Is the current institutional conflict in Pakistan an indication that it is increasingly becoming a dysfunctional state, or is it a sign that the political system is now becoming more democratic? The Zardari government is at loggerheads with the judiciary as well as the army.

The Supreme Court has hauled the Prime Minister for contempt of court for not writing, as directed, to the Swiss authorities to investigate money laundering charges against the President; the Chief of Army staff and the Intelligence Chief have moved the Supreme Court to investigate the President’s bid, through his Ambassador in Washington, to collude with the US government to prevent a military coup in Pakistan after the Osama episode in exchange for curbing elements in the Pakistani security forces supporting the Taliban.

The judiciary is at the centre of moves to dislodge the Zardari government from power for financial and political misdeeds. After invalidating in 2009 President Musharraf’s National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) of 2007 that granted amnesty to Zardari and Benazir Bhutto amongst others, the Supreme Court’s directive to the government to pursue the Swiss investigation has legal logic but lacks political realism. How can the Prime Minister agree to expose the Head of State, who is also his party chief, and in the process deliver a political and moral blow to his own government that would make its continuance in power untenable? It is doubtful that the politically combative Chief Justice of Pakistan has been acting purely juridically.

Judiciary

That President Zardari, who has in the past languished in jail for several years, is corrupt is widely accepted. The NRO was intended to permit Benazir Bhutto to re-enter politics at a critical stage when there was pressure on President Musharraf to re-introduce democratic politics in the country and widen the political base for his policies. Chief Justice Chowdhury’s act to nullify the NRO passed by his bete noire Musharraf and re-open a can of political worms is less an undiluted move to uphold the majesty of law than a form of political score-settling that reflects continuing institutional instability in Pakistan.

If Pakistan was a well-functioning law and order state, with a stable constitutional history, with civil-military relations governed by well-established democratic norms, with a respectable track record of judicial independence, the current exercise of judicial power, with all its political consequences, would be a self-cleansing act that democracies conduct at critical moments. But in a country where the Prime Minister, who is called “dishonest” by the Supreme Court, publicly expresses fear of a military coup, reproves the military for being a “state within a state”, admonishes the Army Chief and the Intelligence Chief for acting unconsitutionally in approaching the Supreme Court directly on “Memogate”, receives a warning by General Kayani of the “grievous consequences” of his reprimand and a demand that he retract, inviting Gilani’s retort that he is answerable to parliament and not an individual, the spanner that the judiciary has thrown into the political works in Pakistan is less a case of institution building than one of institutional clashes produced by the grave problems the country faces internally and externally. Often, those who cannot fight their common problems together fight each other!

Those in Pakistan and in India who want to give the varnish of democracy to the current disarray in Pakistan would argue that the political battle is being fought in the courts, constitutional legalities are being observed, the judiciary is asserting its independence and, most importantly, the armed forces have not staged a coup unlike three times in the past.

Context

For a clearer view of developments one should, however, look at the context. For many months now it has been bruited around in Pakistan that the army and the judiciary want to see the back of the Zardari government. The question was the timing of the end moves, with wide speculation that they would need to be made before the Senate elections in March in which Zardari’s party was expected to consolidate its political position by winning a majority. Dislodging the government thereafter would have become more difficult for the army-judiciary tandem in furtherance of their respective agendas.

In the meantime Imran Khan, whose anti-corruption, pro-Islamic, anti-American plank has attracted the middle class, the religious elements, some key politicians looking for a new platform for acceding to power, has emerged as an unlikely political white knight with, as is commonly suspected, military backing. He has been pushing for early elections while the wind in his favour.

All this does not, of course, negate the fact that Zardari is personally unpopular, the economic and social conditions in the country have deteriorated under his government’s watch, and while the rural economy is less distressed and the government has managed regional aspirations astutely, the finances of the federal government are under severe stress. The Americans too have been long frustrated by Zardari’s non-governance in the foreign policy arena.

Gilani’s standing up to military hectoring and Kayani’s reluctance to activate the 111 Brigade traditionally used for staging coups should not be construed as permanently altering the civil-military equation in Pakistan and ushering in a democratic era in the country. Such over-simplification makes exciting commentary but obscures the reality. The complex calculations each side makes with regard to the margin of manoeuvre it has in calibrating the level of defiance or restraint need to be analysed.

Military

The military is playing a weak hand. Its prestige has suffered badly after the Osama incident, with the Mehran naval base attack compounding the damage. Its relationship with the US has sharply deteriorated, with American admiration for Kayani replaced by distrust for him because of his double-dealing. In a bid to retrieve its image, the military has colluded in whipping up public passion against the Americans after the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers by US forces in a recent border incident, but this would not help in managing external challenges if it takes over the reins of the country. Already challenged internally by the Pakistani Taliban and with the general public sentiment remaining against a military take-over after the political debacle of the Musharraf regime, the military would hardly want to move from bluster to a putsch. The danger of a coup triggering off statutory US sanctions cannot also be ignored. Gilani and his advisers have no doubt considered all this in defining their posture.

It would be wise for us to officially maintain a studied silence on the unfolding drama in Pakistan. If the military has been the principal obstacle in normalizing India-Pakistan relations, the civilian governments have so far proved their inability to overcome it. The civilian power in Pakistan has to be strong enough and the miltary compliant enough to achieve this normalization. To this end institutional solidarity in Pakistan on issues of supreme national interest is required. Parity with India and bleeding it is a matter of national consensus in Pakistan, not genuine friendship with it. The current turmoil in Pakistan, symptomatic of a foundering of Pakistani institutions and not a lurch towards shoring them, does not hold out hope for a fundamental re-appraisal by the Pakistani establishment of its policies towards India any time soon.