BY MIRANDA HUSAIN
Gen. Zia-ul-Haq that Benazir Bhutto began lobbying U.S. congressmen like Sen. Claiborne Pell, then chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, for a “democracy dividend” for Pakistan. When the next strongman, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, took over, she lobbied Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Joe Biden, now the U.S. vice president, for the same: American aid should only come to Pakistan if there is democracy in the turbulent, coup-prone country.
The U.S. must “link its support, both financial and military assistance to Pakistan to the restoration of democracy,” said Bhutto before returning from self-exile to her country in 2007. Democracy, the former prime minister said, was the only way to put a lid on Pakistan’s “petri dish of international terrorism.” After her assassination that December, the Pakistan Peoples Party engaged Locke Lord Strategies, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., in May 2008 to help realize Bhutto’s wishes and push for the then Kerry-Biden bill.
In October 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill into law as the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act 2009, which assures the U.S. ally of $7.5 billion in nonmilitary assistance over five years. This aid, Pakistan’s largest ever, comes with strings attached. One of them could now prove to be a lifeline for the besieged government in Islamabad led by Bhutto’s widower, President Asif Ali Zardari. Zardari’s government is under pressure from the Army to reform itself, apparently over the handling of the devastation from this summer’s floods - Pakistan’s worst. If anything, the floods exposed the state’s longstanding, and worsening, weaknesses in coping with unprecedented disaster. But in the street, and in Rawalpindi, where the Army is headquartered, it is Islamabad which is at fault. That Zardari was on a tour of Europe, where he visited his family’s estate in France, when the worst of the floods happened did not help.
There is also pressure from the courts. The Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry - the man Musharraf ousted and arrested and whom Zardari did not want to see brought back as the top judge - is hearing a number of cases that could mean curtains for several key members of the government, including Zardari. The court says it is being stonewalled by the government, especially on the issue of Zardari’s alleged corruption. It wants the government to ask authorities in Switzerland to reopen old cases against him. These cases were closed after Musharraf decreed the so-called National Reconciliation Ordinance in October 2007 to facilitate a possible alliance with Bhutto’s party.
Some believe that the key to Zardari’s survival is to give further concessions to the Army, which already runs the country’s national security policy. According to a government official who asked not to be named, the cabinet reshuffle and reduction requested by the Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, was supposed to have been announced by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in a radio address to the nation on Oct. 9. The speech never came. Zardari, some say, wants to go out fighting. “If [his] enemies succeed in bringing down this government, they will get the back up of the disaffected-at-the-moment PPP base,” says Cyril Almeida in a recent column for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. ‘Anger over yet another PPP government dismissed before its time” could reenergize the party base for the next elections.(Courtesy News Week)
Gen. Zia-ul-Haq that Benazir Bhutto began lobbying U.S. congressmen like Sen. Claiborne Pell, then chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, for a “democracy dividend” for Pakistan. When the next strongman, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, took over, she lobbied Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Joe Biden, now the U.S. vice president, for the same: American aid should only come to Pakistan if there is democracy in the turbulent, coup-prone country.
The U.S. must “link its support, both financial and military assistance to Pakistan to the restoration of democracy,” said Bhutto before returning from self-exile to her country in 2007. Democracy, the former prime minister said, was the only way to put a lid on Pakistan’s “petri dish of international terrorism.” After her assassination that December, the Pakistan Peoples Party engaged Locke Lord Strategies, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., in May 2008 to help realize Bhutto’s wishes and push for the then Kerry-Biden bill.
In October 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill into law as the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act 2009, which assures the U.S. ally of $7.5 billion in nonmilitary assistance over five years. This aid, Pakistan’s largest ever, comes with strings attached. One of them could now prove to be a lifeline for the besieged government in Islamabad led by Bhutto’s widower, President Asif Ali Zardari. Zardari’s government is under pressure from the Army to reform itself, apparently over the handling of the devastation from this summer’s floods - Pakistan’s worst. If anything, the floods exposed the state’s longstanding, and worsening, weaknesses in coping with unprecedented disaster. But in the street, and in Rawalpindi, where the Army is headquartered, it is Islamabad which is at fault. That Zardari was on a tour of Europe, where he visited his family’s estate in France, when the worst of the floods happened did not help.
There is also pressure from the courts. The Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry - the man Musharraf ousted and arrested and whom Zardari did not want to see brought back as the top judge - is hearing a number of cases that could mean curtains for several key members of the government, including Zardari. The court says it is being stonewalled by the government, especially on the issue of Zardari’s alleged corruption. It wants the government to ask authorities in Switzerland to reopen old cases against him. These cases were closed after Musharraf decreed the so-called National Reconciliation Ordinance in October 2007 to facilitate a possible alliance with Bhutto’s party.
Some believe that the key to Zardari’s survival is to give further concessions to the Army, which already runs the country’s national security policy. According to a government official who asked not to be named, the cabinet reshuffle and reduction requested by the Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, was supposed to have been announced by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in a radio address to the nation on Oct. 9. The speech never came. Zardari, some say, wants to go out fighting. “If [his] enemies succeed in bringing down this government, they will get the back up of the disaffected-at-the-moment PPP base,” says Cyril Almeida in a recent column for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. ‘Anger over yet another PPP government dismissed before its time” could reenergize the party base for the next elections.(Courtesy News Week)
