Three days of violence in Pakistan’s Punjab province was the popular reaction to the Supreme Court’s barring of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from politics last week. The ruling was generally viewed as a blatantly political act by an unpopular and unconstitutional court that is beholden to President Asif Ali Zardari, who broke a campaign promise to restore an independent Supreme Court.
In the Asian Human Rights Commission’s report on the year 2008 in Pakistan, the Commission describes the popular resistance to the Supreme Court and the Zardari administration that has been building since ex-strongman Pervez Musharraf dismissed nine of the fourteen Supreme Court Justices in late 2007. Last year’s parliamentary elections, the first credible elections in Pakistan in a decade, were supposed to mark a return to the rule of law and democracy. Indeed, Zardari made written promises before his election in September that he would restore the 2007 court within 30 days of taking power. Instead, only three Supreme Court justices were restored. They, and the other new appointments, were made to take loyalty oaths much like those that Musharraf demanded of his tame appointees. Pakistani lawyers were the most active protesters against Musharraf’s illegal firings, and continued their protests when it became clear that the Zardari government meant to keep a puppet court instead of restoring justices who would defend the constitution. Zardari’s credibility was damaged further by the violent police reaction to the protests, the arrest of more than one hundred lawyers on criminal charges, and the suspension of five lawyers’ license to practice law.
The AHRC followed up by releasing a note on March 3 stating that the Supreme Court was sabotaging democracy in Pakistan. The ruling banning Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from politics was described as “a two sentence, non-reasoned order.” They went further to state that the court’s “allegiance is not to the people of the country, but pledged to those in power.” Nawaz Sharif, whose presidency followed that of Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, was barred from politics on the basis of his criminal convictions, which were handed down by a kangaroo court under Musharraf. The charges of irregularities in the election of Shahbaz are slightly more credible, but also not lacking elements of political motivation.
The Supreme Court has lacked credibility since 2007, when Musharraf declared a state of emergency to extend the powers he had seized by force. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chuadhry and eight others declared the move unconstitutional, for which they were dismissed at gunpoint. Justices of the new court were sworn in under a Provisional Constitutional Order that included language declaring their loyalty to Musharraf and not the Pakistani constitution. Musharraf’s party was soundly defeated in the February 2008 elections, and the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N branch) formed a coalition government dedicated to restoring the constitution. The chairmen of these parties were Zardari and Sharif, respectively, and the two men managed to put aside their ambitions long enough to force Musharraf’s resignation. After Zardari’s election, it became clear that he intended to keep the Supreme Court as a political tool, and PML-N split with the PPP.
The fallout between the PML-N and the PPP and the animosity between their leaders represents Pakistan living down to its traditional dysfunction. In the eyes of most analysts, both men have always put their own good before Pakistan’s. While Bhutto was Prime Minister, her husband Zardari was known as Mr. Ten Percent for the kickbacks he demanded in return for patronage positions. The corruption of the Bhutto/Zardari regime was quite well documented, as shown in this enormous Times piece. Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister both before and after Bhutto and was deposed and exiled by Musharraf. He was considered equally corrupt – if less successful. At least in his case some irony tempers the tragedy of his abuses; his stunningly lengthy corruption rap sheet is marred by accusations against the prosecutor. Thus, Pakistanis can be forgiven for seeing little new in all the machinations.
Since Zardari’s puppet court banned the Sharifs from politics, popular displeasure has run high. Shahbaz was chief minister of a Punjab, which is Pakistan’s richest province and is home to half of its population. Both brothers called for protests, which unsurprisingly turned violent. Nawaz Sharif feigned disapproval of the violence, but claimed that it was the will of the people; Zardari used military force against the protestors; Sharif moved closer to the edge, saying that violence will continue if Islamabad attempts to regain control, and even telling the police not to obey the federal governor.
With Sharif calling for a march on Islamabad and adopting the pose of a revolutionary, Zardari has been goaded into cracking down even further, barring the gathering of groups of more than four people in Punjab and Sindh and arresting and harassing numerous Sharif supporters. What happens over the weekend could be momentous in determining Pakistan’s short- and medium- term political future. All this is occurring, of course, at a moment when the rest of the world is begging the country to focus its attention on Islamic militancy and the effects of the economic crisis. If there’s one thing Pakistan’s political class has repeatedly demonstrated, however, it’s that it has no time for such interruptions of its ongoing soap opera.
Photo Credit: Flickr user orionoir
