Liberal Freedoms: A Mixed Record

Freedom of the Press:

• Though the Office of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) exercises loose control over the press coverage of military matters, the Government permitted intense and public criticism of President Musharraf in the press. It did ban an issue of Newsweek magazine in late July which included an article on the Qu’ran which it deemed offensive.

• It exercised more stringent controls over access to the internet, and restricted access to the South Asia Tribune and cautioned media against syndicating its stories.

• Blasphemy laws (under which an accused is subject to immediate arrest and if convicted given a mandatory death sentence) have also been used to suppress the media – although every conviction thus far has been overturned at the appellate level, where levels of judicial professionalism are higher.

• There has also been concern that three recently adopted ordinances —the Press Council Ordinance, the Registration Ordinance, and the Defamation Ordinance— would further restrict freedom of expression.

Freedom of Assembly:

• Public political gatherings have been banned since 2000, although the ban has been enforced unevenly. The government has generally allowed all Islamist parties to hold rally and campaign; it has occasionally done so to secular parties as well.

• Police have used brutal force against opposition demonstrators, and no members of the security forces were, or are likely to be, prosecuted for excessive force against demonstrators. Paramilitary Rangers have also been employed to disperse demonstrations, and killed a protester in Okara on May 11, 2002.

Religious Freedom:

• Police have fostered a climate of impunity for acts of violence and intimidation against religious minorities, particularly Pakistan's Shi'a population.

• Blasphemy laws are enforced frequently, often to settle scores unrelated to religious activity, and there are 157 documented incidents in the past year of persons being incarcerated for violations of the blasphemy law. Religious extremists generally threaten judges and their families in such cases with violence in the event of an acquittal.

• On the other hand, no blasphemy conviction has been upheld on appeal, with Pakistan’s appellate judiciary being more professional and impervious to pressure.

• Religious minorities face considerable discrimination in employment, education, and in the civil and military service, whereas in the country’s early years they had often risen to the senior ranks of those services. Also, until January 2002, religious minorities voted from a separate electoral roll, and could only vote for candidates to represent their community.

Judicial Independence:

• Pakistan’s judiciary is notoriously corrupt and inefficient, with substantial delays in trials and frequent instances of executive interference in the outcome of litigation.

Women’s Rights:

• While one third of local council seats and 60 seats in the National Assembly are set aside for female members, the MMA have declared that families of women voting in the North-West Frontier Province would be fined.

• With domestic violence and honour killings endemic (generally in “stove deaths”), police generally return battered women to their abusive family members, and the judicial system treats domestic violence as an essentially private matter.

• Rape, as well as tribally sanctioned gang rape as a way of punishing families, is also endemic, with police often implicated in the attacks, and the threat of adultery punishments discouraging victims from bringing complaints to court. Testimony of female victims and witnesses carries no legal weight.

Academic Freedom:

• While the government did not directly interfere with academic freedom, most of the nation’s universities have seen widespread intimidation, threats of mass violence, and interference with examinations, faculty hiring, and admission of new students, by heavily armed radical religious organizations.

Slavery:

• Bonded labour, essentially slavery, is illegal but common, particularly of Christians and other religious minorities, and especially in rural Sindh province. The practice requires labour to pay off a debt, then sets the 'interest' so the debt is nearly impossible to repay. The result is indentured servitude. While this practice is by no means unique to Pakistan, conservative estimates place the number of bonded workers there at several million.

Human Rights Groups’ Freedom to Act:

• Human rights organizations and observers from international organisations generally reported they were given good access to police stations and prisons, were permitted to travel freely, and were treated with respect by officials.

Historical Background of Democracy in Pakistan

Pakistan has been under military governance for the majority of its 56 years of existence. All five of the nation’s elected governments have been removed by the army, on each occasion with the stated or implicit support of the president. On two of these occasions (1993 and 1996) another civilian government was installed in its place, and in the remaining three (1958, Ayub Khan; 1977, Zia ul-Haq; 1999, Pervez Musharraf), military leaders seized power for themselves outright. Further, of the three elected prime ministers (Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto both served twice), one was executed (Z.A. Bhutto), and the other two were exiled under threat of imprisonment if they return (Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif).

After the election of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1988 to replace military ruler Mohammad Zia-ul Huq after Zia’s death in a plane crash, observers believed that Pakistan had entered a democratic phase of its political history, with the army having made a transition from the role of kingmaker to that of referee.

Instability returned, however, in August 1990 when President Ishaq Khan invoked a Zia-era constitutional amendment to remove Bhutto from office. Nawaz Sharif became prime minister after elections held in October 1990, with Sharif also being removed in 1993 under the same amendment. Bhutto returned for three years before being dismissed by President Farooq Leghari for nepotism and corruption in November 1996.

In generally free and fair parliamentary elections held in February 1997, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League won a substantial victory, and Sharif moved in April 1997 to remove the controversial Eighth Amendment which allowed the president to dismiss the government and appoint military chiefs and provincial governors. Sharif further strengthened his position by replacing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and pressuring the resignation of President Leghari; he furthermore pressed the Lahore High Court to convict Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari of corruption, with a sentence of five years’ imprisonment, a fine of $8.6 million, and a disqualification from public office.

Assuming power by coup on October 12, 1999, Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s constitution of 1973 (text) and assumed for himself the additional title of Chief Executive. He appointed a National Security Council of eight members to serve as Pakistan’s supreme authority. On May 12, 2000, the Supreme Court unanimously declared the coup valid and granted Musharraf executive and legislative authority through October 2002. On June 20, 2001, he named himself president to replace Mohammad Rafiq Tara. (Musharraf’s official website)

• The coup was denounced broadly, including by UN Secretary General Annan (statement). The Commonwealth voted in September 2003 to extend Pakistan's four-year post-coup suspension from the organization for lack of democratic progress.

• While some nations, including Canada, called immediately for additional sanctions to be imposed on Pakistan, the United States' response was carefully measured, refraining from referring to Sharif’s ouster as a coup, and calling only on Musharraf to announce his plans to move Pakistan back to democracy. The Clinton administration was, however, required to impose sanctions by Section 508 (law) of the Foreign Appropriation Act, which affects countries where democratic governance has been disrupted.

• Even so, military government was welcomed in many sectors of Pakistani society (including by Benazir Bhutto) and accepted by others. Its support grew rapidly over the first year of control, when army offices successfully restored order to university campuses which had been paralysed by armed Islamist factions and efficiency to bureaucracies which had grown bloated, slow, and corrupt. However, with hundreds of serving and retired army officers assuming top positions in the bureaucracy, public-sector corporations and universities over three years, much of their initial reformist urge has waned, and their public support has diminished as a result.

Why Has Democracy Always Failed in Pakistan?

Why has democracy always failed in Pakistan? India and Bangladesh, which sharing a number of cultural and demographic traits with Pakistan, have enjoyed a number of subsequent democratic governments chosen through free and fair elections. A Pakistani democracy NGO named Pildat suggests four explanations:

1. Insufficient assertiveness by legislators - The elected representatives were by and large not aware of their rights and responsibilities and no effective system was evolved to make these representatives aware of their responsibilities.
2. Cultivation of democratic elites disrupted by military governance - During the periods of military rule, the political process which on its own momentum develops new leadership in the country came to a halt. Whenever democracy was restored, the process did not continue long enough to allow new leadership to emerge.
3. Alienation and disengagement of educated middle classes from politics - The educated classes mostly from the middle class remained largely unconcerned about the political process. They were either ignored or got disillusioned because they saw no prospects for them in the process. The political activity remained largely confined to the moneyed class or the street toughs. The educated middle class, professionals, scholars, minorities and women need to be encouraged to join the political process more actively.
4. Lack of active citizenry exercising accountability - There had been no initiative taken by the citizens to monitor the performance of the elected representatives and elected bodies and to hold them accountable to their voters on the basis of their track record.

Tomorrow: Part 3/3 - The Way Forward
* Freedom Ratings
* International Efforts at Fostering Liberty
* History of U.S.-Pakistan Security Ties
* Scenarios and Options for U.S. Policy

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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?

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