Asif Zardari is coming in for a lot of stick. There is the usual chatter about “unprecedented corruption” and “hands in the till”. But there isn’t much evidence on offer which is significantly different from that which plagues every government. Instead, there are more substantial charges to confront.
President Zardari is dogged by allegations of “distrust” because he hasn’t kept his word. A string of broken public pledges trails behind him. He said he would restore the judges but didn’t, until America and the Army twisted his hand and compelled him to do the needful. He said he would implement the Charter of Democracy but he is still dragging his feet on it. His handling of Punjab politics also did him no credit. He avowed an alliance with the PMLN even as he was playing footsie with the PMLQ until the restored Supreme Court put paid to that federal misadventure.
The latest allegation is that Pakistan is “dysfunctional” because it is “leaderless” and Mr Zardari is not up to the job. An obvious corollary of this is that “regime change” is not only desirable, it is necessary to get Pakistan out of its multi-faceted existential crises. As proof, polls are cited that show Mr Sharif standing at 70 per cent popularity and Mr Zardari trailing at 19 per cent, even behind the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who is at 33 per cent. If leadership is about crafting and implementing a visionary strategy, choosing the right people for the right job, and inspiring and motivating them to achieve given goals, then Mr Zardari falls flat on his face because his responses are fitful and ad hoc, often driven by compulsion instead of conviction. But the other side of this coin must not be disregarded, especially if the options are a midterm election or another army take-over.
First, the unpopularity of any government should never be reason enough for a fresh election before a government’s term is up. As a rule of thumb, most governments take unpopular steps in their first years in power in order to clean up the mess left by their predecessors in their last years in office. And there is no doubt that President Pervez Musharraf left Pakistan in a most unhappy state of affairs on every front. Certainly, the political instability of 2007-08 cast a dark shadow on the country’s economic prospects, a fact that Mr Sharif, for instance, never tires of laying at General Musharraf’s door. For example, today’s power shortages are owed to the mismanagement of the energy sector in 2007-08 when oil prices went through the roof internationally but the Shaukat Aziz government and the caretaker regime that followed created a huge circular debt with the independent power producers by refusing to pass on the price increase to consumers or raising additional revenues to offset the budgetary squeeze that followed. Similarly, the Taliban who have laid Pakistan low in the last year or so are an offshoot of the foreign and domestic policies of the military establishment which has hurriedly passed on “ownership” to the Zardari government without enabling it with the administrative, political or financial wherewithal and space to change course quickly or efficiently.
Second, the track record of the opposition, that hopes to benefit from a mid-term election, or the military, that seeks to belittle every civilian regime, is worst of all. Getting rid of Mr Zardari and the PPP is hardly a panacea for good governance or renewed democracy. In fact, it is a recipe for uncertainty and even political anarchy. Far better to pressurize Mr Zardari to deliver on his various pledges for good governance.
Indeed, Mr Zardari can claim credit for a couple of visionary initiatives that Pakistan desperately needs. The first is his unqualified hostility towards the Taliban, like Benazir Bhutto who paid for it with her life. Only Mr Zardari has had the courage and vision to speak out fearlessly against this modern scourge with which, not so long ago, everyone in Pakistan, especially the media, was so enamoured. He was always opposed to the Swat Peace Accord with the Tehreek-e-Taliban but waited for public opinion to change suitably before approving military action against the terrorists. Similarly, he has had the guts to say that “yesterday’s heroes are today’s terrorists” and demand a change in public policy that reflects new regional realities. Mr Zardari’s out-of-the-box “peace-with-India” statements have often riled the military establishment as being premature or naïve but he has stuck to his guns, insisting that the modern enemy is internal and not external like India, a sentiment shared by the international community that is trying to bail Pakistan out of its difficulties and by more and more Pakistanis now. Mr Zardari has also successfully persuaded the US to legislate a long term economic and military assistance program to Pakistan without attaching any pro-India conditions to it.
If Mr Zardari is paying the price for political inexperience and lack of administrative ambition in the form of fitful and ad hoc governance, we should be patient. He is headed in the right direction. And that’s saying a lot, considering we’ve been led astray for sixty years by every political and military leader we have had the misfortune to be lumped with.