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July 4, 2012
Pakistan nostalgic for military rule
By Richard Leiby in Murree, Pakistan
Beckoned by public drinking fountains promising free, pure water, travellers lined up last week to refresh themselves along the main drag in Murree, a summer resort town perched at 7,500ft in the Himalayas. They soon discovered the taps were dry.
Weve got nothing, said one thirsty visitor, Abdul Sattar, 47. And he wasnt just talking about the water, which has not reached Murree for weeks because severe power shortages have shut pumping stations in the valley below.
He also meant democracy at least, democracy as practised by the barely functioning federal government in Islamabad, an hours drive down the mountains.
The state of the economy is bad enough to make Mr Sattar and many others nostalgic for military rule, when the generals at least kept the power going and the lights on.
The military is better, said Amir Iqbal, who co-owns Mr Food, a small eatery that had just two lunchtime customers. At 44, he recalls fondly the relative prosperity and higher growth rates that marked the nine-year regime of General Pervez Musharraf. And, although he was young at the time, he speaks positively of the era of an earlier strongman, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq.
When the army is in government they keep inflation low, Mr Iqbal said. They are good at governance and better organised.
Such yearning for order is not new in Pakistans 64-year history. Three times the army, generally with popular support, has stepped in to topple weak governments and impose martial law.
Judicial obeisance to the generals used to be the norm. But, styling itself as a corruption-battling peoples advocate, the current Supreme Court has inverted the narrative. It has spearheaded investigations into misdeeds of both the executive and the military.
Some experts call Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, chief justice, the countrys most powerful man. Critics accuse him of mounting a judicial coup in the name of the rule of law.
Last month his court picked off Yusuf Raza Gilani, the long-serving prime minister, for refusing to follow its orders and it is poised to oust his successor for the same thing.
Whatever its shortcomings, the coalition government has prevailed for four and a half years without a coup, assassination or execution of a top leader and is on track to become the longest-serving civilian government in the countrys history.
But nobody knows how long Pakistan can continue its slow stumble toward actual democracy. Battling an Islamic insurgency, it faces a constitutional crisis during an economic meltdown coupled with dissolving public order, as power-outage protests turn into deadly riots.
Democracy has brought darkness to the country, thats it, said Farrukh Saleem, political analyst and columnist.
He noted that since the end of Gen Musharrafs rule, the price of milk had tripled and electricity had risen 500 per cent. Democracy has brought bad governance and encouraged corruption. More poverty, more unemployment, no gas, price hikes ...
Only 15 per cent of Pakistanis have a positive view of Asif Ali Zardari, their president, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Centre, while 39 per cent still view Gen Musharraf favourably.
Gen Musharraf, who will be arrested if he returns to Pakistan from self-imposed exile, is often praised in Murree as a visionary in 2006 he launched a huge water-supply project that residents say would have alleviated the shortages, but the project was scuppered by political squabbling after the general was forced from office two years later.
Pakistanis still express overwhelming support for the military as an institution, with 77 per cent calling it a good influence, the poll found. And the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is viewed favourably by slightly more than half of those surveyed by Pew in March and April.
But several analysts said they saw little likelihood of another coup détat. The government may have inoculated itself against one thanks to its own incompetence: the economic situation is so dire that the military lacks the resources to fix the intractable problems and would rather avoid taking the rap for failure.
The army doesnt want to be held responsible for this, said Marvin Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington. And in some ways there is no reason for them to move in: theyve got control over the things that they want to control.
It is not known how many Pakistanis would swap democracy for dictatorship perhaps half, say some observers, given how deeply the public anger runs after years of economic decline.
We want anyone who can solve our problems, said Abdul Sattar, who visited Murree for relief from the heat with his wispy-bearded nephew, Zia ur-Rehman, 19, who nodded in agreement.
The young man said he came of age under democracy. Im not sure whether he is lucky or not, his uncle said.
By agreement with the Washington Post. Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report
Pakistan nostalgic for military rule
By Richard Leiby in Murree, Pakistan
Beckoned by public drinking fountains promising free, pure water, travellers lined up last week to refresh themselves along the main drag in Murree, a summer resort town perched at 7,500ft in the Himalayas. They soon discovered the taps were dry.
Weve got nothing, said one thirsty visitor, Abdul Sattar, 47. And he wasnt just talking about the water, which has not reached Murree for weeks because severe power shortages have shut pumping stations in the valley below.
He also meant democracy at least, democracy as practised by the barely functioning federal government in Islamabad, an hours drive down the mountains.
The state of the economy is bad enough to make Mr Sattar and many others nostalgic for military rule, when the generals at least kept the power going and the lights on.
The military is better, said Amir Iqbal, who co-owns Mr Food, a small eatery that had just two lunchtime customers. At 44, he recalls fondly the relative prosperity and higher growth rates that marked the nine-year regime of General Pervez Musharraf. And, although he was young at the time, he speaks positively of the era of an earlier strongman, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq.
When the army is in government they keep inflation low, Mr Iqbal said. They are good at governance and better organised.
Such yearning for order is not new in Pakistans 64-year history. Three times the army, generally with popular support, has stepped in to topple weak governments and impose martial law.
Judicial obeisance to the generals used to be the norm. But, styling itself as a corruption-battling peoples advocate, the current Supreme Court has inverted the narrative. It has spearheaded investigations into misdeeds of both the executive and the military.
Some experts call Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, chief justice, the countrys most powerful man. Critics accuse him of mounting a judicial coup in the name of the rule of law.
Last month his court picked off Yusuf Raza Gilani, the long-serving prime minister, for refusing to follow its orders and it is poised to oust his successor for the same thing.
Whatever its shortcomings, the coalition government has prevailed for four and a half years without a coup, assassination or execution of a top leader and is on track to become the longest-serving civilian government in the countrys history.
But nobody knows how long Pakistan can continue its slow stumble toward actual democracy. Battling an Islamic insurgency, it faces a constitutional crisis during an economic meltdown coupled with dissolving public order, as power-outage protests turn into deadly riots.
Democracy has brought darkness to the country, thats it, said Farrukh Saleem, political analyst and columnist.
He noted that since the end of Gen Musharrafs rule, the price of milk had tripled and electricity had risen 500 per cent. Democracy has brought bad governance and encouraged corruption. More poverty, more unemployment, no gas, price hikes ...
Only 15 per cent of Pakistanis have a positive view of Asif Ali Zardari, their president, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Centre, while 39 per cent still view Gen Musharraf favourably.
Gen Musharraf, who will be arrested if he returns to Pakistan from self-imposed exile, is often praised in Murree as a visionary in 2006 he launched a huge water-supply project that residents say would have alleviated the shortages, but the project was scuppered by political squabbling after the general was forced from office two years later.
Pakistanis still express overwhelming support for the military as an institution, with 77 per cent calling it a good influence, the poll found. And the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is viewed favourably by slightly more than half of those surveyed by Pew in March and April.
But several analysts said they saw little likelihood of another coup détat. The government may have inoculated itself against one thanks to its own incompetence: the economic situation is so dire that the military lacks the resources to fix the intractable problems and would rather avoid taking the rap for failure.
The army doesnt want to be held responsible for this, said Marvin Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington. And in some ways there is no reason for them to move in: theyve got control over the things that they want to control.
It is not known how many Pakistanis would swap democracy for dictatorship perhaps half, say some observers, given how deeply the public anger runs after years of economic decline.
We want anyone who can solve our problems, said Abdul Sattar, who visited Murree for relief from the heat with his wispy-bearded nephew, Zia ur-Rehman, 19, who nodded in agreement.
The young man said he came of age under democracy. Im not sure whether he is lucky or not, his uncle said.
By agreement with the Washington Post. Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report
