Here come da judges: Pakistan forms government

Stanley Kurtz : Democracy Myth

Pakistan is not a democracy. Pakistan has never been a democracy. Should Pakistan adopt the electoral trappings of democracy in the near-term, that would not make Pakistan an authentic liberal democracy. Free and fair elections just might dissolve Pakistan into chaos, and/or begin a process of evolution toward Islamist domination. Elections or not, if Pakistan achieves stability any time soon, it will not be due to democracy. Pakistani stability in the near-term can only be the result of a precarious balance between political factions that are largely illiberal and undemocratic. Elections, at best, will throw a veil over a complex and fragile behind-the-scenes political deal. Pakistan’s 1970 election — the freest and fairest in the nation’s history — resulted in civil war, war with India, and the partition of the country into Pakistan and Bangladesh.
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Nawaz Sharif… …who has been sheltered by “democracy central” (a.k.a. Saudi Arabia) since Musharraf displaced him in a 1999 coup, is the most Islamist-friendly mainstream leader in Pakistan. A protege of General Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator who first brought Islamist influence directly into Pakistan’s government and army, Sharif has allied with Islamists to gain power before and could easily do so again. The “secular” scion of a wealthy, religiously conservative family, Sharif lifted not a finger to roll back Zia’s Islamist reforms when he was in power. (For that matter, neither did “Western, secular, liberal,” Benazir Bhutto.) On the contrary, Sharif openly honored Zia’s memory and goals. In fact, he extended them. Having pushed a bill to enshrine Sharia law in Pakistan’s constitution through the lower house in 1999, Sharif was one “democratic” election away from moving the bill through the Senate when Musharraf deposed him. Since then, Musharraf alone has pushed back against Zia’s Islamist reforms. And Musharraf made that effort from the moment he took power — well before his famous post-9/11 turnaround.

Ah, but you say that, unlike that nasty old military dictator Musharraf, at least Sharif is part of a “civilian democratic front.” Really? Since when has Nawaz Sharif had a democratic bone in his body? Apparently, since yesterday. It seems that as soon as his flight from Saudi Arabia landed in Pakistan, Sharif was on the phone to the BBC. “We want democracy and nothing else,” Sharif told the BBC. Boldly promising to make “efforts to rid the country of the dictatorship,” Sharif pledged to “restore the rule of law and strengthen democracy.” (There’s that word “restore” again.) Well, anyway, I believe the part about Sharif wanting to get rid of Musharraf.

Aside from being corrupt and incompetent, what did Nawaz Sharif actually do during his two, rudely interrupted (as usual) stints as Pakistan’s Prime Minister? After having been displaced in the middle of his first term (a term which was, in any case, the product of a manipulated election), Sharif began his second term determined to destroy all political opposition. Sharif bought glowing press coverage with a steady stream of bribes (Musharraf has allowed much more press criticism), while launching tax investigations against critical voices in the press. (By the way, virtually no-one in Pakistan pays taxes. The Pakistani “state,” such as it is, survives on taxes collected from less than one percent of citizens — and nearly half of that is pocketed by the tax collectors themselves. So “tax investigation” is a synonym for “jail.” But let’s get back to Pakistani “democracy” under Sharif.) In his second term, Sharif saw to it that newspapermen not already silenced by tax investigations were directly arrested and beaten.

Having bought off and intimidated the press, Sharif blocked political opposition by pushing through a constitutional amendment requiring all members of Pakistan’s National Assembly to vote along party lines. So much for parliament. Meanwhile, Sharif got rid of troublesome judges by transferring them, and saw to it that local elections were fixed. The boldest move of all was a physical attack on Pakistan’s Supreme Court by a mob of furniture-smashing Sharif supporters when the Court was about to restrict the Prime Minister’s actions. That’s right, the same Supreme Court so rudely and recently strong-armed by Musharraf was even more crudely attacked by the man the media has now anointed as one of Musharraf’s premiere “democratic” opponents.

Although the our newspaper of record faces a declining subscription base, I feel sure Nawaz Sharif is an avid reader of the New York Times…
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Sharif knows the West has elevated him into a savior of democracy, and Sharif understands how desperately we want to believe it. So naturally, even before Sharif joined his delirious supporters on the tarmac in Lahore, he was on his mobile phone to reassure a credulous BBC that he was indeed the fulfillment of the West’s democratic dreams. Sharif (and his far smoother politician-brother) are wise in the ways of the West, while we are pitifully naive about Pakistan.
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Woe to us if Nawaz Sharif and his “democratic” friends take power. And shame on us if, charmed by manipulators of that magical word “democracy,” we hand power to Nawaz Sharif and his Islamist allies on a silver platter.

DANEgerus on March 9, 2008 at 1:26 PM