Pakistan Supreme Court, Government Face Off

In recent days, senior members of the governing coalition have been talking about a "judicial coup," in which the country's courts would oust politicians and form power by judicial processes, paving the way for an eventual military takeover.

Friction between the Supreme Court and the civilian government is high in the wake of the court's directive to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari in Switzerland. Given a deadline of September 24 to reply, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani dutifully refused to obey it.

Gilani signed a government document presented to the Supreme Court on September 24 that reiterates the president's immunity from prosecution while in office and that, as supreme commander of the armed forces, he cannot be subjected to court proceedings in a foreign country. The document was leaked to the press, despite the government's request that it be kept secret, adding to the discord between the two bodies.

'Because of politicians'

Speaking to the parliament on September 24, Gilani defended Zardari and said that court proceedings against him could only be initiated after the end of his term in 2013. The prime minister called on legislators to defend the supremacy of the constitution and to avoid portraying politicians as "thieves" -- a label increasingly being applied in the media.

"You are the elected representatives of the people and you have to run this country. This country was founded by the politicians," Gilani said. "If this country has nuclear power, it was pioneered by the politicians. And if a constitution was framed, it was also framed by the politicians. If our nation united behind the war on terror, it is because of the politicians. Today, if we have made [constitutional] amendments, it is because of the politicians.

"Now tell me, which dictator has done any of this? Therefore, we should not be accused of supporting dictatorships."

Just hours later, however, opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was urging the government to follow the Supreme Court's directive, rather than moving toward confrontation.

Although openly opposing any talk of a military takeover, Sharif supports a change in government that would only be possible through a no-confidence vote against the government coalition led by the Pakistan People's Party.

"We want the government to reform itself -- meet the expectations of the people and provide them relief," Sharif said. "We don't want a change that involves replacing the current government with welcoming another dictator."

Lack of control

The current civilian government has been weakened by the military's control over foreign and security policies. A strident judiciary, with the military's quiet consent, has attempted to undermine President Zardari's authority by reviving corruption charges against him and regularly overturning his appointments and administrative decisions. The Supreme Court is hearing cases about changes to the constitution. Politicians see it as its effort to assert a final say over constitutional matters -- something the parliament considers its privilege in the current state structure.

Pakistani Senator Afrasiab Khattak says that confrontations between the government and the judiciary, and between the judiciary and the parliament, result from the lack of control over state institutions. These institutions, he says, were strengthened over more than three decades of direct military rule during Pakistan's 63 years of independence.

"We have to see as to which institution is transgressing its constitutional limits," Khattak says. "The constitution has determined the area of operation for every institution, but there seems to be some sort of polarization between state institutions while they are trying to assert themselves, and there seems to be a climate of confrontation."

Khattak says that the military is not involved directly in the ongoing confrontation. But given its clout, it has the ability to manipulate the outcome of the current confrontation by putting its weight behind one institution or the other.

Uneven transition to democracy

Athar Minallah, an independent lawyer, says that the current Supreme Court has buried the "doctrine of necessity" used to validate militarily dictatorships in the past. "It will never approve, endorse, or stamp any unconstitutional act," he says.

Observers nevertheless remain skeptical, suggesting that there are a number of conspiracies already afoot that aim to bring down the government.

Minallah was a senior leader of a lawyer-led protest movement that was instrumental in restoring current Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was sacked twice in 2007 by former military dictator Pervez Musharraf. He says that the current crisis is indicative of Pakistan's uneven transition to democracy.

"The institutions are in the process of settling down. There has been 63 years of mind-set. That mind-set would also require time to change," Minallah says. "So I look at things coming out more positively."

Generals in Pakistan Push for Shake-Up of Government

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani military, angered by the inept handling of the country’s devastating floods and alarmed by a collapse of the economy, is pushing for a shake-up of the elected government, and in the longer term, even the removal of President Asif Ali Zardari and his top lieutenants.

The military, preoccupied by a war against militants and reluctant to assume direct responsibility for the economic crisis, has made clear it is not eager to take over the government, as it has many times before, military officials and politicians said.

But the government’s performance since the floods, which have left 20 million people homeless and the nation dependent on handouts from skeptical foreign donors, has laid bare the deep underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders.

American officials, too, say it has left them increasingly disillusioned with Mr. Zardari, a deeply unpopular president who was elected two and a half years ago on a wave of sympathy after the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In a meeting on Monday that was played on the front page of Pakistan’s newspapers, the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, confronted the president and his prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, over incompetence and corruption in the government.

According to the press and Pakistani officials familiar with the conversation, the general demanded that they dismiss at least some ministers in the oversized 60-member cabinet, many of whom face corruption charges.

The civilian government has so far resisted the general’s demand. But the meeting was widely interpreted by the Pakistani news media, which has grown increasingly hostile to the president, as a rebuke to the civilian politicians and as having pushed the government to the brink.

After the meeting, the president’s office issued a statement, approved by all the men, saying they had agreed “to protect the democratic process and to resolve all issues in accordance with the constitution.”

A Pakistani official close to the president who was familiar with the conversation but did not want to be identified, said, “The president made it clear that he would not leave, come what may.”

“Sanity had prevailed,” the official added.

Since the floods, the government has defended its handling of the crisis, arguing that any government would have been overwhelmed by its scale.

Still, it is clear that General Kayani, head of the country’s most powerful institution, and the one that has taken the lead in the flood crisis, has ratcheted up the pressure on the government.

Having secured an exceptional three-year extension in his post from Mr. Zardari in July, General Kayani appears determined to prevent the economy from bankruptcy. Military officers in the main cities have been talking openly and expansively about their contempt for the Zardari government and what they term the economic calamity, an unusual candor, reporters and politicians said.

“The gross economic mismanagement by the government is at the heart of it,” said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University and a confidant of the military. “And there is the rising public disaffection with the Pakistani Peoples Party under Zardari and Gilani.”

As the military demands the overhaul, the Supreme Court is also pushing the government on the issue of corruption by threatening to remove the president’s immunity from prosecution, a move that would expose him to charges of corruption in an old money-laundering case in Switzerland.

The government has defied the court’s demand to write a letter to the Swiss government requesting a reopening of the case against Mr. Zardari, who served 11 years in prison in Pakistan on unproved corruption charges. On Monday, the court granted an extension of two weeks for the government to reconsider its position.

Much of the rising disdain for the government has to do with the perception among the media and the public of the callous and inept handling of the floods by the nation’s wealthy ruling class.

Mr. Gilani drew public ire for appearing at an ersatz camp for flood victims set up just for television cameras. It also did not help that newspapers reported that scores of cartons from the London luxury store Harrods had arrived at his residence in Lahore at the height of the flooding.

Mr. Zardari, meanwhile, was vilified for visiting his chateau in France as torrents of water wiped out millions of villagers in his home province, Sindh.

In his most recent visit to Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, the American special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the international community could not be expected to provide all the billions of dollars needed to repair the flood damage, a warning interpreted here as a rebuke of the civilian government and its mismanagement.

But Washington, not unlike Pakistan’s military, is caught, American officials say, because there is no appetite for a return of military rule. Nor is there desire to see the opposition politician and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, resume power.

Mr. Sharif, who has also faced corruption charges during his career, is considered by Washington to be too close to some of Pakistan’s militant groups, whose members vote in Punjab, the Sharif electoral base.

As the head of the of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, Mr. Sharif is not ready to come to the fore in any case, his aides say, because he does not want to be associated with the paralysis of the current government.

Of mounting concern to the Obama administration is the potential for serious unrest if the economy unspools further: inflation by some predictions will reach 25 percent in the coming period. The price of sugar has tripled, and the cost of flour has doubled since the Zardari government came to power.

In particular, Washington wants the government to raise taxes on the wealthy landed and commercial class, a shortcoming that has become especially galling as Pakistan’s dependence on foreign donors rises.

Pakistan’s revenues from taxes are among the lowest in the world: only 2 million Pakistanis of a population of 170 million pay income tax, according to estimates by the United States.

A report in a leading newspaper, The News, said Monday that Mr. Gilani and 25 of his ministers, including the finance minister, Hafiz Shaikh, did not pay income taxes at all, according to sworn affidavits by the ministers to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The alarm about the economy was first sounded by Mr. Shaikh, a former officer of the World Bank, who told a meeting of political and military leaders last month that the government had enough money to pay only two months’ salaries. The economy was “teetering on the brink” before the floods but was now heading for the “abyss,” Mr. Shaikh was quoted as saying.

The military officers who attended were astounded, Mr. Hussain and others informed of the meeting said, and have pressed the government for changes, politicians and diplomats said.

As the military maneuvers for change, it is not immune from criticism. Defense spending is budgeted at 13.6 percent of total expenditures in 2011, in line with past yearly expenditures even as the civilian population suffers.

The defense budget remains beyond public scrutiny, a fact that increasingly irks the public.

“Do we even know how much it costs taxpayers each year to make possible the office, the home, the car fleets, attendants, guest houses and other amenities that are enjoyed by the army chief or even a corps commander?” asked Babar Sattar, a lawyer who often writes about corruption.

Aafia can return if Pakistan signs deal on prisoners swap

ISLAMABAD: The US contacted the Government of Pakistan a number of times for the repatriation of Dr Aafia Siddiqui to the country, but never received any response, US diplomatic sources said.
The sources said Dr Aafia could be repatriated if Pakistan signed the international prisoners agreement for exchange of the neuroscientist.
According to a private TV channel, the US diplomatic sources said the Government of Pakistan was contacted after the jury’s verdict in February 2010 that the repatriation of Dr Aafia to Pakistan was possible, if Pakistan signed the world agreement for prisoners exchange. “Pakistan did not respond to resolve the issue,” they added.

It is worth mentioning that a US delegate that had arrived in Pakistan for the strategic dialogue in July had also indicated that Dr Aafia could be repatriated to Pakistan. The sources said if Dr Aafia was not repatriated in the future, the Government of Pakistan would be responsible for it.

When contacted, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the government had made best efforts to get Dr Aafia back from the US detention. “The Foreign Office is responsible for signing any agreement regarding the exchange of prisoners,” he added.

PTI - Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf

"All our national life stooges of the past and present colonial masters have led us. Their contribution has been merely to mortgage our children's future and short change our dignity by making compromises under the guise of the much-abused supreme national interest."

Our Ideology

As a nation we cannot progress as long as our economy depends on handouts from international lenders and donors. The policies of international lenders have strangulated the capacity of the ordinary citizen to live a life of dignity. We must strive for self-reliance. The goal of self-reliance does not in any way imply that we isolate ourselves from the global economy. It only shows our conviction that by restoring the trust of the people in public institutions we can harness their potential and mobilize them for a better tomorrow.

We offer a new and credible leadership that is committed to restoring Pakistan's political and economic sovereignty by building a new bond of trust between the government and the people. Only through the active participation of the people can we collectively mobilize our human and material resources to forge ahead on the road to a confident and self-reliant nation.

We are committed to political stability through credible democracy, transparency in government and accountability of leadership. We believe in federalism and functional autonomy to the provinces.

We strive a moderate society that banishes hatred and religious bigotry. We are focused on addressing the root causes of religious extremism, which are injustice, poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy while Islam and the Two-Nation Theory remain the bedrock of Pakistan's foundations, religious dogma must not be used to whip up passions to create fear in society. On the contrary, a truly Islamic society advocates tolerance, moderation and freedom to practice the religion of one's choice without fear. Sectarianism is a curse that must be eliminated from society.

Our family values bind society. We must preserve and strengthen them, as they are our strengths for the future. Despite the grinding poverty and injustice, it is the structure of the family that keeps the social fabric intact. Mere passing laws do not change ground realities that force parents to send their children to work. We cannot ignore the present dismal of the children in terms of their right to healthcare, nutrition, and education. Our mothers need to be healthy and educated to properly nurture our young.

An Islamic Society must care for its senior citizens who are most vulnerable. They need special attention and care as not only are they vulnerable, but also most valuable and yet most neglected part of society.

Pakistan is a great experiment in nurturing and sustaining political unity among diverse people based on common ideology. Despite the common strands of national unity, we have rich and diverse cultures, including those of the religious minorities. Cultural and ethnic diversity doesn't bring discord but makes our society rich and tolerant. We must nurture and allow every opportunity for this diversity of culture and traditions to flourish.

Our Mission

To establish a just society based on humane values while continuously upholding the self-esteem of the nation. The PTI will restore the sovereign and inalienable right of the people to choose political and economic options in accordance with our social, cultural, and religious values. We are broad-based movement for change whose mission is to create a free society based on justice. We know that national renewal is only possible if people are truly free.

Our leadership approaches the people with sincerity and a sense of history and we pledge to commitment to:

Freedom from Political, Economic and Mental Slavery - A self reliant modern Islamic Republic
Freedom from Injustice - Inexpensive and quick dispensation of justice
Freedom from Poverty - 50 percent increase in per capita income in 5 years
Freedom from Unemployment - Two million new jobs every year
Freedom from Homelessness - 2.0 lac new housing units every year and complete ownership right to millions living in Katchi Abadis
Freedom from Illiteracy - Full literacy in 5 years
Freedom to Generate Wealth
Freedom from Fear - Complete Freedom of thought and expression
Freedom for Women - Free education up to Matric for girls from poor households.
Equal right for minorities - no religious discrimination