO), which has been
embossed on the 1973 constitution.
The
LFO is a misnomer for a package of 29 amendments to the constitution,
which, in the briefest possible terms, make dictatorship in Pakistan
“a way of life.” They refused to take oath on the
LFO until their former colleague, Ilahi Bux Soomro, nestled in
the speaker’s chair, assured them that not an iota had been
changed in the original oath as provided in the constitution of
1973. Following
this assurance, the deputies, with their right hand raised, repeated
the oath after Mr Soomro.
Outside the Parliament House, Pakistan’s enrobed vanguard
of democracy, made up of the country’s most honorable bar
that ever existed, was shouting their contemptuous rejection of
Gen. Musharraf’s LFO. It was the legal fraternity of Pakistan
that had all political parties signed up this year to a public
commitment to the defense and restoration of an unadulterated
1973 constitution.
Their
presence outside the Parliament, on its inaugural day after a
hiatus of three years, was a call to the MNAs to stand guard to
the constitution of Pakistan. The leaders of major political parties
- Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League
(PML), and Muttehida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) - took no time to respond
to this call. They rushed out of Parliament House to reassure
the protesting fraternity of law that they and their parties “stand
by their commitment to defeat the one-man’s war on Pakistan
and its Constitution.”
Will they succeed? Yes. Although turncoats abound, there is a
core group of parliamentarians who, in their good conscience,
will not budge an inch from their stated position on the defense
and restoration of the unadulterated constitution of 1973.
The
General is now quacking in his jackboots from this grim prospect
for his life in power. He was so scared of the rage in Parliament
that he could not dare walk into it to show even his face, let
alone take oath of an office to which no one has elected him.
He rather hid himself in the safe confines of President House
that he forcibly occupied in June 2001 after packing home the
sitting President - Justice Rafiq Tarar.
Many
then described this unconstitutional move as his second coup.
Why did he want to be helped into presidential robes? Apparently,
for a ludicrous reason!! As he planned to travel to Agra in India
for a summit with the Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, in
his grandiose ambition to talk him out of Kashmir, he felt the
need to swap his absurd title of “Chief Executive”
with one that could be publicly traded. Hence, the joke of becoming
President!
Ironically,
Mr Vajpayee was the first, and more importantly, the only leader
of a recognized democracy outside the western world, who stirred
him out of his sleep one morning with an unexpected call of congratulations!
Gen. Musharraf, who had not let in anyone on this closely guarded
secret, was blindsided by a “well-informed” rival.
Out
of embarrassment, he defensively mumbled a few words: “Thank
you, Sir. But I shall not take oath as President until this afternoon.”
“Voh Bhi Ho Jai Ga, Sadr Saab. Dopehr Kaunsi Door Hai.”
The world will now eagerly watch how this Indian reacts to the
General’s yet another oath?
In
the meanwhile, Pakistanis, too, have some answering to do: Should
they allow to build a dictatorship on the ruins of the constitution?
Should they continue to slave for a man who is recklessly running
down Pakistan? Is it not about time to say to the dictator, enough
is enough? Is it not about time to say to the dictatorship, never
again?
The
writer is a Professor of Envrionmental Sociology at the University
of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.
