Pakistan Weekly Political Brief
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October 16, 2010 - October 22, 2010

Political and Internal Developments

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s refusal to follow the Supreme Court directive and submit a written statement explaining the government’s position on the notification reinstating the judges left the judiciary with no choice but to back down and ignore its own directive by ruling that “it is up to the concerned authorities/functionaries to submit the statement or not”. Earlier, in an address to the nation, Gilani regretted that despite the government contradicting rumours of withdrawal of the notification reinstating the judges, the Supreme Court preferred to give credence to the rumours. Even though Gilani took a firm stand and said that after the refutation of the rumours nothing more needs to be done by the government, he held out an olive branch to the judiciary by assuring that there would be no clash between the institutions of state. The government has also formed an inquiry panel to fix responsibility for the airing of rumours by private TV networks which had led to a near constitutional and political crisis.

The Supreme Court also delivered its ruling over the petitions challenging the 18th Amendment. Contrary to expectations that the Supreme Court will strike down the amendment in the procedure of appointment of judges, the Court referred the controversial Article 175A back to parliament for reconsideration along with suggestions and recommendations that will ensure that the independence of the judiciary is not affected in the process of appointing judges to superior courts. The final judgement has been postponed until the third week of January next to give time to parliament to consider the suggestions made by the court. Until then, the procedure outlined in the 18th Amendment will be followed for filling vacancies in the courts. The ruling in the 18th Amendment has been termed as a positive development by the Prime Minister and has defused the tension between the political and judicial establishment.

While the prospect of a confrontation between the government and judiciary receded somewhat, the opposition PMLN appears to have opened a new front by adopting a more aggressive stand against the head honchos of the ruling PPP. Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar, has challenged the appointment of the new NAB chief in the Supreme Court. In his petition Nisar has claimed that President Asif Zardari had an obvious conflict of interest in the appointment of the NAB chairman since he faced more than a dozen cases of corruption. The NAB chairman has meanwhile quietly handed most of his powers to his deputy so that in the event he is restrained by the court from discharging his powers, it will make no material difference in the prosecution of the cases. Another salvo has been fired at President Zardari by the PMLN chief, Nawaz Sharif who has accused him of harming the country and blamed him for all the socio-economic and political problems confronting Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif alleged that it was the Swiss cases of Zardari that were behind the confrontation with the judiciary. Calling Zardari greedy, Nawaz Sharif said he could not trust Zardari.

Contacts between the PMLN and PMLQ have fuelled speculation of a possible alliance, even reunification, of the Muslim Leagues. The meeting in Raiwind between top PMLN leaders and two PMLQ senators hint at the realignment of political forces which will play an important role in the event the MQM or some other coalition partner of the PPP-led government walks out. It is however still not quite clear if the meeting in Raiwind took place with the concurrence of the PMLQ leadership, namely the Chaudhries of Gujrat, which remains at daggers drawn with the Sharif’s. It has also been reported that Nawaz Sharif has asked his brother Shahbaz to not make any further move on the PMLQ front in his absence.

On its part the PPP appears to be preparing to take to the streets if its government is destabilised. The party has reportedly started its mass contact programme to mobilise its rank and file in order to be ready for ‘anything at anytime’. The PPP has also moved to counter the possibility of a reunification of the Muslim Leagues with Prime Minister Gilani reaching out to PMLQ president Chaudhry Shujaat.

With violence erupting once again in Karachi – nearly a 100 people were killed in targeted killings last week – and tensions between the ANP-led Pashtuns and MQM-led Mohajirs on the rise, the ruling coalition is being pulled apart by the contending interests of the coalition partners. It took all of President Zardari’s political skills to prevent the MQM from withdrawing from the coalition. Not only did Zardari refuse to accept the resignation of the Sindh Governor Ishratul Abad, he also intervened to calm tempers in MQM and ANP as well as assure the MQM of action against the people destabilising Karachi. Zardari once again despatched his main trouble shooter, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, to placate the MQM. Despite a cold reception that he received at the MQM headquarters in Karachi, Malik did manage to keep the coalition intact for the moment.

While the blame game between ANP and MQM has continued, the Sindh Home Minister has admitted that all political parties in the city were responsible for the violence, clearly alluding to the presence of armed wings in every political party. The MQM has also been blaming the pro-PPP People’s Aman Committee (PAC) for the violence and this has created a problem for the PPP since it depends on the support of the PAC for winning the handful of seats it has from the metropolis. On the other hand, the PPP and ANP have been squarely placing the blame for the violence on MQM and have demanded deployment of the army to contain the spiralling violence.

The MQM is however vehemently opposed to calling in the army to Karachi. For now the federal government has given in to the MQM and decided against seeking assistance of the army in Karachi. But there are reports that the government is determined to launch a clean-up operation using the police and paramilitary Rangers in the troubled spots of the city.

Even as an operation is being contemplated in Karachi, an undeclared operation has reportedly been launched in the Makran belt of Balochistan against the Baloch freedom fighters. Despite denials by the Chief Minister that such an operation had been launched, some members of the cabinet walked out of the Provincial Assembly in protest against the undeclared operation. The faction of the Baloch Students Organisation – BSO-Azad – declared a ban on all Pakistani news media because of their biased coverage of the events in the province. The ban was subsequently lifted after the media personnel assured the BSO-Azad of fair coverage. Meanwhile, bodies of missing persons, mostly Baloch freedom fighters continue to be discovered with sickening regularity in the province. The cause of the freedom fighters received a setback after the UK refused to grant asylum to Hairbyar Marri, son of Nawab Khair Bux Marri, who is believed to be leading the rebellion inside Balochistan.

The World Bank has rejected calls for waiving off Pakistan’s $ 55 billion foreign debt. Together with the ADB, the World Bank has called upon Pakistan to put in place ‘an acceptable institutional arrangement’ to ensure transparency, accountability, equitable resource allocation among provinces in the reconstruction work in the flood-hit areas of the country. But the government of Pakistan has toughened its stand on the issue of foreign agencies implementing rehabilitation schemes because of weak monitoring and evaluation systems in Pakistan. According to the Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar the development agenda has to be spearheaded by the government and cannot be outsourced. The government of Pakistan has also turned down the $ 3 billion loan offered by the ADB and World Bank and has decided to rebuild the flood hit infrastructure from its own resources. At the same time, the government will depend on the grants of around $ 2 billion which it expects to get from the UN and other donors for purposes of early relief and recovery efforts.

Meanwhile, pressure has continued to pile up on Pakistan to undertake the tax reforms to generate funds from within the country. According to reports, the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) forum has blamed the US and IMF of ‘being soft’ on Pakistan and demanded a strict monitoring of the conditionalities imposed on Pakistan under the IMF’s $ 11.3 billion Stand-by Arrangement. The FoDP has not only rejected Pakistan’s proposal for full control over the international aid flowing into the country (since utilising aid through NGO’s involves much higher administrative costs), it has also suggested that Pakistan raise its power tariffs by 200% to recover full-cost of power revive the ailing energy sector.

Even as the financial deficit of the government continues to balloon – Rs 274 billion in the first 90 days of the current fiscal – the government has now pushed back the date for imposing the Reformed GST tax till December 1. This has partly been done because of a failure of Punjab and Sindh to resolve their differences over the tax and partly because of lack of preparedness of the Federal Board of Revenue to implement the taxation proposals.

There were reports that the master trainer of suicide bombers, Qari Hussein, was killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan targeting foreign fighters including German militants. But the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has denied these reports and claimed that Qari Hussein was alive and well. Meanwhile, the Haqqani network has become active in playing peacemaker between warring Islamic sects in the troubled Kurram agency. Apparently, the Haqqanis’ are eyeing Kurram as a potential safe haven in the event military operations are started in North Waziristan. With the US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen once again repeating in another interview that the US expects Pakistan army to mount an operation in North Waziristan, it appears that Pakistan could launch an attack in the near future. The Pakistan foreign office has, however, once again reiterated that the decision on when and how to proceed in North Waziristan will be taken by the Pakistan government “keeping in mind our capacities, priorities and overall national interest”. The Pakistanis have also reacted angrily to a NATO statement that Osama bin Laden was living comfortably somewhere in Northwest Pakistan. They received support from the US which claimed that it had no idea about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

Foreign Relations / Foreign Policy

The third round of the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue commenced in Washington last week. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi headed the Pakistani delegation which included the army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and the ministers of defence, power, finance and information apart from senior military and civilian officials.

In a talk at Harvard university, Qureshi said there was no justification for possession of nuclear weapons by Iran, even less so since Iran was a signatory to the NPT. The Pakistan foreign office was quick to clarify Qureshi’s remarks by saying that they did not signal any change in Islamabad’s policy regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and what the minister said was in conformity with the position taken by Iran on the issue of nuclear weapons.

Qureshi used the opportunity to press for a civilian nuclear deal and also urged the US to resolve the Kashmir issue and "remove one more source of Muslim discontent and anger”. This was proof if ever one was needed that Pakistan sees Kashmir as a religious dispute, rather a civilizational dispute, and not an issue of ‘national liberation’. It also proves that Kashmir is in the ultimate analysis part of the international jihad being waged by the Islamist terror groups.

On the eve of the Dialogue, the US agreed to release $ 550 million of the Coalition Support Funds. According to reports, the US still owes Pakistan around $ 1.9 billion as expenses incurred by Pakistan in the War on Terror. The money or the Dialogue doesn’t seem to have pleased the Pakistani officials too much, especially since it doesn’t address what the Pakistanis call long-term regional issues and the economic support Pakistan so desperately requires to keep afloat. In the run up to the Dialogue, the Pakistanis sent out signals that they sought US intervention in the Kashmir issue and in ‘the proxy water war launched by India’. The Pakistanis are also grumbling over the strict monitoring and audit procedures under which US aid is being disbursed as well as the failure of the US administration to resolve the barriers to greater market access and passing of the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) legislation.

The Americans who claim to have received “unprecedented levels of cooperation” from Pakistan in the war on terror have rewarded Pakistan with the five year $ 2 billion military assistance package. The US and Pakistan are also likely to finalise measures to stop the funding for the terror groups that is coming through the Middle East.

The US Special Envoy for the Afpak region Richard Holbrooke has meanwhile revealed that the US is engaged in ‘private conversations’ with Pakistani officials on the issue of a civilian nuclear deal. He also said that the US has sought from Pakistan details of the nuclear technology transfer taking place from China to see if it conforms to international treaty regimes of which China is a signatory.

Acknowledging that Pakistan had a historic interest in Afghanistan, the US has conceded once again that Pakistan has legitimate security interests in Afghanistan and welcomed statements from Pakistani leaders that they are a part of the solution in that country. The Americans have also accepted that they are trying to facilitate talks between the Islamist insurgents and the Afghan government and are aware of the contacts between Afghanistan and Pakistan on the issue of engaging with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, in a meeting with the Pakistani delegation, including the army chief Gen. Kayani, the US President Barack Obama has said that the US will not compromise on democracy in Pakistan and will continue to provide all possible assistance to Pakistan. He also revealed that while he would not be visiting Pakistan this year, he would visit Pakistan in 2011. It was also announced that President Zardari would visit Washington later this year.

Relations with India

Despite a hands-off approach adopted by Washington on the Kashmir issue, the Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has been desperately trying to use every opportunity to rake up the issue during his visit as head of the Pakistani delegation for the Strategic Dialogue with the US. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Qureshi pointed to the ‘deafening silence of the international community’ to the developments in Jammu and Kashmir. Quite conveniently Qureshi failed to mention the complicity of the Pakistani state in sponsoring terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba / Jamaatud Dawa which are engaged in terrorism in Kashmir. Further proof of involvement of the JuD came after a front organisation of the JuD – Tehrik-e-Azadi Kashmir – organised a condolence meeting in Lahore over the death of one of its terrorists who was killed in Kashmir recently. At the meeting, in which a PMLN MPA was also present, the JuD leaders said “Mujahids did not covet any office or (seat of) political power in Pakistan. They have no desire other than to set up a base camp in Delhi.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gilani has promised ‘good news’ on Kashmir. Gilani has also made a strange claim that there is an international acceptance of Pakistan’s demands on the issue.

The spokesman of the Pakistan foreign office has said that peace in the region can only be achieved through a ‘sustained and result-oriented dialogue’. Rejecting the remarks of the Indian foreign secretary that the dialogue between the two countries collapsed because of an ‘over-reach’ by Pakistan, the Pakistani spokesman said that the talks failed because of India’s attempts to downplay important issues like Kashmir and its failure to agree to ‘a timeframe on issues such as Kashmir, Siachen and peace and security’. Taking exception to remarks of the Indian army chief on the possibility of war under a nuclear scenario and the nuisance of Pakistan, he said “such statements and grandstanding by India are evidently unhelpful to the cause of promoting peace, security and stability in South Asia”.

The anti-terrorism court trying the masterminds of the 26/11 terror attacks has ruled that the case cannot proceed unless key witnesses like Ajmal Kasab and Fahim Ansari are examined.

Pakistan is importing large quantities of vegetables from India to meet domestic shortfall. Around a 125 trucks carrying tomatoes are crossing the Wagah border post daily and nearly 400-500 trucks are crossing weekly carrying soya bean meal.

The Punjab Assembly threw out a resolution demanding a ban on Indian TV channels on the grounds that it would hurt the sentiments of minorities living in Pakistan.

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