Democracy in Pakistan: The Way Forward (3/3)

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.

Our third and final segment looks at the efforts being made to strengthen and track democracy and liberty in Pakistan, examines past security ties between the USA and Pakistan, and concludes with an assessment of U.S. policy implications and options. Pakistan's possession of nuclear materials, its role in the proliferation of same, and its ongoing disputes with India certainly make the development of a stable, democratic, and free Pakistan a project worthy of America's - and the world's - close attention.

Part 1: Players & News
* Pakistan: Political Structure
* The Islamist MMA
* Recent Parliamentary Elections and Constitutional Changes

Part 2: A Legacy of Democratic Failure
* Liberal Freedoms: A Mixed Record
* Historical Background of Democracy in Pakistan
* Why Has Democracy Always Failed in Pakistan?

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

Freedom Ratings

• Pakistan receives a rating of “not free” from Freedom House in the areas of political rights and civil liberties, and the State Department, in its Country Report on Human Rights Practices, appraises Pakistan’s human rights record as “poor.” (report) Pakistan received an upward trend arrow from Freedom House (report) for holding free, but not entirely fair, national elections in October 2002.

• Among the rights violations cited by the State Department in its 2003 report are officially sanctioned (generally by local or lower-level officials) honour killings (of which 631 instances have been documented), rape, and domestic violence against women; the persistence of debt slavery, bonded labour, endemic discrimination against women, and sectarian attacks against Shi’a professionals. Amnesty International estimates 26 persons died from police torture during the past year. Police professionalism is low, with little real control over police by civil authorities, and police officers are generally not punished or briefly suspended for involvement in extrajudicial killings. Freedom House –constitution: In September 2002, Musharraf issued a “Legal Framework Order” which increased the powers of the President and the military. The order granted the president the power to dissolve the National Assembly and appoint the Army Chief and provincial governors, and it established a military-dominated National Security Council appointed with control of the nation’s security policies. The United States expressed concern at the order and the potential for the changes to hinder the country’s democratic evolution.

International Efforts at Fostering Democracy

Democracy promotion expert Thomas Carothers has been sharply critical of the U.S. stance toward democratization in Pakistan, and noted that presidential statements have made clear the relationship between democracy promotion and security interests: in particular, he cites President Bush’s response to questions about Musharraf’s single-handed implementation of the Legal Framework Order: "My reaction about President Musharraf, he's still tight with us on the war against terror, and that's what I appreciate."

• About the Pakistani leader's abridgment of human rights and democracy, Bush’s response was less than convincing: "To the extent that our friends promote democracy, it's important. We will continue to work with our friends and allies to promote democracy." (article)

• Through USAID, the United States operates a three-year, $38 million governance aid program together with the Asia Foundation (USAID program website) (Asia Foundation program website.)

• Responding, perhaps, to limitations imposed by the Pakistani government, the U.S. aid program’s principal efforts so far have been extraordinarily modest, consisting principally of interactive theatre and what it calls “mapping” of existing civil society organizations. The Asia Foundation has sponsored an Interactive Resource Centre which promotes citizen’s education and advocacy through interactive theatre; also, it supports an Institute of Development Studies and Practice based in Balochistan, which it bills as promoting advocacy for conditions for more effective democratic governance; and it sponsors a National Research and Development Foundation, which supports civil society organizations—including, notably, Islamic organizations—in NWFP. In 2002, USAID and the Asia Foundation also supported a voter education campaign for the parliamentary elections and a orientation programs for legislators.

• U.S. government aid efforts for legal and judicial reform have been somewhat more robust, although rather than directly combating corruption, most programs to date have focused on technical assistance, the provision of computers and other information technology, and pilot court programs which have been intended to demonstrate more efficient courthouse practices.

• A report on democracy aid programs, written by the U.S. government’s principal contractor and in the aid bureaucracy’s inimitable style, is available online.

• A religious charity, World Vision (website) is the U.S. government’s principal contractor for a second set of programs designed to encourage Pakistanis to contact and hold accountable their national and provincial legislators. This program has received a $14 million budget over three years.

• An additional USAID contractor, Internews ( latest report), is engaged in training local radio journalists in reporting skills. It received a $1 million, one-year grant. It is not presently meeting many of its targets, according to its most recent report.

• Among international organisations, the World Bank operates a number of projects in Pakistan. While the Bank has taken on projects oriented toward improving education of poor citizens and women, and in bettering government transparency, it is not at present engaged in democracy promotion programs per se. (see country brief )

• A Pakistani democracy activist attended the third assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in Durban in February, sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy.

• Much more substantial work has been undertaken by democratic organizations within Pakistan. The most noteworthy is the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, or PILDAT. PILDAT’s principal programs are focused at the moment on building the capacities of individual legislators and the legislatures themselves; monitoring the performance and work of individual legislators, and making that information available to constituents; and on projects geared toward the mentoring of new generations of democratic politicians.

• PILDAT has broad backing from Pakistan’s educated elite, and its programs are in general more professional than those of U.S. aid organizations backed by the U.S. government. PILDAT also has sponsored projects in the areas of voter education, candidate and campaign personnel training, and the monitoring of good governance. PILDAT produces a regular report on the state of democracy in Pakistan, of which this link is just the most recent.

History of U.S.-Pakistan Security Ties

• The security relationship between the United States and Pakistan dates to 1954 and a mutual defense assistance agreement, motivated by American concerns about Soviet expansion and Pakistani concerns about India. By 1955, Pakistan had joined the South East Asia Treaty Organization and the Central Treaty Organization, and a further bilateral cooperation agreement followed in 1959. The U.S. gave Pakistan $508 million in military assistance from 1953 to 1961. The U.S. at the same time has sought to strike an equal balance between both partners in the India-Pakistan rivalry, leading to the suspense of assistance to both sides when wars broke out in 1965 and 1971, and cooling feelings toward the united states in Islamabad. Soviet expansion into Afghanistan in December 1979 led to a 5-year, $3.2 billion economic and aid package for Afghanistan in September 1981, and President Reagan treated Pakistan as a key frontline state in the containment of Soviet expansionism.

• Pakistan’s other key security relationship is with China, which is embroiled in a strategic rivalry with India dating to a brief border war in 1962. China has been a major arms supplier for Pakistan since the 1960s, including ballistic missiles and ring magnets used to enrich uranium, and has served as a Chinese bridge both to the Muslim world and to Washington.

• Pakistan’s desire to secure a Pakhto-dominant and friendly government in the guise of the Taliban regime on its western border drove it away from the United States and closer to global Islamists. In September 2003, the DIA declassified documents which suggested ISI support to Al-Qa’ida in the 1990s.

• The then-moribund U.S.-Pakistan security relationship was revived after September 11, 2001, and in August 2002 officials from the Defense Department and Ministry of Defence met in Islamabad for the first Defence Consultative Group session held since 1997. Since then, it has withstood difference - in March 2003, Pakistan expressed disapproval of the coalition’s military action against Saddam – and grown stronger, when in March 2004 the United States designated Pakistan as a Major Non-Nato Ally.

• Subordination of democracy rhetoric to security ties: The revised security environment following September 11 led President Bush to waive coup-related sanctions from March 2003 on, as well as the military and economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan in 1990 and 1998 for acquiring nuclear weapons. While American officials continued to call for democratic progress in Pakistan – Assistant Secretary of State (South Asia) Christina Rocca was typical of the administration’s rhetoric when in March 2003 she told a House subcommittee that the administration wanted to see “strong Pakistani democratic institutions and practices, including a National Assembly that plays a vigorous and positive role in governance” – the United States’s need for an ally while engaging in military action in neighbouring Afghanistan guaranteed that Pakistan’s post-coup international isolation had come to an end.

• U.S. assistance to Pakistan increased markedly, from $3.5 million in FY 2001 to over $1 billion in the following year. Though aid then decreased to $494 million in FY 2003, Bush promised Musharraf in June 2003 a 5-year, $3 billion aid package to begin in FY2005 and be paid in five annual instalments, evenly split between military and economic aid.

• In the last two years, the IMF and World Bank have helped Pakistan to reschedule $12.5 billion in outstanding debt to western countries, and provided more than $1 billion in soft loans. Last year the United States wrote off $1 billion in bilateral debt, and this year President Bush promised Pakistan another $3 billion in grants over the next five years. Visiting Bush in Washington, Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali lobbied for the sale of more weapon systems to Pakistan to counter advanced weapons India had bought from Israel.

Scenarios and Options for U.S. Policy

Pakistan reflects an area of intense disagreement within American foreign policy circles – while there is broad consensus that a democratic, allied Pakistan is a necessary security partner in the long term, there is major disagreement over the extent to which cooperation with Musharraf benefits the United States over the short term.

• While two political scientists at Rand recently wrote a piece with the title “Democracy Is the Best Weapon Against Terrorists in Pakistan,” by contrast, shortly after the coup of 1999, a leading Republican foreign policy hand penned a piece with the precise opposite title “Pakistan: Democracy is Not Everything”

• What would be the consequences of a withdrawal of U.S. support from Musharraf? If handled ineptly, and if it did not have the consequence of provoking his downfall, such a move could have the possible effect of prodding Musharraf further into the hands of his Islamist coalition partners in parliament. If, rather, the United States were to be more gentle in nudging the general slowly from power, a subsequent PPP- or PML-N-led Pakistan would most likely bow to strong international incentives and continue the broad directions of current Pakistani foreign policy, with alignments with the United States and China, and a conciliatory policy toward India.

• On the other hand, if the country’s past history is any guide, a Pakistani government led by the PPP or PML-N will be more corrupt and prone to internal division than the current military regime, though more committed than it to democratic governance.

• Also, compared with a subsequent civilian democratic government, Musharraf’s government may represent a window of opportunity with India, as his intense dependence on the United States and fear of his own Islamists, who have tried on two occasions to assassinate him, makes him more likely to seek an accommodation with India. A more legitimate and responsive democratic leader, or one seeking coalition support from the MMA through concessions on foreign policy, may find itself under greater pressure to cultivate insurgency in Kashmir and infiltrations across the line of control.

• Most events in Pakistan’s domestic evolution, of course, are out of the United States’s hands. The United States should, however, be prepared for several key scenarios. One is the assassination of Musharraf by Islamists, which could in turn lead to one of two consequences: [1] stronger military control, with the likely succession of current deputy chief of the army staff General Mohammed Yusuf to a military presidency, with little effect on U.S. security ties and uncertain effects on democratisation prospects; or [2] a complete withdrawal of the military from power, in favour, most likely, of its parliamentary ally, the PML (Q).

• If current coalition ties are any indication, the PML-Q would reach to the MMA as a coalition partner, resulting in an accelerated pace of Islamisation at home, a clamping down on democratising progress, and a foreign policy posture considerably more hostile toward India and independent of the U.S.

In any event, the United States should be ready for an eventual transition of power to one of the two moderate democratic (if, in the past, wracked by corruption) parties, the PPP and the PML-N, after the end of military government. For this inevitability, the United States should ensure that it has laid the groundwork of a stable security and democracy-promotion partnership by quietly reaching out to those parties now while they are in the wilderness, when such gestures will be more meaningful, and will gain the United States greater influence in pushing its agenda of political reform and security cooperation when the time comes that those parties sit across from it at the table.

UPDATE: Chapati Mystery has some comments. "There is something unique about this new military regime from previous ones" - and also a topic that never seems to enter into discussions of Pakistan's future, but needs to.