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GUEST: Ali Ahsan, lawyer and son of leading dissident Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association; Farhat Haq, Pakistani American teaching at Monmouth College, and expert on political Islam, women and Islam, and contemporary Pakistani Politics

Pakistani President and major US ally, Pervez Musharraf, swore in Yousaf Raza Gilani as the country’s new Prime Minister yesterday. The much-anticipated parliamentary elections this February resulted in a coalition government between Gillani’s Pakistan People’s Party, the Muslim League, and two smaller parties occupying a total of 2/3s of the seats. The Parliament voted 264-to-42 for Gillani in a move expressing a broad sentiment against Musharraf, who has been a key US ally in the so-called “war on terror.” Gilliani was a long-time aide to ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was killed last December as she campaigned for the elections. In one of his first acts as Prime Minister, Gillani ordered the release of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, and other judges detained by Pervez Musharraf during last year’s tumultuous nationwide protests and Musharraf’s ensuing declaration of a state of emergency. After meeting recently with US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Muslim League leader, Nawaz Sharif announced yesterday that the new government would review Pakistan’s role in the US-led “war on terror.”

Rough Transcript

Sonali Kolhatkar: Ali, I’d like to begin with you. Your father was one of the many judges that were detained last year. Has he now been released?

Ali Ahsan: Yes, he was released after approximately four months in detention on March 3rd. So, he preceded the release of the judiciary by a couple of weeks and he was released at the same time as most of the other leaders of the lawyers movement were released.

Sonali: And what do you think this move represents by Gillani?

Ali: The release of the judges?

Sonali: Yes.

Ali: Well, it’s certainly extremely welcome. Of course, one can say that there was no other alternative. Any government would have, I would have hoped, done this because the judges were being essentially kept in a private prison and it still astounds me the pettiness of the previous government under General Musharraf who, even after the election was out for no reason whatsoever except apparent pettiness, refused to release the judges despite passage of 4 ½ months. And what they did do in effect was supply a publicity coup to the new government. They might have tried to earn some points by releasing the judges last week. It would have made no difference but perhaps Musharraf could have taken credit for it. Instead, he refused to do so until the last minute and it was up to the new government for its first act which made sense and everyone had said they would do that. They ordered the release of the judges and it sort of helped the government start out on a positive note.

Sonali: Farhat Haq, who is Gillani? Who is Yousaf Raza Gillani and what does his Prime Ministership now mean for President Musharraf?

Farhat Haq: Well, Yousaf Raza Gillani was a Speaker in 1990s under the first Benazir Bhutto’s government. He had been a part of (unintelligible)’s group first and then he switched over to the People’s Party. He’s somebody who has been very close to Asif Ali Zardari. In fact he was in prison…

Sonali: And that’s Benazir Bhutto’s widower?

Farhat: That’s right, that’s Benazir Bhutto’s widower. And, he was put in prison for about five years under Musharraf with the charge that he had put too many people on his payroll while he was the Speaker of the Assembly. His becoming a Prime Minister really what it means is that he’s holding the place for Asif Zardari. As you know, there was a contending candidate, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who had been the leader of the People’s Party while Benazir Bhutto was in exile and so he was the seniormost leader and the general expectation was that he will become the Prime Minister, but that did not happen and I think that is problematic for some people because what it shows is that, in fact, the possibility of the People’s Party fracturing in the future and also what it shows is that Asif Zardari is quite keen on taking full charge and perhaps also very soon once he runs for a supplemental election and becomes a member of Parliament, then becomes the Prime Minister.

Sonali: And, just for our listeners, the Prime Minister in Pakistan wields a lot more power than the President, unlike here in the United States where we don’t have a Prime Minister and really the President is Commander-in-Chief.

Farhat: Well, but that is now going to become a very interesting question because Pakistan is a parliamentary system and so the Prime Minister is constitutionally supposed to wield the most power. But first under General (unintelligible) Haq, another military dictator in the late 1970s, 1980s – that was changed. He, as president, had made some constitutional amendment to grab more power. And now, the interesting question would be, given that Musharraf was used to wielding power as the president, because the prime ministers for the last seven or eight years have really been people who just went along with what Musharraf wanted. Now that we have truly elected a parliament and a more (unintelligible) prime minister, I think that will be one of the things to watch in terms of how this power sharing goes in the near future.

Sonali: Ali Ahsan, I’d like to get your opinion on some of the things that Farhat has been discussing but also just stepping back, although these elections have signaled an “out with the old”, it’s also not necessarily “in with the new” because most of these characters – Asif Ali Zardari, Yousef Raza Gillani and Nawaz Sharif – these are all characters from Pakistan’s past who are experienced political figures and many of them not with the cleanest of pasts either.

Ali Ahsan: Yes. Well, that’s something that has been bandied about by critics of the current dispensation. There are a few things to observe in this: one of them is that the sheer hollowness of Musharraf’s years of rule in which the one thing that he tried above everything else was to get rid of these old leaders. He had expressed on many occasions utter contempt for them. It only seems to raise their popularity amongst the masses. Now the second point in that is that the whole artificial cleansing by a military ruler who himself is not representative of the people and doesn’t derive popular authority is not a way that you can suppress popular leaders whether they’re corrupt or not. The only way to move on and get new leadership is through a continued exercise in democracy in which people are allowed to vote out, vote in and vote out their representatives. Unless you give them that closure, unless you have people voting out people, you know, the same old people will be able, tried and trusted people, whether discredited, will be able to come back and claim that you were never given a chance, that they were deposed and then, as we see, it happened again. Now the other point on this to be made is, that, people seem to forget that a democracy does not aim to have (unintelligible) in positions of leadership. That is not the purpose of a representative government. The purpose of a democratic representative government is to get hopefully good people but ultimately the choices of the people whether they are corrupt or not. Instead, what a democracy aims with these people is to have checks and balances which even limit the worst people from doing damage or indulging in corruption which is, essentially, what the lawyers movement is about. The lawyers movement is about the upholding the judiciary and, by association, the media so that they can act as important checks on the excesses of the government. Now these were not there under Musharraf or under earlier governments but with the right, hopefully, of an independent judiciary that is restored, with the right of independent media, we can have the same old faces around – some people say the same old crooks, by their saying – however, there is a new sheriff in town with the media and the judiciary who will then prevent these people from doing the kind of things that perhaps they were accused of in the past.

Sonali: Ali, what do you think of Musharraf’s position? I mean, he is now caught in a very interesting position, having been a dictator in Pakistan primarily supported by the U.S. and now facing this democratic wave and a new parliament?

Ali: Well, I am one of those people who thought that the honorable thing for Musharraf to do long, long ago was to resign. And, by his own declared intent, on several occasions, he said he was popular and he said he would leave if he ever thought he was unpopular and election results are the most definitive conclusion on that. Now, unfortunately, he is clinging to power and it seems as you may know at this current moment in time, the American Deputy Secretary of State and the Assistant Secretary of State, Negroponte and Richard Boucher are both in Pakistan meeting with the new government and one of the items that rumored that they’re pushing is to encourage cohabitation with Musharraf and to encourage Musharraf’s coalition to keep Musharraf on and work with Musharraf. Now, it’s sort of one of those things which, I suspect, will lead to another crisis. As Farhat mentioned, Musharraf is not used to sharing power. He never has. That’s the whole ethos of an army man. As he always said, “unity of command”, was his mantra for the last eight years. So, right now, because he’s beaten down and has been slapped around by the election results, he has no option but to make conciliatory noises. That’s the only way he can even hope to hang onto power. But the moment he has time to regroup, he will try and assert his authority and it will be very damaging and will lead to a showdown with the government. So, to me, it seems untenable that he can stay on but the United States certainly doesn’t realize that and Musharraf himself doesn’t seem to realize that.

Sonali: Farhat, let’s talk about what lies next for the U.S. Following up on what Ali was saying with Negroponte and Richard Boucher in Pakistan right now, where do you think this new Pakistani government is going to turn given some of the rumblings particularly with Nawaz Sharif?

Farhat Haq: Well, I think that it’s important to keep in mind that there will not be a drastic change as far as the determination of the government to take on radical Islamist groups because they are doing tremendous damage to Pakistan…

Sonali: And actually, let me interrupt you and ask you briefly – how did many of the Islamic parties fare in the election?

Farhat: Yes, I think that’s another very important point because they have really not done well at all. They, I think, lost most of their northwest frontier provinces where they previously had quite a few seats – I don’t recall the exact number – but in this election they have lost most of their popularity so it’s been a clear mandate against Islamic parties this time around. And so what that does is it sort of says a couple of important things that somehow do not always get through to the American press and to the American public. The first thing that it says is that the majority of the Pakistanis is not interested in some sort of a radical Islamic state. Secondly, what it says is that the democratic process, that Ali had mentioned earlier, because if allowed to continue, that would be the best solution for addressing the problem of extremism in Pakistan or elsewhere. I mean, you know, I have to say if there’s one thing that I finally agree with President Bush, it is, yes, that in fact democracy, in the long run, is the only answer for the Muslim world. The only issue is that we cannot bring about democracy by invading countries…

Sonali: But, the Bush administration has embraced democracy when it has yielded convenient results. Now, the question is, have these results in Pakistan, are they going to be convenient enough for the Bush administration?

Farhat: And, this is again shows, I mean, it’s interesting, in some ways, both Bush and Musharraf have shown some stubbornness that has been extremely counterproductive for their respective countries. So, here I think one of the reasons that Negroponte has gone and visited and they’re trying to broker this cohabitation is because Bush has really made Musharraf his guy. He feels that Musharraf has been loyal to him and, you know, Bush has this kind of cowboy mentality where a person who’s been loyal to you – you never give up on that. And so it seems to me that until we have a new American administration, the White House is going to continue to push for cohabitation but because there’s going to be a change of administration here soon, I think that that’s not a long term and it’s not a very viable strategy because what also Musharraf has shown is that he doesn’t have that kind of political flexibility to really give up some of his power. So, it seems to me that this is a very short-term thing. Things will change. But the important point here, I think also, is that in sort of a longer term future of how we take on radical Islam or fight war against terror, etc. – what it really shows is that we have to work with democratic forces.

Sonali: I want to finally turn to Ali Ahsan and ask you what your thoughts are on the future of Pakistan and particularly what the plans are for the lawyer’s movement. Given the terrible wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan over this past year and its proximity to Afghanistan, which a recent statement by a general in the northwest frontier province basically was that the west has failed in Afghanistan and so a lot of the violence has spilled over to Pakistan. Can the situation in Pakistan and the future of Pakistan be promising if there is this intense war going on right across the border?

Ali Ahsan: Well, to turn to the war on terrorism in Pakistan and the current spate of suicide bombings, that’s worried everyone in Pakistan and it’s been alarming in its rise in the past year and recent months especially. But what is hopeful is that the current new incoming government will adopt a more holistic policy on it than the simple, let’s bomb them out of existence approach, followed by General Musharraf and his backers in the American administration. I mean, that approach was clearly not working. And while the current government has said that it will, of course, use military means when necessary, it will also try and talk to these people and try and distinguish between its own citizens and all the foreign extremists who have perhaps made a home in the tribal areas of Pakistan and we’re hoping that this policy of engagement at least speaks, not softly, but at least speaks and then carry a big stick. That sort of an approach can perhaps address the rise in violence within Pakistan and hopefully stem it and also be more of a long-term solution. In terms of the lawyer’s movement, the incoming government has proclaimed that it will restore the judges within 30 days. The clock started essentially yesterday when the Prime Minister took office. Now, General Musharraf and potentially the Americans are trying their best to prevent that from happening. At present, the lawyers are waiting to see if the new government does restore the judges and if the new government does restore the judges, I think the lawyers are exhausted from over a year of struggle and they will try to move on and go back to court and resume their normal life. But if that doesn’t happen, I just see more an unending confrontation in Pakistan with the lawyers again taking in force to the streets, the new government being sort of split apart because there are parts of the coalition who are extremely in favor of the judges being restored and that might fracture the coalition. So, I think that would be more stalemate and deadlock and instability if the government doesn’t go through with restoring the judges. But if it does I see a process in which the government can move forward and address many other pressing problems such as extremism and terrorism but also inflation and a growing energy crisis.

Special Thanks to Julie Svendsen for transcribing this interview