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Map of Asia |
CIAO DATE: 01/03
Pakistan: Musharraf's First Hundred Days
The South Asia Monitor
Number 19
March 1, 2000
General Pervez Musharraf has mixed results from his first hundred days as chief executive of Pakistan. His prosecution of defaulters on government loans has been active, but there are few concrete results on the rest of his goals, and relations with India are dangerously bad. As with earlier military regimes, he seems to be expanding his control over independent institutions, starting with the judiciary. That pattern holds a cautionary note for the new administration: the popularity that greeted the new military rulers eventually runs out, and at that point people begin to look for results.
The agenda: A “soldier’s soldier” rather than a political general, General Musharraf made known soon after taking over that his role model was Kemal Ataturk. His vision of Pakistan, he said, was a progressive, moderate Muslim state, intent on pursuing its national interests without being deterred by international criticism. He sought to rebuild faith in civil society and in Pakistan’s institutions.
His agenda stressed giving the country good governance and reducing administrative flab. It included:
This is a tall order, it cannot be accomplished in a few years, least of all without the involvement of civil society.
Accountability: The best publicized and most energetically implemented item on this list is “accountability,” which focused first on defaulters on government loans. After a brief amnesty period, which generated repayments the government estimated at nearly Rs. 10 billion ($ 192 million), prosecutions have started. The government also claims that banks’ repayment records are improving. This was probably the most popular and visible item on the initial Musharraf agenda.
The prosecutions are predictably moving slowly. The military and the judiciary were exempted from the process on the grounds that these institutions have their own discipline. While this decision has not been intensely controversial yet, it is the kind of special treatment that could raise questions about the fairness of the process. Another new provision empowers the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to demand that persons possessing wealth beyond their “visible means of income” prove that their wealth was acquired legally. If this extraordinary authority is misused to harass and silence critics of the new government, it could undermine the new regime’s promise to uphold fundamental rights such as freedom of speech.
In any event, the process is likely to take much longer than people expected. Because so many prominent former officials and business people are targeted, it is not clear what impact this process is likely to have on the badly battered business confidence, both domestic and international. The government’s stated goal is both to punish wrongdoers and to make the government’s finances whole. The first is likely to be much easier than the second.
Economic reform: The other issue on which the government promised early action was restoration of the government’s finances. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the next tranche under Pakistan’s January 1999 stabilization program, stalled at the time of the military coup, were resumed in October but have still not been concluded. Pakistan has signed several bilateral debt rescheduling agreements, under its Paris Club agreement from early 1999. Negotiations have resumed over controversial contracts with independent power producers, but have not been concluded. Musharraf announced his intention to move ahead to reform taxes and enhance revenues, focusing on agricultural incomes and on the general sales tax. The key will be implementation.
Beyond the government’s finances, the economic signs are mixed. The cotton crop-probably the single most important element in the agricultural economy-was good. However, GDP growth is sluggish, at about 3 percent, and investment is in the doldrums. Both will need to revive if this government is to have any hope of righting its finances.
Basic governmental reform: For real remedies to the existing problems, wide-ranging reforms, many of them quite painful, have to be applied to every sector of society. That is a long and bumpy road. The government plans to hold local elections and create district-based local governments that would enjoy rights currently in the domain of the provinces. This might, for example, include the power to tax agricultural incomes-currently virtually untaxed. But the power of the feudal elite has been the major deterrent to reform in the past. It is hard to imagine elected local officials, with no politically based authority at the provincial or national level, standing up to large landowners who have traditionally dissuaded even strong national governments from interfering with their prerogatives.
The external dimension: There are also trouble spots on Pakistan’s international horizon. Relations with India are at a thirty-year low. India’s decision to try to isolate Pakistan after the coup bears some responsibility for this, but so does Pakistan’s apparent decision to permit or facilitate a sharp upsurge in violence across the line of control in Kashmir after the end of the fighting in Kargil last summer. Both countries appear to be hardening their positions. The net result is that, while General Musharraf and his government continue to profess an interest in talks with India provided Kashmir is included, there is no short-term prospect for serious discussions.
The heightened rhetoric and violence clearly increase the risk of escalation. Both countries profess confidence that they can handle conventional fighting without danger of a nuclear exchange. But there are currently no effective “insurance policies” against this contingency. India notified Pakistan in advance of a recent large-scale military exercise. Apart from that, the bilateral measures the two countries had previously put in place to reduce the risk of unintended conflict appear to be barely functioning.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has less immediate significance for the peace of the region, but has emerged once again as an issue because of its importance for relations with the United States. The government has talked about not signing the CTBT unless national consensus about signing is reached. Spokesmen for the principal organized Islamic political party have strenuously opposed signature, however, and other commentators on the subject are sharply divided. Thus far, the government has not initiated any structured debate with the political and religious forces in the country on this subject. If it signs the CTBT, the government would hope to enhance its legitimacy in the eyes of the U.S. and other western countries, and also to get the financial support it needs.
The record of military governments: In the past, Pakistan’s military governments have promised-and have initially delivered-more orderly governance and improved administration. Generals operate efficiently within the strongly hierarchical structure of the military; however, the same qualities that make them strong military commanders can make them weak civil administrators. They are used to giving orders. They are not used to handling different and disagreeing points of view, much less the rough and tumble of open politics.
General Ziaul Haq started out in 1977 with a relatively light touch, and tightened controls after about three years. There are signs that General Musharraf is starting to follow the same pattern, but on a faster timetable. General Musharraf has established several new institutions, notably a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to hold corrupt politicians and bureaucrats accountable and a National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) to give direction to the “national revival.” A National Monitoring Cell (NMC) composed of military officers has been charged with monitoring the functions of the civil bureaucracy. It is not yet clear how it will operate or relate to the civilian government. Perhaps most significantly, the judges of the superior courts have taken new oaths under General Musharraf’s Provisional Constitutional Order. In the past, judgements were delivered under the “doctrine of necessity” and in the larger public interest, and that is what the present government is expecting.
No early end in sight: The military government says it intends to stay in power no longer than it is absolutely necessary to put things in order. It has not bound itself to a timetable for restoring elected government, partly because its reform agenda is too ambitious for quick execution and partly because it fears becoming a lame duck. General Musharraf’s recent references in press interviews to a reform period of five to twenty years suggests that he plans an extended time at the helm. This will inevitably raise concerns abroad, though a decisive pace of reform could mitigate those. The more serious question is the government’s domestic legitimacy. The honeymoon enjoyed by the new government when it took over is still in place but is starting to weaken. Reform with results, popular participation, and real accountability for the new government-including the military-are the ingredients from which legitimacy will be crafted over the longer term. This task will get harder with time.
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