A Rare Comparison of Three Styles
of Governance and Loyalty
Working with Benazir, Nawaz and
Musharraf
Dr
Zafar Altaf
It has been my privilege, and my pain, to have worked at the highest
policy level for a considerable period of time as a Federal Secretary
of the Government of Pakistan with Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto
and Nawaz Sharif and President General Pervez 
Musharraf.
All of them have their own style and their own attitudes and values,
that have impacted on the country. Influence that each one brought
to bear on the policies did take the country astray.
Bhutto’s style was pugnacious and provocative. She had reached
the position after much sacrifice by her family. Even when they
were living in Cannes, France, the Zia ul Haq regime kept a strict
surveillance on them. A senior police officer was detailed for
this purpose. When she came on a popular vote [and she came twice]
and became the Prime Minister of this country, I was privileged
to be part of the team.
Since
my predecessor had gone to sleep in her very first cabinet meeting,
I was seemingly promoted as Federal Secretary. The 'sleeping secretary'
had unforgivably asked the prime minister to repeat her question.
For him to go to sleep indicated the contentment and confidence
of the individual. The fact that he belonged to Sindh, the province
of the Prime Minister, I suspect, added to that misplaced confidence.
Two senior secretaries of the federation warned me of the impending
promotion and they indicated that the decision was a popular one.
I countered that I was not senior enough, my position in the pecking
order was pretty low and that the civil service was unforgiving
and very vindictive once that pecking order was violated. But
that was like water on a duck's back. Once Bhutto had made up
her mind she was single minded and obstinate. She showed no flexibility
once a decision had been taken. In matters of state and politics
it is best not to interfere when such a decision has been taken.
The time to intervene is before such a decision is taken. I told
you so psychology does not help either. That is after the event.
Bhutto
came from a landed feudal background and was hybridized by education
in Oxford and the US. She had the loyalty factor that is a requirement
of the feudal system. Bad faith could be forgiven provided the
person was not arrogant enough to continue his stance. However
she had developed a management style that was provocative and
induced a person to fight back or be cowed down. To her it was
necessary to have a person either stand up or blown to pieces.
It was not necessary for a person to be threatened of an argument
with Prime Minister Bhutto. Her style was to be in confrontation
with the members of the cabinet and the bureaucracy. She had developed
a style of rapid reading and that enabled her to come to grips
with the massive documentation that one had to read for cabinet
meetings. And she could get to the core of the problem faster
than any one that I had seen.
What was her governance style? It was very much linked to the
grass root level. She was constantly fed by her local MNAs and
party workers as to what was happening. Besides that she had a
habit of bringing with her newspaper cuttings in respect of all
the Ministries. Newspapers realized this and that made life pretty
difficult for some of the ministers and secretaries. One had a
time to enter the discussion with relevant intervention and make
way for others. Ministers and secretaries who were in firing lines
were adept at deflection and shifting the discussion to some other
ministry.
It
was, for instance, common ground for Mr. Khar [Minister Water
and Power] to divert the attention from his ministry to Agriculture
and to lead the Prime Minister in to discussing the sad state
of Cotton crop [usually a cursory point and not very reliable].
That shifted the focus and we in the agriculture ministry got
the brunt of the argument.
Nawaz
came from an industrial background and had grown up under the
influence of his father whose say in matters of the state was
to be an important element in subsequent years. 
Education
and focus were not his forte for he believed in, and this is true
in his case, going commercial and making money through monopoly
situations. He knew who to place where in the capital markets
and left the reading and the intellectual work, if any, to the
scornful minions that were there to do his bidding.
Parochial
to the core he sought and received canine loyalty. None dared
to discuss issues with him. He was not in the discussive mode.
The Nawaz family had been subjected to economic torment when the
father of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Zulfiqar Bhutto had nationalized
industry in 1973. So the conflict was in historical order. Zia’s
regime denationalized the industries that were nationalized and
then the perfect intervention was to develop this family as a
likely political alternative. They had the financial resources
and were developing as a leading industrial family. It was common
practice that they were living in extremes. It was common practice
for Nawaz to be at the neck of their opponents when in power and
to be servile and at their opponent’s feet when they were
not in power. There was no midway house.
The
political mandate provided to him by the ‘farishtas’
(angels) enabled him to think that he had a mandate from the people
that allowed him to run riot when he was in power. He sacked the
Navy Chief and then went on and sacked the Army Chief. When he
tried it too often he was himself on the road to Jeddah. The selection
of the Army Chief was based on a number of loyalty issues and
in complete disregard to the norms established in the armed forces.
He was considered as a member of the non-martial race and therefore
without links in the horizontal hierarchy. The point that the
civilians missed out was that the Army was integrated and the
chain of command was based on the one outcome for which they are
prepared and that is to die for their country. The 30 odd years
of indoctrination does not allow ‘SAM’ [selfish and
ambitious] characters to be tolerated. ‘There is not the
question why?’ as any man from the Charge Brigade would
have said.
I
had seen Nawaz Sharif as Chief Minister Punjab when he was in
conflict with the Bhutto government in the center. I had been
Secretary Agriculture. His team of bureaucrats led by late Anwar
Zahid was extremely competent. Governance was at its best despite
the fact that the federation was of a different political party.
Friction was of a very intense kind. When he won the election
[and that was twice thanks to divine intervention by the half
gods-normally known as Farishtas (angels)]. His first entry was
for roughly three years.
The
second stint was different. He had been brutalized and this time
the polite Prime Minister was going to insist on loyalty, unrequited.
He was to be a tough Prime Minister. He wanted total commitment
towards his self not his country. His younger brother had become
the Chief Minister of the important province of Punjab. And that
was crucial to him. It gave him the tyrannical power. But the
second time around he went for his political opponents. He allocated
the Accountability organization to a close aide and friend. And
the powerful organization was used for political purposes and
to show, hypocritically, that there has to be complete transparency
in the affairs of the government.
The
excess of autocratic power led to his eventual conflict with the
present incumbent. In the show of force democracy was annihilated.
The rest is history.
General Musharaf came to power as a result of conflict. In the
army they are picked up young after twelve years of education.
They do achieve academic excellence and are awarded degrees in
their own institutions. The attitudes and values that they carry
are created and developed in these institutions. They go through
a rigorous reorientation transfer for the rest of their lives.
Any view contrary to theirs is taken as a sign of enmity. As far
as possible it is necessary to be with the authority and the chair.
One can take on the other members as long as the sanctity of the
others is maintained. They are the ones that will defend the country
and they are trained for that one purpose. That is why they have
this single minded purpose. They have no friends over time except
their own kinds. What was to happen because civilian concepts
were not the desirable way of working?
The Ministers who understood this can easily be pinpointed and
they and they were the ones who would advise, guide and take orders
from the authority so ordained. Musharraf put together a team
of Washington boys adept at what they could do, which was precious
little as the West abhorred this form of government. September
11 changed all this and the countries wanted Pakistan to be frontline
in the War against Terrorism.
This
was simple to achieve, as there was no debating forum. The President’s
Principal Secretary recently wrote that since there was no political
minister he had to take on the political work. If that was the
case why hire the ministers at all? Some of the ministers are
unworthy of that mantle and consequently operate at their levels
of significance. They have been eulogizing their work and passing
comments that were outrageously full of lies and ego filled statements.
The footage has to be kept to enable future governments to examine
the level of misinformation that they have projected into the
system.
The promise of economic revival was to be looked after by the
international agencies and the D-7 countries. We know how effectively
they have done this. The Zia regime was a beneficiary accordingly
of the US fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Time
and again the agencies have done well by this country. The improvement
that has been there is due to the external factors that operates
in our country. We will have to learn that the time has come for
self-reliance and that the propping system given to us by other
countries is transient and not sustainable.
The style of governance in all three formats was based on loyalty
but the loyalty of the Musharraf government was the most intense.
By training they are not tuned or trained to understand the concept
of debate. If an issue is raised it is generally in agreement
to the chair. In fact before the Cabinet met there was a meeting
of the 'Zero Group' comprising, what in civilian terms would be
called, the Kitchen Cabinet. This meeting generally lasted far
more than a considerable period of time and was probably used
for early briefing by the loyalists.
The
army has a culture of briefings and initially every ministry had
to make this venture of educating the power bloc. Back to the
drawing boards boys. The cycle was repeated over a period of time.
The Zia regime had given the culture of summaries to the Chief
Executive and that continued after his removal. That meant that
the clever secretaries made grave omissions and commissions in
their brief summaries [none could be or should be larger than
two pages. There was occasional violation of this rule]. The intrigue
factor increased and the ministers that wanted over and above
considerations were seen hobnobbing with the brass that was critical.
The autocratic governance of this kind also heightened the rise
of the 'invisible government'. Agencies were continuously monitoring
the civilians. The bottom line of all this surveillance was a
typical remark. "He is a drunkard and a womanizer."
How they always came to this conclusion, one does not know? Probably
the deprived little guys were also the depraved guys of the nation.
The bottom line stands. It would be interesting to know the ‘Women’
that were involved? At least some one could be a beneficiary.
The
principal difference between the named individuals is that only
one [Benazir Bhutto] believed in the Jungian concept of friction
of opposites [Enantio Dromia] and relished it as a means of debate
and dialogue. The rest believed that issues should be discussed
in the cabinet, but the decisions should not be in any way contrary
to the desires of the authority. The outcome of the decisions
for those that violated the premise of convenience and loyalty
was to be in limbo for such time as the power and the authority
of the government remained.
The
author worked as Federal Secretary for Agriculture with all these
three heads of Government of Pakistan during the last one decade.
