June 28
Why did Jamali resign as Pakistan's Prime Minister? Outlook India's B. Raman takes a look. [1]
PAKISTAN
The Sins Of Jamali
Since the middle of last month, there was speculation in Pakistan that Musharraf's disenchantment with Jamali was complete and that he would be eased out before Musharraf embarked on a foreign tour on July 3.
B. RAMAN
Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, Pakistan's first Baluch Prime Minister, resigned on June 26,2004, and designated Chaudhry Shujjat Hussain, the leader of the Pervez Musharraf-controlled Pakistan Muslim League (PML), as his interim successor. It was indicated that Shujjat himself would ultimately hand over to Shaukat Aziz, allegedly a US citizen of Pakistani origin, who was the Finance Minister in Jamali's Cabinet, after he had managed to get himself elected as a member of the National Assembly, the lower House of the Parliament. At present, Aziz is a member of the Senate, the upper House. Under the Constitution, only a member of the National Assembly could be the Prime Minister.
The announcements regarding Jamali's exit and the impending elevation of Aziz as the Prime Minister came after a meeting of Jamali with the military dictator. For over a month now, there had been widespread speculation in Pakistan about the likely exit of Jamali because of the alleged displeasure of Musharraf over his perceived lack-lustre performance as the Prime Minister ever since he was elevated to this office by Musharraf himself after the highly controversial general elections of October, 2002.
After the elections, Shujjat Hussain was elected by the PML (the PML Qaide Azam as it was known, to distinguish it from Nawaz Sharif's Party by the same name) as the leader of the parliamentary party. Generally, in Pakistan, as it was in India till recently, the tradition had been that the Parliamentary leader of the party, which has an absolute majority or the largest number of seats if it is part of a coalition, became the Prime Minister.
To the surprise of many, Shujjat Hussain did an act of self-abnegation, and designated Jamali to be the Prime Minister and rallied the support of the other members of the coalition to his candidature. Even though Shujjat, a Punjabi, gave the impression that the nomination of Jamali was his decision in order to enable a minority Baluch to hold this high office, nobody accepted his explanation. It was widely believed that it was Musharraf, who had ruled out Shujjat taking over as the Prime Minister and directed that Jamali should be chosen by the PML for this post.
Well-known Pakistani sources cited the following reasons for Musharraf's decision:
Jamali's well-known proximity to the Americans in general and to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in particular right from the days of the anti-Soviet Afghan war of the 1980s.
His image as a pliable leader, who would let Musharraf continue to wield the reins of power and would not try to assert himself so long as he enjoyed the perks of office.
His belonging to the Baluch community, which is again in a state of political ferment and Musharraf's expectation that he would calm down his community.
His perceived acceptability to the six-party religious coalition called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), many of whose leaders held Jamali in some esteem despite his proximity to the Americans.
Musharraf's hopes that with his contacts in the MMA he would be able to weaken their opposition to his continuing as the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS).
Musharraf's expectations from Jamali on the question of his continuing as the COAS were belied. Jamali could not succeed in making the MMA drop its opposition to his continuing as the COAS. Ultimately, faced with an embarrassing constitutional deadlock which lasted several months because of the refusal of the MMA to support the incorporation of the various Constitutional changes introduced by Musharraf through executive orders before the elections into the Constitution through an Act of Parliament, Musharraf had to give an assurance that he would resign from the office of the COAS by the end of 2004.
Only then, he could secure the support of the MMA for the constitutional amendments which have, inter alia, restored the presidential powers of dismissal of the elected Prime Minister and dissolution of the National Assembly, which the late Zia-ul-Haq had arrogated to himself and which Nawaz had got abolished when he came to the office of Prime Minister for a second time in 1997.
Since the beginning of this year, there were indications that Musharraf was preparing the ground to wriggle out of his commitment to resign as the COAS by the end of this year on the ground that the situation presently prevailing in the country due to its role as the frontline ally of the US in the war against terrorism demanded his continuation as the COAS. He got the idea of his continuing as the COAs in the "supreme national interest" (a favourite phrase of his) floated by some of the ministers of Jamali's cabinet.
It was widely believed that Musharraf wanted that the suggestion for his continuance as the COAS should come from Jamali and his cabinet in the form of an unanimous resolution requesting him to do so and that Jamali should either persuade the MMA to support this or, failing to do so, engineer a split in the MMA in order to get the required number of votes in the Parliament for the constitutional amendment to enable him to continue as the COAS while holding office as the President.
Jamali's attitude on this was non-committal. He indicated on more than one occasion that while he would not take the initiative in preparing the ground for Musharraf's continuance as the COAS, he would support whatever decision Musharraf took in the matter in the national interest and work for its implementation. It was Musharraf's unhappiness over what he perceived as the ambivalent attitude of Jamali in this matter which initially caused his disenchantment with Jamali.
An aggravating factor was Jamali's failure (in the eyes of Musharraf) to vigorously explain to the people and to support in public the operations launched by the Army in the South Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in its hunt, under US pressure, for the dregs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The operations have caused considerable resentment not only among the tribals, but also in the lower and middle ranks of the Army and have been bitterly opposed by the religious parties.
Jamali, who has many friends in the tribal communities of Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the FATA, was adopting an ambivalent attitude on this too. His stance was: Musharraf and the Army know best. If they feel the operations are necessary, they must be having valid grounds. The people should support them. He was avoiding making a categorical statement that he himself was convinced that the operations were necessary and hence should be supported by the people.
Since the middle of last year, Jamali himself was showing signs of unhappiness over what he perceived as his increasing marginalisation by Musharraf and by the prominence given to Shaukat Aziz. Before Musharraf's visit to Camp David in the US in June last year for talks with President Bush, there were indications of growing US concerns over the rogue proliferation activities of Abdul Qadir Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, and his cronies in Pakistan's nuclear and missile establishment and the Army.
In order to divert suspicion from himself and the Army, Musharraf ordered Shaukat Aziz to inspect the security and accounting procedures in the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant and took Aziz along with him to the US to reassure the US that everything was in order in the nuclear establishment.
Before this, no civilian political leader of Pakistan had ever been allowed by the Army to visit any of the nuclear and missile establishments.
Jamali was put in a highly embarrassing position when questions were raised as to why this task of seeming civilian supervision over the nuclear and missile establishment was given to Aziz and not to him (Jamali) and why Aziz reported his findings directly to Musharraf and not through Jamali.
Subsequently, when the interception of a ship carrying centrifuges from Malaysia to Libya off the Italian coast by the US and UK Navies in October last forced Musharraf to take Qadir Khan and other scientists into informal custody and interrogate them, Musharraf made Shaukat Aziz in charge of the co-ordination of the investigation and the interrogation and kept Jamali totally out of the picture.
Peeved over this, Jamali again adopted an ambivalent stand when the interrogation of A.Q.Khan created a public furore in Pakistan. His stand once again was: Musharraf knows best. If he had taken this action there must be valid grounds for it in national interest.
Since the middle of last month, there was speculation in Pakistan that Musharraf's disenchantment with Jamali was complete and that he would be eased out before Musharraf embarked on a foreign tour on July 3. Jamali continued denying that his exit was imminent, but ultimately succumbed to Musharraf's pressure to quit on June 26.
Shaukat Aziz, the ultimate beneficiary of the "palace intrigues" as sections of the Pakistani media have dubbed the happenings, enjoys the trust of the USA and Saudi Arabia, where he had lived before and worked for Citibank. He is a close personal friend of a brother of Musharraf who lives in the US. It was he who had suggested his induction into the Cabinet as a Finance Minister after Musharraf seized power in October,1999. His induction was also strongly backed by the Saudi ruling family.
But he is likely to be a red rag to the fundamentalist bull in Pakistan. Many religious clerics distrust him because they look upon him as the USA's cat's paw. Moreover, ever since he was inducted as the Finance Minister after the coup of October,1999, there have off and on been allegations that he comes from a family of Ahmediyas, the ultimate sin in the eyes of the fundamentalists.
Would such a man be accepted by the fundamentalists of the madrasas and the Army? If they don't, what impact this would have on internal political stability?
If Musharraf had wanted, he could have got Shaukat Aziz elected overnight as a member of the National Assembly and made him the Prime Minister. He has not done so apparently because he wants the ground prepared for his continuing as the COAS. This would require Parliamentary endorsement. Parliamentary endorsement would be feasible only if the MMA's solidarity on this issue is broken and large-scale defections caused in its parliamentary ranks.
These are political games, which Shaukat Aziz, being essentially a technocrat with no skills of political manipulation, may not be able to perform. Hence, the importance of the role of Shujjat Hussain, who as a trusted aide of Nawaz and as a member of his Cabinet, had acquired a mastery of the required skills. Would he be prepared to exercise them for the benefit of Musharraf if a collateral beneficiary would be Shaukat Aziz and not he himself?
Musharraf knows that his continued survival in power depends on the continued support of the US and the senior Army officers and on his continued ability to divide and dominate the religious elements. He has no reason to fear the loss of the US support. In the present Army hierarchy, only Mohd. Yusuf Khan, the Vice Chief of the Army Staff, and Gen. Mohd. Aziz Khan, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, owed their rise in their career beyond the rank of Major-General to the pre-1999 political dispensation and not to Musharraf. Once they retire in October next, all the other Lt.Generals would be officers who crossed the rank of Major-General due to the benediction of Musharraf.
Hence, in his calculation, he has no reason to fear any threat to his position from them. Any threat to him, open or conspiratorial, would come from officers of the rank of Brigadiers and below, amongst whom fundamentalist and anti-US feelings are strong. To keep them under effective surveillance and to nip any trouble in the bud, he needs to continue as the COAS. So he feels. So, he will do unless the US exercises pressure on him to discard the COAS hat. It is unlikely to do so. The US has never shown any political wisdom in the past. It is unlikely to do so in future.
It is often said that Pakistan is ruled by a mix of Allah, the Army and the Americans. But the reality is that Allah has not always been on the side of a military dictator. One saw it in the case of Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia-ul-Haq. When the past military dictators thought they had secured their position, Allah had an uncomfortable way of indicating they had not.
Would history repeat itself? Would it be "Musharraf proposes, Allah disposes"? Whoever ultimately prevails---Musharraf or Allah---Pakistan is in for continued instability.