Democracy in Pakistan: Players & News (1/3)

Our Friday democracy briefings examine current events in democratization around the globe, and link to lengthier analyses of democratization trends in countries of particular interest. This Special Report examines democratic prospects in Pakistan, and is by Patrick Belton, a researcher at Oxford and president of a foreign policy society and think tank, who writes daily at OxBlog.

This first segment looks at the various factions in Pakistan, and brings you up to speed on the country's recent political history internally. The Art of Peace has a sobering article about Musharraf stepping down as Army Chief at the end of the year, and what this might mean. There are even rumblings of civil war -which may not come to pass, but it's worthwhile to understand the players here just in case.

• Pakistan: Political Structure
• The Islamist MMA
• Recent Parliamentary Elections and Constitutional Changes

Political Structure:

The principal political parties in Pakistan are the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q), and the religious parties which combine in the Muttahida Majils-e-Amal (MMA). Of these, Musharraf’s parliamentary base lies in the PML-Q and MMA parties. The PPP and PML-N receive larger shares of the vote but are currently subject to substantial disabilities.

• The PML has generated two offshoots: the PML-Nawaz (website) formed by Nawaz Sharif and which met electoral success in 1997, and the PML-Q (Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam) (background), which received broad military support in 2002. In the last legislative elections, PML-Q won 118 out of 342 seats, nearly all from the Punjab province.

• The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) (website) was formed by Zulkifar Ali Bhutto in 1967, father of Benazir Bhutto who currently leads the party from exile. The PPP received the largest number of votes in the 2002 election, but was awarded only 81 seats in the National Assembly.

• The PPP, PML-N, and thirteen smaller opposition parties formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy. There is also a Pakistan Oppressed Nationalities Movement (PONM), a seven-party alliance of smaller regional political parties calling for restructuring the nation on explicitly ethnic lines.

• In November, a fragile coalition of parties supporting Musharraf selected Musharraf’s supporter and former Baluchistan chief minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali as Pakistan’s prime minister (official website), the first prime minister since Nawaz Sharif was removed in the 1999 coup. Neither the PPP nor the MMA supported Jamali, but several PPP members were induced to vote for the prime minister by the offer of ministerships.

• Since the 2002 National Assembly elections, the PML-Q has been leading a ruling coalition controlling both houses of Parliament and the Punjab and Sindh provincial assemblies. Because of its record of support for Musharraf, it has earned the appellation of “the king’s party.”

The Islamist MMA

• The Muttahida Majils-e-Amal (MMA or United Action Forum) (website) is a loose coalition of six Islamist parties, which formed to contest the 2002 legislative elections. Among the constituent parties is the well-organized and dominant Jamaat-e-Islami (website), along with the smaller Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (N). The MMA received 20 percent of the total vote, and won 68 seats. (See also Global Security and recent news).

• MMA-army links: According to reports, the ISI has made use of the religious parties frequently for tasks ranging from the promotion of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan to maintaining control of opposition parties at home and fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. This has led to strong ties between of the army and the MMA, which have helped solidify the parliamentary base of Musharraf’s support in the current MMA-PML-Q coalition.

• MMA leaders: Fazlur Rahman, head of the most significant faction of the highly Islamist, Tablian-linked Jamiatul Ulema-i-Islam, is an extremist but has been pliable in the past because of his commercial interests. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of Jamaat-I-Islami, is the MMA’s preponderant leader, more moderate but less pliable than Rahman. Other coalition parties include Shi’a and Barelvi sectarian parties which have suffered from attacks from the Deobandi extremists of Rahman’s party and its spin-off groups; this suggest a hint of instability within the MMA. MMA may receive domestic payoffs in its Islamisation agenda to compensate it for the nation’s close foreign policy stance to the us, but that in turn would alienate many of its voters in the next election.

• Despite concerns, the MMA have been unable as yet to alter Islamabad’s foreign or economic policies. Redeployments were announced by both India and Pakistan after the recent elections, ending a tense 10-month long military face-off across the border.

Recent Parliamentary Elections and Constitutional Changes

• Shortly after assuming power, Musharraf’s government used tear gas to suppress a rally held in Karachi of opponents of military rule, calling members of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy “useless politicians.”

• Local government elections were held in 2001, and were generally free and fair although the government intervened in several instances to ensure the election of pro-Musharraf candidates. Opposition leaders Rena Khan (Punjab provincial legislator) was detained and tortured by the security services in March 2000; in October, PML-N leader Javed Hashmi was charged with sedition and criticising Musharraf.

• The National Assembly (website) had been dissolved in the wake of the October 1999 coup, and Musharraf had promised to hold elections for a new assembly. Musharraf won an uncontested referendum in April 2002 to remain in office.

• In October 2002, Pakistan held its first national legislative elections since the coup three years before. (results) While observers complained of deep flaws in the elections, the United States summed up the poll as “relatively free and fair,” and the pro-military Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) party won a plurality of seats in the assembly, while the Islamist coalition MMA (United Action Forum) returns a strong showing in the Pakhto-majority western provinces. The MMA also controls provincial assemblies in the North West Frontier Province and the Baluchistan assembly, where it leads a governing coalition.

• Hopes that the 2002 elections would lead to a resurgence of democratic governance in Pakistan were dashed with Musharraf’s imposition of restrictive elections laws which prevented two leading politicians from participating in elections, and his single-handed declaration of constitutional amendments to restore the president’s power to dissolve the National Assembly and appoint military chiefs and provincial governors. This was done in a “Legal Framework Order” (text)

• Legislative and civilian politics were hamstrung for over a year in a debate over the LFO’s legitimacy. In July 2003 all opposition parties issued a collective rejection of the LFO and calling for the president’s resignation, and in August, they protested Musharraf’s constitutional changes and his continued role as army chief of staff by walking out of Parliament. The MMA joined the opposition parties in September by announcing its refusal to accept the LFO and Musharraf’s continuance as Chief of Army Staff. In the entire year, the legislature succeeded in passing only a budget.

• In December 2003, Musharraf and the MMA reached an unexpected accommodation under which the president would resign from the military and his position of army chief of staff before the beginning of 2005 and face an electoral college (comprised of all national and provincial legislators) vote to retain the presidency through 2007, which he won on January 1, 2004 with 60 percent of the vote. As a further part of the bargain, the National Assembly passed a 17th Amendment retrospectively validating all legal actions taken by Musharraf after the coup (though Supreme Court approval within thirty days was now held to be necessary to dismiss the National Assembly). Secular opposition parties rejected the arrangement as undemocratic.

Tomorrow: Part 2/3 - A History of Democratic Failure
* Liberal Freedoms: A Mixed Record
* Historical Background of Democracy in Pakistan
* Why Has Democracy Always Failed in Pakistan?