Pakistan - Politics
In 2003 General Musharraf cut a deal with six hardline Islamic parties, agreeing to step down as army chief of staff by the end of 2004. In exchange, he got a promise from the parties to support the ratification of constitutional amendments he had enacted early in 2003, giving the military and himself additional powers.
By early 2004 Pakistan seemed on the verge of political destabilization. Islamic radicals were seeking to overthrow Musharraf's regime. Musharraf supported the United States' operation against the Talibs in Afghanistan. More recently, he took steps to reach another reconciliation with India in the conflict over Kashmir. Musharraf has also been helpful in the Americans' search for Osama Bin Laden and other al Qaida leaders who are said to be hiding in northern Pakistan. He is ruling a country in which over much of the population hates America. The general and secular army command are the main obstacles to Pakistan sliding into what may become a regime as fanatical as that of Afghanistan's Talibs or Iran's Mullahs. It is hard to imagine what will happen if Islamic radicals prevailed in Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long record of Army involvement in politics. The Army has ruled the country for 28 out of 55 years of Pakistan’s independent history. The current Army ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, took power on 12 October 1999 after then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to fire Musharraf as Chief of Army Staff. Musharraf’s takeover was unconstitutional, but there was silent approval by the majority of Pakistanis. People believed the Army would bring sweeping changes to Pakistan by restoring the country’s international image, eliminating widespread corruption, stabilizing the security situation, and providing jobs and hope to the general population. After 3 years of General Musharraf’s rule, public enchantment with the Army has waned.
The the pro-military Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) are national political parties, while the Muttahid Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) -- an umbrella group of six religious parties, including the Jamaat-I-Islami, Pakistan's oldest religious party -- gained significant influence during the 2002 election. Other parties with a strong regional, ethnic, or religious base include the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). After the elections held in late 2002, the Pakistani political system remains highly fragmented, with no group winning a substantial majority of seats in the legislature, and religious groups banding together in the MMA to earn a very significant portion of seats for the first time.
The country’s major politicians, former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, are in exile in the Middle East. Bhutto’s People’s Party of Pakistan (PPP), under the banner of the People’s Party of Pakistan Parliamentarians (PPPP), and Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) [PML (N)] are contesting elections and hope to draw upon residual support for the exiled leaders. The Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) does not have a nationwide support base, it remains a major political force in the urban Sindh areas. Besides the PPPP and PML (N), key national level players include the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) [PML(Q)], a breakaway faction of the original PML which has acquired the label of the “King’s Party” due to its strong government backing; the Grand National Alliance, a coalition of regional parties and senior politicians supported by the government; and the Muttahid Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of 4 [later 6] major religious parties that recently received some government support to counter the influence of the PPPP. The Tehrik-i-Insaf, led by Imran Khan, has received considerable publicity, but is still not considered a national-level force.
General elections held in December 1970 polarized relations between the eastern and western sections of Pakistan. The Awami League, which advocated autonomy for the more populous East Pakistan, swept the East Pakistan seats to gain a majority in Pakistan as a whole. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), founded and led by Ayub Khan's former Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, won a majority of the seats in West Pakistan. When Bhutto proclaimed his own victory in the March 1977 national elections, the opposition Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) denounced the results as fraudulent and demanded new elections. Bhutto resisted and later arrested the PNA leadership. On July 5, 1977, the military removed Bhutto from power and arrested him, declared martial law, and suspended portions of the 1973 Constitution. Chief of Army Staff Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq became Chief Martial Law Administrator.
In 1980, most center and left parties, led by the PPP, formed the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). The MRD demanded Zia's resignation, an end to martial law, new elections, and restoration of the Constitution as it existed before Zia's takeover. On August 17, 1988, a plane carrying President Zia, American Ambassador Arnold Raphel, U.S. Brig. General Herbert Wassom, and 28 Pakistani military officers crashed.
After winning 93 of the 205 National Assembly seats contested in the election of November 1988, the PPP, under the leadership of Benazir Bhutto, formed a coalition government with several smaller parties, including the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). The Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI), a multi-party coalition led by the PML and including religious right parties such as the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), won 55 National Assembly seats. In August 1990, President Khan, citing his powers under the eighth amendment to the Constitution, dismissed the Bhutto government.
New elections, held in October 1990, confirmed the political ascendancy of the IJI. In addition to a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, the alliance acquired control of all four provincial parliaments and enjoyed the support of the military and of President Khan. Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, as leader of the PML, the most prominent Party in the IJI, was elected prime minister by the National Assembly. The passage into law in May 1991 of a Shari'a bill, providing for widespread Islamization, legitimized the IJI government among much of Pakistani society.
Nawaz Sharif was not able to reconcile the different objectives of the IJI's constituent parties. The largest religious party, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), abandoned the alliance because of its perception of PML hegemony. The regime was weakened further by the military's suppression of the MQM, which had entered into a coalition with the IJI to contain PPP influence and allegations of corruption directed at Nawaz Sharif. In April 1993, President Khan, citing "maladministration, corruption, and nepotism" and espousal of political violence, dismissed the Sharif government, but the following month the Pakistan Supreme Court reinstated the National Assembly and the Nawaz Sharif government.
In the October 1993 elections, the PPP won a plurality of seats in the National Assembly, and Benazir Bhutto was asked to form a government. However, because it did not acquire a majority in the National Assembly, the PPP's control of the government depended upon the continued support of numerous independent parties, particularly the PML/J. The unfavorable circumstances surrounding PPP rule--the imperative of preserving a coalition government, the formidable opposition of Nawaz Sharif's PML/N movement, and the insecure provincial administrations--presented significant difficulties for the government of Prime Minister Bhutto.
In November 1996, President Leghari dismissed the Bhutto government, charging it with corruption, mismanagement of the economy, and implication in extrajudicial killings in Karachi. Elections in February 1997 resulted in an overwhelming victory for the PML/Nawaz, and President Leghari called upon Nawaz Sharif to form a government.
Following the 12 October 1999 ouster of the government of Prime Minister Sharif, the military-led government stated its intention to restructure the political and electoral systems. On October 14, 1999, General Musharraf declared a state of emergency and issued the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), which suspended the federal and provincial Parliaments, held the Constitution in abeyance, and designated Musharraf as Chief Executive.
General Musharraf banned Sunni militants Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and its Shiite counterpart Sipah-e-Mohammad in August 2001. In January 2002, he banned four more groups, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehrik-e-Jafaria Pakistan, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi. The latter was banned for "misleading thousands of simple poor people into Afghanistan and being responsible for their massacre." The banned groups were reorganized under new names. The Jamaiat-ud-Dawa (JuD) was the rechristened version of Lashkar-e-Taiba. The banned Tehrik-e Jafaria Pakistan had renamed itself Tehrik-e-Islami, Masood Azhar's Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) had resumed working as Khudam-ul-Islam and Al Furqan. The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, led by the slain Azam Tariq, was reincarnated as Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan. The Markaz-ad-Dawa-wal-Irsahd now operates as the Jamaat-ad-Dawa.
Musharraf’s first blatant attempt to hang onto power was on 30 April 1992, when he held a referendum to confirm himself as president for the next 5 years. The government claimed a 60 percent turnout in which 97 percent of voters approved of Musharraf remaining as president. The press, international monitoring groups, human rights organizations, and all domestic political parties accused the government of electoral fraud. Independent observers put the turnout at between 10 and 20 percent.
New general parliamentary and provincial elections were held on 10 October 2002. A total of 72 parties were registered to contest, but strict rules had been decided upon in advance which barred the former democratically elected Prime Ministers to take part, whereas their parties were allowed to participate. Final results to the National Assembly elections:
- Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), PML (Q) – 117 (led by Mian Mohd. Azhar)
- Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians, PPPP – 81 (led by Benazir Bhutto)
- Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, MMA – 60
- Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), PML (N) – 19 (led by Nawaz Sharif)
- Muttahida Qaumi Movement, MQM – 17 (led by Altaf Hussain)
- National Alliance, NA – 16 (led by Imtiaz Sheikh)
- Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) – 5
- Pakistan Muslim League (Junejo) – 3
- Pakistan Peoples Party (Sherpao) – 2
- Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf – 1
- Pakistan Awami Tehrik – 1
- Pakistan Muslim League (Zia) – 1
- Balochistan National Party – 1
- Jamhoori Watan Party – 1
- MQM(H) – 1
- PSPP – 1
- Independent candidates – 15
The PML-Q — also called the “king’s party” due to its perceived pro-military bent— won 118 of the total 342 seats, mostly from Punjab. The affiliated National Alliance won 16 seats. This gave the pro-Musharraf parties a plurality in the National Assembly, but not a majority. As expected, the PPP did well in Sindh, but was unable to form a working coalition in that province’s legislature. The PML-N suffered huge losses, winning only 19 national seats, all of them in Punjab. The Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) did well in Sindh’s provincial elections. The MQM collected only a small percentage of the national vote (winning 17 national seats), and aligned itself with the PML-Q. Small parties and independents account for the remaining 31 seats. The previously influential Awami National Party was shut out at the national level.
In November 2002 Pakistan's National Assembly elected Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali as the country's first civilian prime minister since the 1999 military coup. The 58-year-old Pakistani leader is from the southwestern province of Balochistan. He won 172 votes out of 328, defeating candidates from an Islamic alliance and the party of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. For almost five weeks after the general election, Mr. Jamali's party held several rounds of talks with the alliance of Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, to form a coalition. But the negotiations broke down over differences over President Musharraf's constitutional amendments, which allow him to stay in office for five more years. The amendments also give the president power to dismiss the elected government. Prime Minister Jamali's party accepts these changes, saying they are needed to ensure a stable democratic system in Pakistan.
The multi-party Alliance for Restoration of Democracy [ARD], which is made up of liberal politicians of the PPP and the PML (N), includes the political party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan People's Party, which emerged as the second largest party in Parliament.
In late 2003 Pakistan's year-long political crisis came to an end with a landmark agreement between the ruling party and the opposition over controversial constitutional amendments introduced by President Pervez Musharraf. The deal came following a year of negotiations and debate between the pro-Musharraf ruling party and the leading opposition alliance of religious groups, the Mutahidda Majlis-e Amal. In exchange for the president's promise to quit his military post, the MMA agreed to support a series of constitutional changes that give sweeping powers to the office of the president. President Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, introduced the constitutional changes just before holding national elections in October 2002. However, the opposition refused to recognize the amendments unless they were approved in the legislature by a two-thirds majority, as called for in the constitution.
On 29 December 2003 the National Assembly passed the 17th Constitutional Amendment Bill -- the Legal Framework Order (LFO) -- with a two-thirds majority, giving sweeping powers to President General Pervez Musharraf and validating the military takeover of October 12, 1999, and all subsequent acts of the military government. Two hundred and forty-eight members vote in favor of the bill and no vote cast against the amendments as the PPPP, PML-N and other opposition parties boycotted the vote. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) was the only opposition party which supported the government to further amend the Constitution. General Musharraf pledged to quit as army chief by December 2004. Musharraf would remain president after removing his military uniform. However, he would have to take vote of confidence from the National Assembly, Senate and four provincial assemblies within one month after taking off his military uniform.
Pakistan significantly increased its military operations and pacification efforts in tribal areas along the Afghanistan border in 2004. These operations affected al-Qaida, Taliban, and other threat groups by disrupting safe-havens and, in some cases, forcing them back into Afghanistan where they are vulnerable to Coalition operations. Pakistan also secured agreements with several tribes by successfully balancing military action with negotiations and rewards to encourage cooperation and limit domestic backlash. Pakistan must maintain and expand these operations in order to permanently disrupt insurgent and terrorist activity.
The pro-Musharraf ruling party pushed a bill through parliament in November to allow the military leader to retain both portfolios until 2007, when new elections are due.
Thus on 30 December 2004 Musharraf formally declared that he will retain the army chief's post, breaking a public pledge that he will give up his uniform by the end of the year. In a televised address to the nation, President Musharraf asserted that to give up his military uniform now would undermine Pakistan's political and economic stability. Musharraf said that lawmakers of the opposition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal party, the MMA, had not kept their promise to avoid what he called politics of confrontation. The MMA and other political parties strongly criticized President Musharraf for breaking his promise.
Indigenous and international terrorist groups have pledged to assassinate Musharraf and other senior Pakistan government officials and remain a significant threat. International and indigenous terrorist groups continue to pose a high threat to senior Pakistani government officials, military officers and US interests. The Prime Minister and a corps commander have been the targets of assassination attempts since the summer of 2003. President Musharraf remains at high risk of assassination, although no known attempts on his life have occurred since December 2003. Investigations into the two December 2003 attempts revealed complicity among junior officers and enlisted personnel in the Pakistani Army and Air Force. If Musharraf were assassinated or otherwise replaced, Pakistan’s new leader would be less pro-US. Extremist Islamic politicians would gain greater influence.
