De-hybrid-ing politics

Amore reflective title would have been de-hybrid-ing governance. This difference, apparently subtle, is the key to understanding complexities of Pakistan’s political system which we ignore at our collective peril.

What we have under the PTI government is widely understood to be a hybrid model of governance. The genesis of it is lain in the induction of the PTI government — that the powers-that-be intended to bring IK to power and thus shouldered him support during the elections to help him win. It begs a thought though. If indeed it was the case why would a military establishment deny itself or IK the advantage of a two-thirds majority that it now either begs or contrives every now and then to pass critical legislation? In doing so it soils its image and compromises on areas of state and governmental functions which strike at the edifice of its own and government’s credibility. The country still doesn’t know how and what made Nawaz Sharif escape jail while serving a sentence. At best military can be a limited enabler in the electioneering process, if at all.

There are other reasons why the opposition is so sure that the elections were stolen for the PTI. There is a case of the 2014 sit-in which the opposition parties assume was supported by a quasi-organ of the military. Whether it was initiated at their behest or supported when already in place is open to debate but let us assume that there is plausible reason for such a suspicion. If this be the only reason for such an assumption it calls for a deeper understanding of how the military and its institutions operate. Zaheer-ul Islam may have had personal biases, for or against, but not everyone in the institution would have subscribed to it, nor would the larger military organisation have given a fig. The sit-in failed to dislodge a sitting government; so much for outside intervention. The elections were held when Gen Qamar Bajwa, PML-N’s own pick, was the chief and Zaheer and his cohorts were long retired. The retired do drum a din and that is manifestly injurious to the image of the army but they hardly impact a chief’s policy. Generally, it is the opposite and has to do with the dynamics of the military as a service and each chief’s exclusivity in professional and institutional focus. Overthrowing or bringing-in governments is most certainly not one of those, I can vouch.

Beyond this every election will have its share of electoral fraud. Wrangling is more like it when it comes to Pakistan, based around candidate’s influence, eminence, familial or tribal electability, or probity. The last being the rarest since all is fair in love and war. Politics is electoral war. So the PTI would have gained at each constituency as much as the oppositions contestants benefitted from their similar set of attributes and capacity. That is the dilemma of a tribal electioneering system which cannot be wished away in a highly deprived and a dependent electorate. The army has little to do with how the ballots are stuffed or counted at the end. If at all, there presence acts as a check against overt wrongdoing for the time they are around. The failure of the RTS (Results Transmission System) in the 2018 elections hasn’t been better explained in technical and technological terms and continues to rankle as a political tool to cast suspicion on the fidelity of the process. It was a raw and inadequate technology introduced in a hurry without the requisite infrastructure and collapsed when data overwhelmed its capacity.

The ‘hybridity’ in the current model became evident ‘after’ the PTI came into power. With the kind of missteps and lack of conception as well as failure to muster administrative efficiency meant that the state and its systems of governance were on a free-slide down. That would create its own dynamics of internal instability and weaknesses. The economy suffered the most. That is when the military stepped in to urge greater focus and action in all aspects of governance. With Covid, locust attacks and in implementing CPEC, the government needed help. Where provincial governments and their administrations were weak the military engaged with them to focus on better planning and delivery but again it could only urge them to a point. Ultimately they were the ones who had to deliver. Where critical legislation became an issue the military stepped in to encourage cooperation among all political players. When loans were needed to retire debt and support the economy the army chief used his and his institution’s leverage with friendly nations who obliged with lavish financial support. Both Covid and the locust were efficiently handled. Economy has been kept afloat. A faltering government was given a hand and it has helped save the system in a hope that it will begin to deliver. This is the basis of the alleged hybridity.

That is quite a lot for a military to step out of its usual domain to support a government. The opposition is indignant. Without the crutches it feels this government would fall under its own weight of incompetence, lack of conception and inefficiency permitting the opposition an early turn at the helm. The minor trouble is the opposition, or most of what largely composes the opposition — PML-N and PPP — aren’t themselves any great exhibits of democratic credibility, performance in governance or probity of conduct when in power. Nationwide perceptions of most in the two parties being rampantly corrupt through widespread financial embezzlement make it really a Hobson’s choice. We as a nation are between a rock and a hard place. That leaves only one question: when will Mr Hobson have a better stable?

Whether the army must do any of it at all, needs an inquiry. Not if a government is doing all that it must. Basically, politics needs to develop policy in public interest with the capacity to move governance forward not regress. That will only happen if the common man is at the centre of any and everything a government undertakes. Building a society has become a telling imperative in the current morass. Governments will need to rise above their familial, tribal and parochial interests which malign democratic dispensations. A government must have the requisite control of its administration and implementation tools to deliver democracy’s dividends to the people beyond the rhetoric. They must not be corrupt. Our politics has been unscrupulous in power and self-serving other than being outright corrupt. It shall have to design ways, means, methods and checks through independent institutions to keep such predilection in check. It is not in eliminating NAB that confidence will be restored rather than in strengthening all accountability tools even if it means bringing all sectors of governmental functions and the major power wielders under its domain. And administer fairly and efficiently. The army will keep away.

If the PTI is expressly incompetent and the other two mainstream parties patently corrupt, the politics will have to be of another kind and conduct. If not, you will have more of the same.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2020.

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