Pakistan’s newly elected parliament convened Monday in Islamabad with one fundamental goal — to once and for all install democracy in a country that, through its first six decades of existence, has been buffeted between military dictatorship and corrupt civilian leadership.
One of the first steps this parliament intends to take, according to leaders of the two largest parties in the ruling coalition, is to restore the Supreme Court justices sacked last year by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf removed the justices from office because he was afraid they would rule that his re-election last year to another five-year term in office was invalid.
The U.S. is worried that the justices, upon returning to their jobs, will indeed rule against Musharraf, forcing him from office and costing America a key ally in the American-led war against terror. U.S. officials have lobbied behind the scenes to keep former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, a Musharraf antagonist, from returning to office.
Washington’s view of the current evolution in Islamabad is shortsighted and misguided. The U.S. can’t pin the success of its war on terror solely on Musharraf’s political survival. A stable Pakistani democracy, one with a functioning parliament and an independent judiciary, would provide a stronger long-term bulwark against terrorism than a single strongman.
As Tribune reporter Noreen Ahmed-Ullah reported earlier this month from Pakistan’s bloodied Swat Valley, citizens are driven less by ideology than by their desire for security. Hundreds of people have died in suicide bombings and insurgent attacks. Swat residents yearn merely for a return to law and order. That’s something that Musharraf’s government has yet to secure.
Musharraf’s government also has proved unable, or unwilling, to tackle the worst abuses of tradition-bound tribal customs. Chaudhry, for instance, had been working to stop the exchange of young girls as a way to settle disputes. A journalist in Sindh province told Ahmed-Ullah that, since Chaudhry’s removal from office in November, 18 girls in his area had been exchanged as payoffs in such cases.
On Musharraf’s watch, the extremists have infiltrated all the way to the country’s major cities. Suicide bombings have become an almost daily occurrence in Pakistan. And both the citizens’ faith in, and the morale of, the Pakistani military have declined.
Pakistanis of all stripes — rural, urban, educated, illiterate — blame Musharraf for the country’s troubles. And they blame the U.S. for its unstinting support of Musharraf.
In the final accounting, Musharraf has been able to secure neither security and justice for his people, nor enough progress against militants for the war on terror.
In the last year, Pakistan’s judiciary, and its lawyers, have emerged as voices of courage, probity, and yes, independence.
It’s an independence that may be uncomfortable for the U.S. to accept. But the U.S. needs to stop meddling, and let the democratic process play out — even if it means the restoration of the chief justice, and the eventual departure of Musharraf.
A Pakistan that shares our values of democracy, free speech and the rule of law can be a better, more enduring partner in the war on terror.
