Pakistan on Edge, Again

[Saifullah Sani]

In the continuing saga of Zardari and Gilani versus everyone else, the stakes are getting higher and higher—and there’s no sign of anyone backing down.

By Ron Moreau | From the Jan. 27‚ 2012‚ issue.

As its economy teeters and its security deteriorates, Pakistan is sinking ever deeper into a political morass. On Jan. 16, it was sucked down further after the Supreme Court ordered the increasingly unpredictable Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to appear before it within three days and explain why he should not be held in contempt. The prime minister, the court believes, has failed to obey a 2009 court order requiring him to reopen corruption cases against his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari, and many other political allies. An eventual contempt ruling could disqualify him from holding office—and, theoretically, topple his government.

“If the court announces a conviction, that could be sufficient to disqualify him to hold a seat in Parliament,” says lawyer and rights activist Athar Minallah. “The prime minister seems blatantly determined to violate the decision, knowing full well the consequences.”

That outcome would be welcomed by the forces that are arrayed against Gilani and his political boss: not only the judiciary, but also the powerful military as well as a revitalized political opposition. The long-running turf wars among these players acquired an urgent ferocity last October after the Memogate scandal broke.

The scandal has sharpened preexisting hostilities and suspicions, and it centers on a confidential letter delivered by U.S. businessman and citizen diplomat Mansoor Ijaz to Adm. Mike Mullen, the then chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, following the daring Abbottabad raid by U.S. Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden. Ijaz claims that Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the U.S.—and possibly Zardari—was the architect of the sensational memo, which urged the Pentagon to force changes in Pakistan’s military, alleged that the Army was aiding and abetting most-wanted terrorists, and offered startling concessions to the U.S. including oversight of the country’s nuclear safeguards.

The government staunchly denies the charge that it had anything to do with the missive. But the military sees the memo as a direct attack on it and its firm control over national-security policy. It wants those behind the letter brought to book. After months of the government dismissing Memogate of being no concern to them, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif finally went to the Supreme Court in December demanding that Ijaz’s claims be investigated. To the government’s chagrin, the court immediately formed an inquiry commission and barred Haqqani from leaving the country without its approval. Haqqani is residing at Gilani’s official residence in Islamabad but says he still fears for his life.

The Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, have filed submissions to the court stating that the memo exists and represents a conspiracy against Pakistan and its military. The Zardari-Gilani government has not taken kindly to the generals’ filings. Speaking with Newsweek Pakistan last month shortly after concluding a meeting with General Kayani, Gilani said that the general’s response to the court represented his “personal point of view” and not the facts. Since then—perhaps courageously, perhaps foolhardily—he has issued strong words against the Army, declaring it a “state within a state,” and, during a particularly fiery address to the National Assembly, he implied that the Army was complicit in hiding bin Laden from international law. Then it got worse.

In an interview with People’s Daily of China, according to state-owned wire service Associated Press of Pakistan on Jan. 9, Gilani took issue with General Kayani and General Pasha’s alleged eagerness to cooperate with the court’s Memogate probe. “Any official action by a government functionary without the prior approval of the government is unconstitutional and illegal,” stated APP without directly quoting Gilani. It added: “He was referring to the observation of the Honorable Chief Justice of Pakistan that any act of a government functionary without the government’s nod is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.”

Gilani’s words outraged the military. On Jan. 11, its Inter-Services Public Relations issued a brisk press release, which Gilani claimed was only issued after his assent. “It is also highlighted that after a meeting between the Honorable Prime Minister and the [Army chief], the Honorable Prime Minister had publicly stated through a press release of Dec. 16, 2011, that the replies submitted [to the court] were ‘in response to the notice of the court through proper channel and in accordance with the rules of business,’” said ISPR. “No objections were raised before and thereafter on the legality and constitutional status of the replies at any time during the last more than three weeks.” Anwar-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s attorney-general, has supported the military’s position regarding the legality of the generals’ replies to court.

“There can be no allegation more serious than what the Honorable Prime Minister has leveled against [the Army chief] and [the ISI chief],” reads the same ISPR statement. “Unfortunately,” it says, the allegation has “charged the officers [with] violation of the Constitution of the country. This has very serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences for the country.” ISPR also noted that Gilani’s remarks were publicized by state media while the Army chief was in China on official business. It maintains that the Army and ISI chiefs did nothing unconstitutional or illegal, and replied to the court through protocol-dictated channels. “It is also categorically stated,” says ISPR, that Generals Kayani and Pasha, “were obliged to state facts as known to them, on the memo issue ... Any expectation that [the Army chief] will not state the facts is neither constitutional nor legal. Allegiance to the state and Constitution is and will always remain the prime consideration for [him], who in this case has followed the book.”

Soon after the ISPR statement, Gilani made his move and sacked the recently-appointed defense secretary, former Lt. Gen. Naeem Khalid Lodhi. Considered close to the Army chief, Lodhi was fired for “gross misconduct” and whose “illegal actions created misunderstanding between [state] institutions,” according to state-owned PTV. Lodhi has gone to court citing wrongful termination and alleged that he was removed from service because he refused the government’s instructions to willfully misrepresent facts about Memogate. Lodhi, the second casualty of Memogate after Haqqani, has been replaced by Gilani’s go-to bureaucrat, cabinet secretary Nargis Sethi, who came under fire in August after she awarded herself a national honor, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, for public service.

Gilani’s views about the military have been nothing if not inconsistent. His indignant attacks against the Army have been followed by ameliorating, all-is-well rollbacks. The prime minister’s belated shows of spine are all the more newsworthy given that he has for the most part played good cop to Zardari’s bad cop as far as the Army and judiciary are concerned. But on Jan. 15, after a high-powered meeting that included General Kayani, Gilani told reporters he would “not take back any statement about the Army and ISI chiefs’ rejoinders to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the memo case.” During the meeting he reportedly assured the military of his government’s support. “Our government and Parliament and above all our patriotic people have stood fully behind our brave armed forces and security personnel,” he told the meeting, according to press accounts. Gilani also apparently agreed to keep NATO supply lines suspended. The blockade was instituted after the Nov. 26 airstrikes in Mohmand killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. As a sop to the Army, Gilani’s government has already binned the U.S.-led findings into the NATO airstrikes as counterfactual.

The following day, after the Supreme Court’s rebuke of Gilani, the government and its allies passed an anodyne “pro-democracy” resolution in the National Assembly. The “Supremacy of Democracy” resolution praises the country’s political leaders for “strengthening democracy” and “reposes full confidence and trust” in them. Its passage was greeted by another rousing speech from Gilani, who condemned moves to destabilize his government and said he would appear before the Supreme Court as a mark of respect. The prime minister is likely to arrive at court accompanied by his coalition partners.

Sharif’s opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), has urged partners in the ruling coalition to abandon the Zardari-led Pakistan Peoples Party. But the resolution’s passage establishes that Gilani and friends still have the numbers in Parliament to remain in power. Sharif, who as prime minister also faced a contempt charge from the Supreme Court in the 1990s, wants to see the back of Zardari and Gilani. His PMLN is seeking early elections and scrambling for “constitutional means” to overthrow the government.

“They all want to see the back of this government,” says analyst and former general Talat Masood. But Zardari and Gilani don’t seem to be in a mood for compromise, nor are their adversaries. “This is political brinkmanship at the highest level,” says Masood. “No one seems to be backing down. It’s bad for Pakistan.”

Zardari and Gilani have been asking for trouble, and now they have it. Two years ago, the Supreme Court overturned a controversial, Musharraf-era amnesty agreement that had dropped corruption charges against Zardari and hundreds of other allied politicians. It ordered the government to reopen the cases, particularly a money-laundering case in Switzerland against Zardari, who was popularly known while he was in the government of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, as “Mr. 10 Percent” for his sticky fingers with government contracts. The 2009 court ruling tasked the government with writing a letter to the Swiss authorities, asking them to revive the court action. On Jan. 10, the Supreme Court delivered an ultimatum, giving the government one week and six options to restart the stalled accountability proceedings.

The Pakistani government has steadfastly refused, claiming Zardari’s immunity as president. In a recent interview with Geo News, Zardari said the cases of alleged corruption against him would not be reopened while his party’s government remained in office “come what may.” He said the judges were seeking a “trial” of his late wife’s grave. If the court invokes the Constitution’s strictures of saintliness required of public officials, as it has hinted it might, it could conceivably—and very controversially—oust both Zardari and Gilani from office.

Some lawyers say the Supreme Court has been more than lenient given the government’s dilatory tactics. “The observance of due process of law by the court was exemplary in this case,” says Minallah. “Such defiance in this particular matter is unfortunate.”

The ruling party has preferred playing to the gallery, openly accusing the Supreme Court of bias and of being under political and military influence. Its unsavory vice president Babar Awan even poked fun of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s lazy eye at a press conference last month. Awan is himself facing a contempt of court charge and his license to practice law was suspended on Jan. 17.

Zardari and Gilani seem to be standing firm. Senior members of their ruling PPP are already saying they are ready to nominate a new prime minister if the need so arises. Gilani is said to be mentally prepared to resign if that could ease the pressure from the court and the Army on the government. With a new man in office—possibly Pervaiz Elahi, former chief minister of the Punjab and leader of the formerly pro-Musharraf PMLQ—their reasoning goes, the government could plead that it needs yet more time for compliance with the court’s decision.

But such tactics seem counterproductive and unnecessary. At this stage the court is only asking the government to write to Swiss authorities seeking the case against Zardari to be reopened. “They are jeopardizing the entire system just to resist writing that one letter,” says Minallah. “If they wrote the letter nothing would happen, as far as I can see,” says analyst Masood. Swiss prosecutors are already on the record saying that the case against Zardari in their view is closed. “I think the one who will have to cede the most in practical terms will be Gilani by sending the letter to the Swiss courts,” adds Masood. But such an about-face by the stubborn government seems unlikely.

The arcane, dizzying developments in Pakistani politics have inspired splenetic, crisis-fueled commentary across the local cable-news horizon. Encircled by the Army, judiciary, opposition, and media, the presidency has had to twice refute reports in the last two months that Zardari may resign. Recently, the presidency had to issue a similar statement on behalf of Gilani after the prime minister told the press: “I never said I would serve as prime minister for five years. What I’ve said is that Parliament should complete its tenure.” It had also been widely rumored that the government was considering firing General Kayani or General Pasha, or both, after defense secretary Lodhi’s dismissal. Cabinet members rushed to quash these rumors the same day. “For God’s sake!” said Khurshid Shah, “the Army chief must complete his term in office.”

The only good news in this depressing landscape of power struggles, inflation, electricity and natural-gas shortages, and resurgent terrorism is that the possibility of a military coup at this point seems remote. “The only good point is that none of the [antigovernment] forces would want the democratic architecture to be toppled,” says Masood. “The military has no love for democracy. It’s simply that the generals don’t want the responsibility of toppling the government and then picking up the resulting responsibility of dealing with the economic mess.” The stalemate is bound to continue.

With additional reporting by Jahanzeb Aslam, Abid Hussain, and Fasih Ahmed.

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Pakistan on Edge, Again