Syed Talat Hussain

For all the rhetoric of ‘politics of reconciliation’ that we hear from everyone who takes the podium, national politics is badly fractured. Sindh, which is the stronghold of the PPP, was supposed to be a haven of political peace. Yet it is this very province that has become the most hurtful Achilles heel of this government

Just when rescue workers were
pulling the dead and the injured from the rubble of the Girls School in Lower Dir, Pakistan’s interior minister was on his way to the Governor’s House in Karachi. His agenda was obvious: to broker a deal with the MQM through which the future of the provincial government could be saved and Karachi’s troubled waters could be calmed. What happened to Government Girls High school at Kot Hajiabad, eight kilometres towards Maidan, east of Timergara, Lower Dir, was not exactly high on his things-to-do list.

That tells you the story of Pakistan today. A consuming passion for survival in power has overwhelmed all other national issues, the most pressing of which has to be focus on the situation in border districts of the country and urban terrorism, which has a lot of potential of erupting again. As a result, the government remains distant from grappling with the sombre realities of the country. It also seems strangely comfortable with being isolated in decision making in vital areas. This has left abundant space for the army to wield real power, and in more ways than one, become the only institution that is at work on fronts where the country’s national security interests are being decided.

As the government’s busy political trouble-shooters hop from one province to the other, the standard argument in defence of this focus on day-to-day living is that without political stability no government can function properly. The argument is self-defeating on several grounds. First, as the two-year performance report shows, Pakistan People’s Party’s generous expenditure of limited political energies on ‘stabilising’ itself has yielded nothing spectacular. If anything, the government looks more bewildered than before. It has lurched from one crisis to the next, preferring to invent disingenuous solutions to problems rather than applying the existing and more logical ones. No wonder, across the entire spectrum of national life, unresolved issues continue to make demands on the government’s time that is now ticking fast.

Second, even the search for political stability, that is keeping everyone in this government busy day and night, has proven to be a wild goose chase. For all the rhetoric of ‘politics of reconciliation’ that we hear from everyone who takes the podium, national politics is badly fractured. Sindh, which is the stronghold of the PPP, was supposed to be a haven of political peace. It is here that the federal government has made its most concessions, has conceded most political ground and launched its most mesmerising charm offensive through the party supremo Asif Ali Zardari, who visited Nine Zero and promised a next-generation compact with the MQM.

Yet it is this very province that has become the most hurtful Achilles heel of this government, far surpassing the Punjab whose political troubles have at least not boiled over into a killing spree against opponents by professional marksmen. It is Karachi’s vastness that hides the pile of dead bodies that each passing day produces, otherwise statistically it has been the most violent city in all of Pakistan in the past couple of months. While the NWFP has been politically quiet, the Awami National Party (ANP) has serious issues with the federal government, primarily relating to the slipshod manner in which it has dealt with its counter-terrorism requirements, the number one concern of the provincial government. These differences are not in the open only because of the personal fraternity between Asfandyar Wali and President Zardari. This reflects on their supremely coordinated re-entry into the national limelight after months of equally well-coordinated splendid isolation. Both have sprung from their bunkers and are now seen more often than ever before. But minus the mutuality of personal interests, the Asfandyar-Zardari brotherhood has not meant a deeper resolution of the abiding complaints that the ANP and the PPP have against each other.

Third, the strategy of political stability first has dealt a deadly blow to the ability of the government to govern according to a long-term blueprint. While there have been spurts of sensational activity (Gwadar cabinet meeting and the signing of the NFC), a large part of the time has been spent on trivial pursuits. Statements and jargon have replaced real work. More worryingly, every time a question is raised about the government’s direction and long-term planning, a barrage of accusations start to pour out in response. It is almost as if the government has convinced itself that democracy can afford to be the worst form of government just because there is no alternative to it. That defeats the very purpose for which political stability is being sought: performance.

But the costliest part of this vain exercise in seeking longevity in power has been a nearly complete abdication of responsibility in captaining the country in the vast sea of defence and foreign policy challenges. While there is a defence minister of sorts in place, the real decision making on most important issues on both war and peace fronts is being done in GHQ and not in the defence ministry. General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani’s detailed presentation before NATO commanders in Brussels was not just a general’s view of the world. It was a total worldview that defined Pakistan’s vital security interests, besides setting the parameters of the country’s outlook towards India, Afghanistan, and Iran.

It is quite unlikely that this outline was ever shown to the president or the prime minister of Pakistan. It is just as unlikely that they both, and other important civilians including the foreign minister, had any input to make into the presentation. Yet to the world at large, the document means the final word on Pakistan’s foreign and defence interests. For them, it carries the weight of actual policy.

This presentation and other more informal interactions that the Pakistan military and intelligence chiefs have with the world outside would have been of limited consequence if the civilian government were interested in detailing its own version of Pakistan’s present and future strategic paradigm; if the federal cabinet had come up with an in-depth account and definition of Pakistan’s vital security interests. But since that has not happened, the real power has gone back to where it always used to be: GHQ.

The tragedy is that the PPP government is happy with this arrangement. They think this gives them more time to play their game of survival, whereas actually it this very arrangement that is cutting them off at the knees and reducing their profile to union council level politics. Not for the first time in the country’s history, the government in place is not really the government in power. But perhaps for the first time, the government in place has only itself to blame.

The writer is a leading Pakistani journalist