Waiting for Allah: Pakistan’s Struggle for Democracy — Christina Lamb
The story of BB’s rise and fall was without any doubt one of the best political sagas of 1980s. After 11 years of military rule, Pakistan was in a mess and BB seemed to the only hope. A large section of the army did all it could to prevent elections taking place after Zia’s death and to prevent BB from winning. It was with reluctance and heavy US pressure, after midnight negotiations among go-betweens they allowed her to become the first women Prime Minister of Pakistan.
On 6 August, 1990 while all the eyes of the world were on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, BB’s first government was dismissed by the President. Rulers in Pakistan did not come to power through popular will but because powerful institutions decided that they will. Even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who had swept the polls in 1970 had faced resistance from some factions of the army and had only been allowed to assume office in 1971 because the military was demoralized by its third defeat against India, resulting in the loss of Bangladesh, and junior officers had refused to take orders from seniors who had surrendered disgracefully.
Benazir had taken over after a similar crisis in the army when most of the top command were killed in a mysterious air crash. Benazir’s challenge was to present the illusion of change to the people while reassuring the army, civil service, business community and important Western allies that if the party were to win power it would not upset the status-quo.
An elected politician in Pakistan enjoys almost deified status able to allocate land plots and development licences to those he/she favors; a politician out of power becomes at best a marginal drawing room celebrity.
To retain the local influence necessary for the survival of feudal families it is critical for them to have someone in a position of political power. The real power in Pakistan comes from the number of people one commands and the amount of patronage at one’s disposal. The politician may be seen to dispense patronage but it is to the bureaucrats they turn to arrange it. Having passed through the first stage of peaceful transition to power to BB, no one it seemed had told the politicians that after elections they were supposed to stop engineering and get on with governing.
Baluchistan’s past exclusion from state power and thus patronage is reflected in a literary rate of only 6% and share in industrialization of less than 1%, while per capita income is only half of the Punjab despite the fact that it is the repository of most of Pakistan’s mineral resources. The life of the sardars in the 1990s is one of strange contradiction. While tribesman fell at their feet and touch the hems of their shirts, the new generation of sardars were modernizing than slaying foes in the mountains. But their power continues because tribesman have more faith in the tribal system than the government administration where cases can takes years to come to court and corruption is rife.
The landlords and capitalists allowed the clergy to make Pakistan a religious state, the clergy allowed the landlords guaranteed property rights and the capitalist’s unbridled control over the economy. Theocracy and landlordism/capitalism are the two pillars of Pakistan. No matter who comes to power, whether the leader be in uniform or not, these two things will never be tempered with. Anyone making even a mild effect to change these two rights is removed from power.
