Political and Internal Developments

The PPP led coalition government appears to have taken the exit of the JUIF in its stride. For the time being at least, the fears that the JUIF’s exit could be the beginning of a domino that will lead to the fall of the government have been belied, more so since none of the major political parties are rooting for a mid-term election. While the possibility of an in-house change exists, this is not possible without the PMLN coming on board. The PMLN however would rather go in for a mid-term poll than an in-house change. For its part, the top PPP leadership hasn’t been complacent and has been reaching out to both estranged and restive allies like JUIF and MQM as well as opposition parties like PMLN and different factions of PMLQ.

President Asif Zardari buttonholed Maulana Fazlur Rehman at the dinner in honour of the visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and tried to woo him back. But the Maulana reportedly played hardball, and demanded an apology for the sacking of a minister from his party and two ministries in addition to the three already held by the JUIF. Publicly however the Maulana claimed to have parted ways on a matter of principle and refused to rejoin the government. Later, in a speech in the National Assembly, the Maulana fired a broadside against Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani demanding action against him for his violation of Zardari’s policy of reconciliation. He also accused the government of trying to undo the Shariah laws in the country, alluding to the efforts to amend the Blasphemy law. Despite walking out of the government in the centre, the JUIF has continued its alliance with the PPP-led coalition in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. There was a fledgling attempt to effect a change in Balochistan by forging an alliance between the JUIF and PMLQ, but it came a cropper because of resistance to such a move from Maulana Mohammed Sherani, head of the Balochistan unit of the JUIF and recently appointed chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology.

The President and Prime Minister also tried to assuage the MQM which has been up in arms against a statement by the Sindh Home Minister, Dr Zulfikar Mirza, who claimed that most of the arrested target killers in Karachi were found to be affiliated with the MQM. Even though Mirza remained unrepentant over his statement, both Zardari and Gilani assured the MQM that the PPP did not subscribe to Mirza’s utterances. They also asked Mirza to desist from giving any statement that riled the MQM. While the MQM is reported to have extended its ‘deadline’ to January 15, it is also believed to have demanded action against Mirza. Zardari did try to use his meeting with MQM to win its support on the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) issue in return for addressing all of MQM’s concerns, there is no sign as yet of the MQM relenting on the RGST question.

How long the latest truce between PPP and MQM lasts is another matter altogether. While the PPP is believed to be working on a Plan B to handle the situation if the MQM withdraws support, the MQM has raised a lot of eyebrows by opening up lines of communication with other political parties, including some parties like the Jamaat Islami and JUIF with which it has always been daggers drawn. The contacts between the MQM and other parties could well be an attempt on the part of the MQM to become the lynchpin of any alternate setup if at all such an opportunity arises.

Asif Zardari also reached out to the main opposition party PMLN. In a reply to a letter written earlier by Nawaz Sharif, Zardari sought his support on the RGST issue and to join hands with the government to “jointly take difficult decisions required to take our country forward.” While seeking PMLNs support for the restructuring of public sector enterprises – an issue that Nawaz Sharif had raised in his letter – Zardari also played upon Nawaz Sharif’s fears by warning him against falling prey to the ‘divide and rule’ politics of elements inimical to democracy. Apart from the PMLN, the PPP has also tried to rope in the ‘like-minded’ faction of the PMLQ. The president of the faction, Salim Saifullah has said that the support of his faction to the government would depend on the outcome of negotiations with the Prime Minister.

Also jumping in the political fray has been the Tehrik-e-Insaaf of Imran Khan which is reportedly making efforts to forge a broad-based coalition of parties like the PPP(Shaheed Bhutto), Pakistan Democratic Front etc. But to quote Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy: “Zero plus zero plus zero will always be equal to zero”.

Even as the political parties were making manoeuvres to create, expand or preserve their political space, they all collaborated once again to pass, almost unanimously (only a single dissenting vote), the 19th Amendment to the constitution. The bill was necessitated by the Supreme Court’s interim ruling in the cases challenging the 18th Amendment. In its interim ruling, the court had made certain recommendations on the procedure for appointment of judges to the superior judiciary. The 19th Amendment has more or less accepted all the recommendations except on two counts – upholding the right of the parliamentary committee on judges appointment to discuss the conduct of judges, albeit in camera; and maintaining the right of the parliamentary committee to reject any nomination of the Judicial Commission by a 3/4th majority and making such rejection final and non-justiciable. The latest amendment is expected to end the challenge to the 18th Amendment, especially in regards to the appointment of judges’ issue.

Meanwhile, in a setback to the rights of women in Pakistan, the Federal Shariat Court has declared as unconstitutional and un-Islamic, three sections of the Protection of Women Act (2006) which had made amendments to the infamous Hudood ordinances. Ironically, the judgment came on a day that had been dedicated to the working women of Pakistan.

On the economic front, amidst reports that the government’s borrowing from the State Bank of Pakistan for budgetary support has shot up by 346%, the government has all but given up on imposing the RGST by January 1. Having formally approached the IMF for seeking an extension in the Standby Arrangement programme, the government is now trying to work out a compromise formula with the IMF to substitute the RGST with some other measure until a political consensus can be evolved within Pakistan on the issue. Apparently, a Plan B has been worked out under which the government will withdraw all exemptions granted under the existing GST regime and could hike up rates of taxation.

The law enforcement agencies in Balochistan arrested Shazain Bugti, grandson of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti and president of the Balochistan chapter of the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), after a huge cache of arms and ammunition were recovered from vehicles in his convoy. Predictably, the JWP alleged a conspiracy by the Interior Minister Rehman Malik. Shahzain Bugti accused ‘secret agencies’ of involvement in the conspiracy. Although Bugti has been remanded to police custody, there are reports that charges under which he has been booked are so watered down that some sort of an understanding has been reached between him and the security establishment that is for all practical purposes calling the shots in Balochistan.

The arrest of two senior police officers by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case has caused some ripples in Pakistan, more so since the chief prosecutor has claimed that the investigation is likely to be expanded to include four officers of the ISI and Military Intelligence (MI) who have been named by the arrested police officers during interrogation as having been in contact with them on the day of the assassination.

Foreign Relations / Foreign Policy

With tensions escalating after reports in the US media of growing pressure to make incursions in Pakistan by US special forces to target terrorist safe havens against which Pakistan has been reluctant to act – Pakistan diplomats and military officials have alleged that the US is exaggerating the terror threat from Pakistan's tribal belt to find a scapegoat for its failures in Afghanistan – the Pakistan army carried out an operational readiness test of the 1300 km strike range Ghauri missile. That the test was carried out as part of a field training exercise is perhaps a signal being sent by Pakistan to the US and its allies to not violate the red lines listed by Pakistan. While the military and foreign office spokesmen warned the US of ‘serious consequences’ if it undertook cross-border raids on Pakistani territory, an unnamed official threatened that Pakistan would end cooperation in the war on terror in the event of such a raid. On their part, US officials have denied any plans to launch ground operations in Pakistan. While the White House Press Secretary has said that the US prefers that Pakistan conducts operations in its territory, the Pentagon spokesman has claimed that there are only some 100 US troops in Pakistan, all of them involved in training Pakistani security force personnel.

Meanwhile the Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has said that any decision to launch an operation in North Waziristan would be taken by the political leadership and the army would comply with any such decision. Prime Minister Gilani has also played along with the fiction of the political government taking the decision on an operation in North Waziristan (NWA) and has said in Parliament that it would be a figment of imagination if anyone thinks that the government will take ‘dictation’ on the issue of such an operation.

The US appears to have retreated some on the NWA operation with US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter saying that “Washington understands that Pakistan’s military is too stretched to invade North Waziristan at the moment, but is confident the operation will eventually happen.” According to the US Vice President Joseph Biden preventing the terrorists from bringing down the Pakistani government is one of the main objectives of US policy in the region, a theme that the US Undersecretary for Defense Michele Flournoy repeated when she said that “Pakistan is central to our aim in preventing the regeneration of Al Qaeda in the region”. The Acting US Special Envoy for Afpak, Frank Ruggerio, has assured Pakistan an important role in the Afghan reconciliation process.

But despite all the nice talk of cooperation, the summons issued by a New York court to the ISI chief and other Pakistani officials as also to the head of the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e- Taiba, Hafiz Saeed, has caused a lot of anger and some concern in Pakistan. While Prime Minister Gilani has said that ISI officials cannot be summoned without their approval (he obviously thinks that the rest of the world is as overwhelmed by the ISI’s power as the Pakistani people), Pakistani diplomats in Washington are reported to be working fervently behind the scenes with US officials to prevent the US government from “putting its weight” behind the civil suit filed by the family of some victims of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

The high-point of last week was the visit of the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Pakistan. According to news reports, some 35 agreements and MOUs covering a whole range of areas and totalling around $ 35 billion were signed during the visit. But it appears that a lot of the hype surrounding Jiabao’s visit was part of an elaborate propaganda campaign that the Pakistani establishment had orchestrated to present China as an option and alternative to the US and a counterweight to India. In tangible terms, Jiabao gave only $ 10 million for flood relief and $ 400 million for infrastructure rebuilding, most of which will be spent on the Karakorum highway which will be built by Chinese companies, employing Chinese engineers and Chinese labour. According to the Chinese government, the total amount of deals amount to around $ 10 billion. Even on the issue of tweaking the Free Trade Agreement between China and Pakistan to ensure that Pakistan would be able to export more goods to China, there appears to have been a reversal in the Chinese stand after Jiabao reached Beijing. According to a report, the Chinese have withdrawn their unilateral offer to facilitate the import of an additional 263 items from Pakistan. There are also questions over the $ 6.5 billion renewable energy deals signed between the two countries, with Pakistani officials saying that the agreement would go through only if the Chinese offered a competitive tariff.

At the political level, there was a little comfort for Pakistan when Jiabao assured Pakistan that China would always stand by Pakistan through all crises and would support Pakistan in its efforts to safeguard its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. But the fact that Jiabao did not once mention Kashmir in his speech to the joint session of the Pakistani parliament caused some heart-burn. Pakistanis are also not quite sure what Jiabao was referring to when he made the cryptic comment that a “close neighbour is better than a distant relative”.

Relations between Iran and Pakistan have taken a dip after the suicide bombing week before last in the Iranian town of Chabahar which Iranian authorities have blamed on some Pakistani officials. Amidst calls from some Iranian officials to destroy terrorist camps inside Pakistan if the Pakistani authorities did not act against them, Iranian authorities have conveyed to Pakistan that mere verbal commitments were not enough and action on ground needs to be taken against terror groups like Jundullah. Meeting with the Iranian president on the sidelines of the ECO summit meeting in Istanbul, President Asif Zardari has assured his Iranian counterpart that Pakistan would extend all assistance and cooperation to track down the people responsible for the Chabahar incident.

Relations with India

In a classic example of Pakistani double-speak on the issue of terrorism, even as Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir accused India of using terrorism as a ‘propaganda tool’ against Pakistan, a Pakistani terrorist group Al Badr Mujahideen held a public rally in Peshawar where a call for jihad against India was given. The Pakistani foreign office spokesman has meanwhile disagreed with the Indian Foreign Secretary’s remarks that Pakistan was not doing enough on the issue of terrorism. In a counter-offensive, the spokesman pointed to the Samjhauta Express bombing to say that “let alone putting the perpetrators of that reprehensible crime to trial, India has not even shared with us findings of its investigations.” He also referred to the Wikileaks cables on the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir to say that “it is difficult to explain as to how a country that indulges in grisly human rights violations and suppresses the inalienable rights of the Kashmiris can claim to be the world’s largest democracy”. The Pakistan foreign office has also called the reference to Pakistani sponsored terrorism by the Russian President during his visit to India as ‘unwarranted and unacceptable’. Meanwhile, India has asked Pakistan to allow a team of investigators to visit Pakistan and question the accused in the 26/11 case who are facing trial inside Pakistan. India has once again also asked Pakistan to give voice samples of the accused.

According to a report, India and Pakistan have agreed to provide with triple entry permits valid for one year to people travelling across the Line of Control in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

India has for the first time started importing onions from Pakistan to moderate the prices of the vegetable in the country. The imports by India have led to price of onions in the Pakistani markets shooting up.