Democracy and the Crisis of Governability in Pakistan

Author(s): Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr

Source: Asian Survey , Jun., 1992, Vol. 32, No. 6 (Jun., 1992), pp. 521-537
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645158

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Asian Survey

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 DEMOCRACY AND THE CRISIS OF
GOVERNABILITY IN PAKISTAN

Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr

Four years have lapsed since democracy returned to

Pakistan. For those Pakistanis who had looked to democracy to usher in
an era of progress and prosperity in their country, the travails of the past
four years have been far from comforting. The promise of democracy has
been mired by its perils and pitfalls. Political problems have spiraled out
of control and the popular enthusiasm that followed the reintroduction of
democracy has been replaced with a sense of disillusionment, leading to
what Huntington has termed "authoritarian nostalgia."' Far from a cure
for the sociopolitical problems that face Pakistan, the advent of democracy
has coincided with a steady decay of political institutions, social conflict,
and economic stagnation. Since 1988, Pakistan has gone through two gen-
eral elections and has been governed by three prime ministers, each be-
longing to a different party. Ethnic violence has escalated, policy making
at the center and at local levels has become confused, institutional capaci-
ties have been stretched to their limits, and economic progress has ground
to a standstill. In short, "the combination and interaction of low legiti-
macy and low effectiveness"2 have precipitated instability, placing demo-
cratic Pakistan in the throes of a "crisis of governability" that has emerged
as a concomitant of the democratization process and as the single most
visible hindrance to its ultimate success. A crisis of governability has been
identified as the failure of rulers to: "maintain coalitional support, initiate

Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr is Assistant Professor of Political Science at

the University of San Diego. The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ameri-
can Institute of Pakistan Studies for facilitating field work research on this subject in Paki-
stan.

? 1992 by The Regents of the University of California

1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Cen-
tury (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), pp. 253-58.
2. Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, Seymour Martin Lipset, "Democracy in Developing
Countries: Facilitating and Obstructing Factors," in Raymond D. Gastil, ed., Freedom in the
World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1987-1988 (New York: Freedom House, 1988), p.
231.

521

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 522 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

solutions to problems perceived to be important, and resolve political con-

flicts without force or violence."3 In all three areas, Pakistan is doing
worse today than it did four years ago. The analytical narrative here will
seek to explicate the evident decay of Pakistan's political institutions since
1988 by identifying those variables that have controlled the development
of democracy in that country thus far, and will discern causal relations
between key variables with a view to elucidating the dialectic of the de-
mocratization process in Pakistan and point to hazards likely to threaten
its orderly development.4

The PPP and the Advent of Democracy,

1988-1 989
From the outset three factors interacted to constrict democratization: the
weakness of the democratic movement, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) or-
ganizational weakness, and pressures brought to bear on the new govern-
ment during its first months in office. The last factor was, in large
measure, a consequence of the first two. The root causes and implications
of each of the three will be considered in turn.

Weakness of the Democratic Movement

The origins of the democratization process in Pakistan can be traced to
1981. In that year, parties opposed to the military regime of General
Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, led by Benazir Bhutto and the PPP, formed a
multiparty oppositional coalition named the Movement for Restoration of
Democracy. The MRD initially appealed to the legacy of the late Prime
Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his populist program, but over time it
found a base of support among those who favored an end to military rule
and the return of democracy. MRD's effectiveness in questioning the legit-
imacy of the Zia regime from 1981 onward did much to propagate the
cause of democracy and to prevent the military regime from institutional-
izing its base of power. Agitations led by it were instrumental in compel-
ling Zia to hold national elections in 1985, albeit on a nonparty basis, and
more importantly, led Zia to loosen his grip and promise national elections
in 1988.
Despite these gains, MRD's impact on the axial shift in Pakistan's poli-
tics in 1988 was at best modest and as such cannot be credited with the

3. Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 383.
4. The data presented in this paper was collected through detailed personal interviews in
Pakistan during three trips between 1988 and 1991, as well as from reports in the English and
Urdu Pakistani press. The sources for contentious facts or observations are cited.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 523

democratization of the country. Democracy, rather, emerged by default

once the ruling regime voluntarily stepped aside after the sudden death of
Zia and his top brass in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. This fact had
an important bearing on the subsequent development of democracy in
Pakistan, for having lost its cynosure, the military made a grand exit
before the time when the democratic movement could have matured and
overwhelmed it. The military was thus able to continue to exercise polit-
ical power, although indirectly; this clearly placed democratic forces at a
disadvantage and instead emboldened political forces loyal to Zia's legacy.
As a result, those forces were able to regroup quickly under the banner of
the Islami Jomhuri Ittihad (Islamic Democratic Alliance, IJI) to put up a
formidable challenge to PPP in the elections of 1988 and thereafter. It is
an open secret in Pakistan that IJI was put together by the military's Inter-
Services Intelligence (ISI), which brokered a deal between an array of
right-of-center and Islamic parties to prevent a PPP sweep at the polls.
Soon General Zia too, resurfaced in Pakistani politics as a revered martyr
and champion of Islam, far more popular than when he was alive. The
anniversary of his death, commemorated at the Faisal Mosque in Is-
lamabad, drew a crowd of more than a million, greatly frustrating PPP's
attempt to vilify the military regime to Benazir Bhutto's advantage. Zia's
rising popularity would continue to be a thorn in the side of the PPP gov-
ernment, challenging Benazir's appeal for support and legitimacy and
draining the party's message of much of its potency.
The PPP was particularly bewildered by the problem of Zia's rising pop-
ularity owing to its own avowedly secular platform. The party's secular-
ism had enabled the IJI to totally monopolize the emotive power of Islam,
which was used to make sure that the idealized image of Zia would domi-
nate the religious scene. Generally, the importance of religious sentiments
in Pakistan's politics cannot be overstated. It was, therefore, of little sur-
prise that a secular notion of democracy began to lose ground to the ideal-
ized view of the Zia period. The gradual sacralization of the national
political discourse, thanks to IJI's efforts, did not favor the PPP whose
myopic emphasis on secular politics and the polemic of democracy re-
stricted its maneuverability in a religiously charged polity. In 1988 the
PPP had taken measured steps toward mending fences with the Islamic
fundamentalist party, the Jama'at-e Islami, which had served as an impor-
tant anti-PPP force in the 1970s.5 After Zia's death, Benazir abandoned
her efforts to woo the Jama'at, believing that at the dawn of democracy
there was no need to appeal to Islam. After taking office, she further dis-
tanced PPP from the Islamic parties by harping on her father's legacy, for

5. Takbir (Karachi), June 23, 1988, p. 24.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 524 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

which those parties had little sympathy. In fact, the opprobrium for
Bhutto's socialist inclinations and his open violation of Muslim religious
sensibilities continues, thirteen years after his death, to draw strong reac-
tions from Islamic parties. They were willing to deal with the PPP in
1988, but only if it would maintain a distance from Z. A. Bhutto's legacy.
This, however, flew in the face of Benazir's attempt to recapture the PPP's
moment of enthusiasm in the late 1960s, and hence, precluded the possibil-
ity of dialogue with Islamic parties. The result was that between 1988 and
1990 the IJI effectively adopted a democratic style and rhetoric to strength-
en its Islamic platform, and the PPP was unable to reciprocate. The polit-
ical cost to the latter quickly escalated; by the end of Benazir's first year in
office it was evident that Islam was resurgent, constricting the appeal of a
secularist vision of democracy.

PPP's Organizational Weakness

Democracy's predicaments also owed much to PPP's organizational weak-
ness. It was this fact that prevented the newly installed government from
harnessing popular good will, maintaining its coalitional arrangement in
Parliament, or warding off challenges to its authority by the armed forces
and the president. PPP has never been a strong party. It was formed in
the late 1960s around Z. A. Bhutto's populist program as the embodiment
of his charismatic vision and the vehicle for its realization. Although suc-
cessful in winning power, PPP never developed organizationally. Distrust-
ful of his own creation, and especially of the rising power of the left in its
ranks, Bhutto systematically weakened the party and purged it of its cadre
of activists and ideologists. To retain a firm grip, he did not permit inter-
nal party elections for PPP offices throughout the 1970s, and that policy
has continued, turning PPP into an extension of the Bhutto family.
The organizational decline accelerated when the ranks of the party were
quickly filled by those it had defeated and those whose status it threat-
ened-the comprador and landed elite. Their influx from 1972 onward
confused PPP's sense of mission, rendered its ideology meaningless, and
produced an adverse effect on the morale of its rank-and-file. In place of
PPP, Bhutto relied on the bureaucracy, the armed forces, and the newly
formed Federal Security Forces to rule the country. As a result, by 1977
the PPP was only a ghost of its 1969-71 existence, and hence, proved inef-
fective in dealing with the oppositional movement that eventually helped
topple the PPP government in 1977.
Eager to uproot Bhutto's legacy, Zia did much to decimate what was left
of the PPP. Although wounded and demoralized, the party survived the
ordeal of Zia's rule only to be further weakened by its new overseer,
Benazir Bhutto, who was catapulted to the helm as the political heir to her

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 525

father. The new patron of PPP did much to mobilize popular support for
the democratic movement in the 1980s, but she had no plans to restore the
organizational prowess of the party. In fact, there existed a clear bias
against a strong party in her leadership style. Before her return to Paki-
stan in 1986, Benazir had no experience working in the party, had a poor
rapport with PPP's leaders, and had shown little enthusiasm for organiza-
tional work. Worse yet, little changed upon her return. Instead of
strengthening PPP, she relied on the legacy of her father's rule and the
emotive power of democracy to keep MRD afloat. As a result, she eventu-
ally made PPP and MRD extensions of her persona and the struggle that
would bring her to power. There existed little doubt in her mind that her
position was supreme and her political ambitions overrode PPP's long-run
interests. For instance, between 1986 and 1988, personal ambition led
Benazir to push most of PPP's old guard out of the party. Many of these
had been her father's loyal lieutenants and had important bases of power
within the party as well as without. Their departure, in the end, hurt PPP
as it weakened the party's organizational structure, denied it much polit-
ical talent, and created formidable rivals and enemies. In place of the old
guard, Benazir promoted loyal "yes men," many of whom had no in-
dependent bases of support within the party or, in some cases, outside of
the party. Some were Westernized "whiz kids" who knew little of Paki-
stan and its politics. The rise of her circle of advisors to prominence
within the party, and later in her cabinet, clearly weakened the PPP.
Following Zia's death, once the advent of democracy and her rise to new
heights of power appeared imminent, Benazir dealt yet another blow to the
PPP. Election tickets were distributed among new allies and recruits,
many of whom had been among Zia's men, and several of those who joined
the PPP cabinet in 1988 had also served in the Muslim League government
in 1985-88. These actions made a mockery of the PPP and adversely af-
fected the morale of the loyal workers and activists.
Given PPP's evident weakness, the armed forces and its allies in the
bureaucracy, led by Zia's successor to the presidency, Ghulam Ishaq
Khan, were able to manipulate the election results to PPP's disadvantage,
and dictated the terms under which PPP would be allowed to form a gov-
ernment. The PPP had dissolved MRD prior to the elections, believing
that victory in November 1988 was imminent and the party need not share
the limelight. The election results, however, were far from the resounding
victory the PPP had hoped for. The party received 25.1% of the national
vote, winning 93 seats-a plurality-in the National Assembly. While
Benazir sought to depict the election results as an irrefutable mandate, the
president interpreted them to be only a modest, and even a reversible vic-

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 526 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

tory.6 Making full use of the powers vested in his office, Ishaq Khan made
sure that his reading of the election results would come true. To stem the
tide of PPP's momentum, he deliberately procrastinated in calling on
Benazir to form a government, which had the effect of giving the IJI time
to regroup and, hence, effectively interfere with PPP's efforts to form a
viable ruling coalition. More to the point, by taking some of the wind out
of PPP's sails, the president's strategy lessened the impact of the national
polls on provincial elections. As a result, PPP failed to wrest control of
Punjab, the country's largest and most populous province, from the IJI.
The inability to win Punjab, crucial to the stability of any government, it
can be argued, sealed Benazir's fate then and there.
The armed forces and the president then further consolidated their posi-
tion by stipulating conditions under which the PPP would be allowed to
form a government. The party thus relinquished control over important
policy decisions, notably the control of the Afghan jihad and the adminis-
tration of the military, and it accepted Sahibzadah Yaqub Khan as
Benazir's foreign minister and promised to support Ishaq Khan in his bid
to stay on as president. Through these measures, the president and the
armed forces effectively restricted the maneuverability of the elected gov-
ernment, with the effect of weakening democratic institutions. This be-
came increasingly apparent in the months following the elections; a
symbolic example being Benazir's abandonment of her effort to repeal the
controversial Eighth Amendment to the Constitution that had been intro-
duced by Zia in anticipation of an electoral victory by PPP. It augmented
the powers of the president at the expense of those of the prime minister, a
sword of Damocles that throughout Benazir's term in office hung peril-
ously over her head and eventually ended her tenure. She had attacked the
amendment as an unconstitutional ploy to restrict the growth of democ-
racy and had vowed to repeal it once in office. Suffice it to say that the
issue was not seriously addressed throughout her term as prime minister.

The Fall of the PPP Government

Benazir Bhutto began her term of office on an unsure footing. With no
clear ideology or plan of action, she was compelled to rely to a great extent
on the legacy of her father's rule and the promise of democracy as a pan-
acea. The first had the effect of alienating important political forces from
her cause. Z. A. Bhutto, as alluded to earlier, was not remembered in all
quarters with fondness, especially among Islamic parties, the Muhajir

6. One successful strategy for rolling back PPP's gains in the following months was the
manipulation of by-elections, especially in Punjab. Between 1988 and 1990, IJI won a dispro-
portionate number of these contests, further weakening PPP in Parliament.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 527

community of Sind, and the lower middle classes and the comprador and
landed elite of Punjab, all of whom had fought tooth and nail to oust him
from office. While Bhutto's opponents were eager to see a return of de-
mocracy to Pakistan, they were not prepared to embrace a PPP govern-
ment that promised to reenact the "horrors" of the 1970s. The
government's efforts to idealize the memory of Z. A. Bhutto were found to
be unconvincing, if not insulting to those who had been repressed in the
1970s for decrying autocracy. It was this fact that facilitated the IJI's dex-
terous counteridealization of the Zia period.
Writ large, throughout the 1988-90 period, the IJI proved to be better
attuned than PPP to the cultural and political sensibilities of Pakistanis.
For instance, whereas IJI's aim was to win over the average Pakistani by
using parochial idioms and manipulating cultural sensibilities, Benazir's
polemic appeared to be directed at inculcating a following abroad. Many
construed her lopsided sensitivity to world opinion to mean that she
viewed the United States as the ultimate arbiter of Pakistan's fate. This
belief greatly undermined the government's legitimacy, especially when
rhetoric turned into outright reliance upon the U.S. For instance in Octo-
ber 1989, fearing a vote of no confidence against her government, Benazir
appealed to President Bush directly, prompting the latter publicly to reit-
erate U.S. neutrality in the matter.7 Overt invitation to a foreign power to
interfere in Pakistan's affairs, even in the name of democracy, could only
have slighted nationalist feelings. Using the U.S. as a trump card proved,
in the end, to be the undoing of the government, as anti-American feelings
played a strong role in determining the outcome of the elections of 1990.
The government's insensitivity to Pakistani political sensibilities had its
roots in Benazir's own unfamiliarity with the country and its political cul-
ture, as well as in her reliance on a small circle of advisors who were, by
and large, also unfamiliar with the tempo of political life in the country.8

Problems in the Ruling Coalition

The absence of a strong party and a coherent program to bolster her gov-
ernment compelled Benazir to rule through patronage. She promised
something to everyone, first to create a viable ruling coalition and later to
muddle through the job of governing Pakistan. Conflicting interest groups
such as the labor or industrialist elite were courted with equal vigor, and
cronies and potential allies as well as former adversaries were given jobs
and perquisites-within the party as well as in government. Political ap-
pointments and civil service positions were distributed as spoils and pay

7. Nation (Lahore), October 31, November 1, 1989.

8. Herald, November-December 1990, p. 57, and March 1991, pp. 68-70.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 528 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

offs. The resultant weakening of the government went hand in hand with a
decline in its ability to deliver on its promises. Given the sluggish rate of
economic growth in Pakistan, it was obvious from the start that sooner or
later the government would have a problem fulfilling its stated goals. Di-
minishing institutional capacity forced Benazir to face that day of reckon-
ing sooner rather than later. The most notable problem in this regard was
the PPP's commitments to both the Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz (Muhajir na-
tional movement, MQM) and Sindhi nationalist parties, who were vying
for the control of Sind and had mutually exclusive political and develop-
mental agendas.
Ethnic politics had surged in Pakistan in the 1980s in response to Zia's
divide and rule policy.9 The general had greatly dissipated the repository
of Islam's emotive power, opening the door for ethnic politics. He had
then sought to manipulate ethnic tensions to his own advantage, and as a
result, had encouraged ethnic rivalries. Defying the logic of Pakistan, the
competing ethnic parties had gained in strength throughout the decade to
dominate national politics, and their demands, by the end of the 1980s,
began to strain the institutional and conflict-resolution capabilities of the
government. Most notable of these ethnic parties was MQM, which had
reared its head in 1986.
PPP had no program for dealing with ethnic conflict; it had merely
sought to utilize the oppositional stance of ethnic forces to its advantage,
most notably in Sind, where it had always enjoyed a strong base of support
in rural areas. The Bhuttos were Sindhi by origin, and the PPP govern-
ment in the 1970s had done much to arouse Sindhi consciousness. The
urban centers of Sind, however, were controlled by the Muhajir commu-
nity, which had been at loggerheads with Sindhi nationalists since the late
1960s and had played an important role in the anti-PPP agitations of 1977.
In the elections of 1988, PPP did well in rural Sind but did not manage to
sweep all constituencies.10 An array of ethnic Sindhi parties had surfaced
over the course of the 1980s, and although still weak, they threatened to
make inroads into PPP's base of power. As a result, Benazir was com-
pelled to appeal to Sindhi nationalist sentiments more aggressively.
The election results complicated the matter further as urban centers of
Sind were swept by MQM. Benazir needed MQM's 13 National Assembly
seats to form a government, but more importantly, having failed to win
Punjab, it was imperative that the PPP control Karachi, which was effec-
tively dominated by MQM. Benazir, therefore, also had to court the
Muhajirs. Soon after the elections, PPP entered into negotiations with

9. Takbir, May 1989, pp. 44-45.

10. PPP won 31 of Sind's 46 National Assembly seats and 67 of its 100 provincial assem-
bly seats.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 529

MQM, which led to a pact between the two. The pact was predicated on
improving the status of Muhajirs and Sindhis vis-A-vis Punjabis but did not
resolve the more delicate issue of relations between Muhajirs and Sindhis.
In fact, the pact itself became a source of conflict. For instance, to gain the
support of MQM, Benazir had to accede to demands that were unaccept-
able to Sindhi nationalists, such as repatriation of the Muhajir community
of Bangladesh, which had been left in that country after the 1971 war.
Throughout its first year in office, PPP sought to keep both MQM and
Sindhi nationalists within its fold. The policy in the end did not work, for
with the erosion of authority at the center and PPP's inability to satisfy
either protagonist, Muhajirs and Sindhis early in 1989 took matters into
their own hands. As the government dithered and antagonisms were al-
lowed to fester, Sind erupted into violence. In October MQM broke the
impasse. It decided that PPP would not deliver on Muhajir demands and
that IJI would offer a better deal in exchange for MQM's support. MQM
joined IJI to form the Combined Opposition Parties (COP) in Parliament.
Following MQM's defection and the subsequent IJI takeover of Karachi,
COP felt confident enough to move to unseat the PPP government
through a vote of no confidence on November 1, 1989. MQM's change of
allegiance only worsened the situation in Sind as the government, too,
joined in the ethnic conflict. Karachi and Hyderabad became scenes of
violent confrontations between PPP and MQM activists, leaving scores
dead on both sides. The public outcry over the situation precipitated a
crisis. PPP's ministry in Sind was revamped with little moderating effect
and the armed forces were eventually compelled to intervene to broker a
truce between the government and MQM. The government's inability to
contend with the ethnic tussle in the province, to deliver on the demands
of the two parties to the conflict, and above all, to retain control of Kara-
chi were indicative of serious limitations on its assertion of authority.
Constricted and enfeebled, PPP made little headway in asserting its con-
trol and effectively lost its initiative. The result was evident in the govern-
ment's continuous retreats before the opposition. A case in point was the
drastic change in Benazir's policy toward India early in 1990. Soon after it
took office, her government announced, with great fanfare, a policy of rap-
prochement with India. The Bhuttos and the Gandhis met in Islamabad,
developed personal bonds, and promised to bury the hatchet on both sides
of the border. The opening to India, however, could not be sustained given
the weakening of the government in Islamabad and its loss of power in the
two hotbeds of anti-Indian feeling, Punjab and Karachi. By early 1990,
when the Kashmir crisis erupted into the open, Benazir's position had
changed enough to lead Jama'at-e Islami-which was then proclaiming
jihad (holy war) in Kashmir-to declare that it was in full agreement with

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 530 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

the government's Kashmir policy. 1 1 In a word, such reversals reduced the

government to inaction. During its two years in office, the PPP govern-
ment initiated no meaningful legislation, and it did not even propose to roll
back any of Zia's Islamization measures, which Benazir had denounced in
the strongest terms during the preceding years.

Economic Dimension of the Crisis

As could be expected, Pakistan's economic well-being did not remain im-
mune to the political stalemate in Islamabad and, in turn, became an im-
portant factor in escalating the crisis. The advent of democracy had
resulted in a deluge of demands on the government and institutional ca-
pacity for contending with the rising expectations soon reached its limit.
Under the best of circumstances, the government would have been hard
pressed to bridge the widening gap between demands and services, and the
adverse impact of politics only aggravated the situation. Soon after taking
office, as mentioned earlier, the government distributed political and civil
service jobs to its supporters and those it sought to win over. Those as-
signed to oversee the workings of the government or the PPP were not
always qualified for their new positions, which further strained institu-
tional mechanisms. "Mismanagement" quickly became the key word in
characterizing the affairs of government under PPP. One of the first vic-
tims of this quandary was PPP's much vaunted privatization initiative,
which became bogged down by the bottleneck in Islamabad.
The problems caused for the economy by mismanagement, however,
paled before the havoc that was wreaked by corruption. There is little
doubt that rampant corruption in Pakistan has its roots in the 1960s and
became institutionalized in government during the Zia period. This is a
fact to which even some of the general's close allies admit.12 Democracy
under a weak government, however, exploded the problem with more far-
reaching consequences-so much so that corruption delegitimized the rul-
ing government and damaged the democratic movement that had brought
it to power. There is a direct causal linkage between corruption and the
crisis of governability in Pakistan. Corruption in this period existed on
two levels; the first was purely financial and the second involved the polit-
ical process. The PPP government not only proved unable to control cor-
ruption, but to most Pakistanis' chagrin, quickly jumped on the bandwagon.
Between 1988 and 1990, numerous PPP leaders and political appointees
were inculpated in charges of corruption, giving vent to the general feeling

11. Nation, March 7, 1990, p. 2.

12. For instance, editorials in the Jama'at-e Islami daily, Jasarat (Karachi), June 18, 19,
1988.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 531

that bribes and self-serving deals alone kept the machinery of government
in motion. All government policy decisions and contract negotiations, es-
pecially those concerning the privatization initiative, became suspect, re-
ducing the government's ability to perform its developmental functions.
The gap between demands and services thus became even wider.
Benazir initially deflected charges of corruption from her person, and to
some extent from the PPP, by arguing that her government's tenuous
standing in Parliament would neither allow her to control her wayward
lieutenants nor risk alienating them by following up on the charges. It was
not long, however, before corruption also tarnished the luster of the prime
minister's appeal. In 1989 her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was implicated
in a number of serious allegations of corruption and extortion and quickly
became the most notorious figure in the ruling circle. If Benazir was justi-
fied in tolerating the transgressions of her ministers, the same could not be
said of the leverage accorded to her husband. To average Pakistanis, all
this appeared less than comforting, and it can be said with certainty that
the charges of corruption, especially those leveled against Zardari, did
much to undermine Benazir and weaken the government.
Financial corruption became even more enervating once it infested the
political process. Three factors had combined to open politics to its nefari-
ous influence. First, the weakening of PPP combined with the absence of a
strong organizational structure in IJI had given great autonomy of action
to members of the national and provincial assemblies. Second, the virtu-
ally total dominance of the landed elite over their constituencies had given
them disproportionate power over the parties they represented. Third, the
absence of any rules to prevent switching of party allegiance in midterm,
especially when the government did not have a parliamentary majority,
placed a premium on the loyalty of each and every representative. The
three factors combined to reduce national politics to a game of numbers
wherein financial deals and strong-arm tactics replaced real issues in deter-
mining political allegiances and the coalitional constellations of parliamen-
tary representatives. The impact of "horsetrading" on Pakistani politics-
as this practice was dubbed-was immense as it not only besieged PPP but
shackled IJI as well. In their bid to control the assemblies, PPP and IJI
purchased potential converts and were compelled to turn a blind eye to the
indecorous activities of their own representatives for fear of losing their
support.
Tragically, it was PPP which introduced corruption to the political pro-
cess by attempting to topple the IJI ministry in Punjab soon after the elec-
tions of 1988. On that occasion, Benazir had sought to woo independent
as well as IJI Punjab assembly workers with lucrative financial offers. The
strategy failed as IJI was able to match PPP's offers with deals of its own.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 532 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

Rather than dampen the enthusiasm for such exercises, PPP's attempted
putsch in Punjab set the tone for rivalry between the ruling party and the
opposition. The trade in parliamentary representatives became a growth
industry and reached its climax in the COP's drive to unseat the govern-
ment through the vote of no confidence in the national assembly in Octo-
ber-November 1989. Staggering sums of money changed hands, and
strong-arm tactics were used by both sides to buy votes and intimidate
uncooperative representatives. A week before the vote, each party was
compelled to round up its parliamentary team and sequester them in
tightly guarded locations, lest some compromise their loyalties before
monetary offers or pressure tactics. On the day of the vote, the military
was dispatched to patrol the streets of Islamabad in order to ensure that all
representatives were able to make it to the National Assembly. So intense
was the competition for the votes of various representatives and so
profound was the impact of corruption on the whole process, that neither
side was able to predict the outcome of the vote to the very end.
The government had thus become a hostage to elected representatives,
money became the only measure of political loyalty, and statecraft was
reduced to petty squabbles that had no relation to the problems facing the
country. Moreover, as the management of a coalition became an increas-
ingly expensive affair, both PPP and IJI were forced to build sizable war
chests, often by streamlining corruption. The apparent anarchy at the
helm was hardly comforting to the masses, and many reflected that "at
least under Zia there was someone in charge of the country." The nostal-
gia for the military regime so soon after its demise could hardly bode well
for the prospects for democracy in Pakistan. Ghulam Ishaq Khan cited
"horsetrading" in his address to the nation on August 6, 1990, to justify
his decision to dissolve the assemblies and call for fresh elections in Octo-
ber 1990 under the aegis of a provisional government headed by COP, with
Ghulam Mustafa Jotoi as prime minister.

The IJI Government, 1990-Present

Under cover of the Persian Gulf crisis, Ishaq Khan sought to resolve the
debilitating crisis in Pakistan that had followed on the coattails of democ-
racy. The powers-that-be had a two-tier strategy. First, having been given
the handle by PPP, they hoped to rid Pakistan of the party to whose rule
they had never been reconciled, and second, they hoped to engineer the
election of a government that would arrest political decay in the country.
Central to both propositions was a clear electoral victory for IJI, giving
that coalition a parliamentary majority. Also important to the success of
this scheme was IJI's continued control of Punjab and effective exercise of
power in Karachi through MQM. In this manner, the president and the

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 533

armed forces hoped to eliminate two of the root causes of the crisis of
governability in Pakistan: the ruling party's occlusion in Punjab and Ka-
rachi, and its weakness in the various assemblies, especially in the National
Assembly.
To make sure that Benazir stayed down and out of politics and to give
IJI greater room to consolidate power, the provisional government was set
loose on PPP, mounting an effective propaganda campaign against the
ousted government. The judiciary too, was brought into the fray as the
courts were deputed to investigate charges of corruption and extortion
against PPP officials and, most notably, against Benazir's husband, who
was arrested and incarcerated, pending trial. He has turned out to be the
ruling establishment's weapon of last resort. If the embarrassment over his
transgressions does not damage PPP, concern over his fate, the powers-
that-be hope, is bound to dampen Benazir's enthusiasm for challenging
IJI.
The president and the military's intervention in the democratic process,
ironically, were not as sinister as initially thought to be the case. Their
actions were aimed at propping up the authority of the government in or-
der to make democracy more viable. What was controversial in the
scheme was the choice of the ruling party and the manner in which the
president and the military went about installing it in power. Most observ-
ers of Pakistan had expected the fortunes of PPP to decline in the elections
of 1990.13 No one, however, had anticipated the party to be so thoroughly
routed at the polls. Not unexpectedly, PPP and its supporters cried foul.
They lamented the Jotoi government's unfair use of the media for vilifying
the PPP, and leveled charges of widescale irregularities and rigging against
the COP government and the president.
Despite PPP's protests, the president's gambit paid off and IJI took over
the reigns of power with little difficulty. Under the leadership of Nawaz
Sharif, IJI was able to form a majority government at the center and stable
ministries in all four provinces. Moreover, unlike its predecessor, the new
government enjoyed the tacit support of the president and the backing of
the armed forces. This, however, did not mean that the government would
be given a free hand to rule. The president, for instance, intervened di-
rectly in the affairs of the government, beginning with the choice of minis-
ters and the administration of Sind.14 More ominously, the armed forces
under the command of General Mirza Aslam Beig began to advance an

13. Anwar H. Syed, "The Pakistan People's Party and the Punjab: National Assembly
Elections, 1988 and 1990," Asian Survey, 31:7 (July 1991).
14. Newsline (Karachi), December 1991, pp. 30-31, and Herald, February 1992, pp.
39-40.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 534 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

independent political agenda during the Persian Gulf crisis.15 The IJI gov-
ernment had chosen to side with Saudi Arabia and the United States, a
stance that, not surprisingly, was unpopular with the masses and especially
with the Islamic parties of IJI. Hoping to revive the military's political
fortunes, General Beig launched a nationwide political campaign, castigat-
ing the government for its "anti-Muslim" stance and thus creating tension
within IJI between Nawaz Sharif and the Islamic parties.16 Iraq's defeat,
however, dashed Beig's hopes and brought the armed forces back in line
with the government. The military's setback helped bolster the govern-
ment's position but did not repair the damage that bickering over the war
produced within the IJI ranks.
Hence, in lieu of its initial restoration, government authority continued
to decline. This was especially the case as those factors that had under-
mined PPP-organizational weakness, corruption, and violence-also be-
sieged Nawaz Sharif s government. The IJI since its inception had been an
umbrella coalition, consisting of assorted right-of-center and Islamic par-
ties who share little except their opposition to PPP, and the arrangement
has been no substitute for an effective organizational structure. The coali-
tional formula, as a result, suffers from fundamental incongruities. Two of
IJI's most important parties, the Muslim League and the Jama'at-e Islami,
have been antagonists, if not enemies, since the 1940s; in fact there had
existed strong resistance within both parties to a marriage of convenience
in the form of IJI.17
The tensions between the Jama'at and MQM have been even more omi-
nous for IJI.18 The Jama'at had traditionally been strong in Karachi and
had enjoyed a base of support in the Muhajir community. The meteoric
rise of MQM after 1986 occurred at the expense of the Jama'at, and this
has resulted in much acrimony between the two parties, at times mani-
fested in armed confrontations on Karachi's university campuses.19 The
Jama'at has, therefore, been firmly opposed to IJI's alliance with MQM.
The tensions between the Jama'at and IJI were played out in acrimonious
altercations over a host of issues, most notably the government's commit-
ment to Islamization and its policies on the Gulf War, the settlement of the

15. Herald, February 1991, pp. 22-33.

16. An excellent analysis is in Mumtaz Ahmad, "The Politics of War: Islamic Fundamen-
talisms in Pakistan," in James Piscatori, ed., Islamic Fundamentalisms and the Gulf Crisis
(Chicago: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1991), pp. 155-87.
17. Interviews with leaders of both parties in Lahore, 1989.
18. Similar tensions, although not as portentous, between the Jama'at and the Awami Na-
tional Party, IJI's allies in the North West Frontier Province, have also strained Jama'at's
relations with IJI.
19. See Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, "Students, Islam and Politics: Islami Jama'at-i Tulaba in
Pakistan," The Middle East Journal, 46:1 (Winter 1992), pp. 74-75.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 535

Afghan war, and the crisis in Kashmir. With no clear strategy for dealing
with the feud between the two important pillars of IJI, Nawaz Sharif relied
on personal appeals to keep the Jama'at's dissent in check. This, however,
was not sufficient and an embarrassing and potentially costly rupture in IJI
became inevitable. Finally, on May 5, 1992, the Jama'at formally left IJI.
The break did not threaten the government immediately, but has tarnished
its Islamic image and as such can ultimately damage its popular standing.
The vociferous demands for the introduction of interest-free banking,
which have bedeviled the government since February 1992, clearly under-
line the government's susceptibility to a challenge to its Islamic creden-
tials. The clashes between the Jama'at and MQM bring to the fore a more
portentous problem for the government, namely, violence. The Sindhi-
Muhajir clashes, which began in earnest in 1988, escalated. The PPP's
demise did not make a dent in the problem, nor did the IJI's strong stance
on the issue in Sind reverse the trend. In fact, in 1990 the crisis in law and
order spread out of Sind to infest Punjab, creating a national problem.
Violence has become an institutionalized mode of political action and is
fast replacing the normal channels of problem solving in the country.
Within the Muslim League, IJI's largest component, there also have ex-
isted tangible tensions, which began to surface following the coalition's
electoral victory. Even during its heyday, the Muslim League did not pre-
tend to be a strong party, and its weak structure broke down further over
the years, producing numerous factions. During the Zia period, the Pir of
Pagaro faction rose to prominence and dominated the League. It formed
the government between 1985 and 1988 with Muhammad Khan Junejo as
the prime minister. During the same period, a different faction of the
League formed a ministry in Punjab with a close ally of General Zia,
Nawaz Sharif, as chief minister. When Zia dismissed the Juneijo govern-
ment in May 1988, Nawaz Sharif decided to stay with the general and,
despite demands from his party's leadership, refused to resign his ministry.
This created much bitterness among Muslim League leaders, who accused
Sharif of being a traitor and a stooge of the military regime. In the elec-
tions of 1988, Junejo was not elected, and since Punjab became the only
stronghold of the League, Nawaz Sharif managed to gain in power within
the party. Junejo and his allies, however, were by no means reconciled to
this outcome and have since challenged Nawaz Sharif s leadership within
the Muslim League as well as within IJI.

IJI's Record in Office

The IJI government, initially at least, seemed to be better equipped to
operate the machinery of government and to close somewhat the gap be-
tween popular demands and government services. It has pursued the

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 536 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXII, NO. 6, JUNE 1992

privatization initiative more aggressively and allocated larger sums to de-

velopmental projects in the various provinces. It promised to reinvigorate
industrialization, increase foreign investment in Pakistan's economy, aug-
ment the government's institutional capacity to contend with popular de-
mands, and reorient the government toward aggressive economic growth.
With a prime minister who came from an industrialist family and with no
palpable need to dedicate the lion's share of government resources to man-
aging "horse trading," many Pakistanis took the government's agenda se-
riously. Yet, despite its lofty goals, IJI has proved incapable of ending the
stalemate. Three factors played a pivotal role here: the U.S. cutoff of aid
to Pakistan and the decline of national income from managing the Afghan
fihad, the fall in guest-worker remittances from the Persian Gulf states,
and continuing corruption in the country's ruling circles.
With the Afghan jihad at an end, Washington used the occasion of the
dismissal of Benazir's government and later the excuse of Pakistan's con-
tinued investment in a nuclear weapons program to suspend its aid. This,
combined with the reduction in Saudi Arabia's direct financial assistance
to Pakistan and contribution to the fihad-owing to Islamabad's ambiva-
lent attitude toward the Persian Gulf crisis and the collapse of the Soviet
empire-has diminished the government's capacity to pursue industrializa-
tion and development as well as to meet the increasing demands on its
resources. The impact of the financial squeeze on the government was
compounded by the fall in remittances from Persian Gulf states, which
had long kept sagging government resources afloat. Many of those who
had worked in the Persian Gulf, moreover, have been compelled to return
to Pakistan, further bloating the ranks of the unemployed and straining
the government's resources. In the long run, all of this will further compli-
cate the problem of democratic development at a low level of economic
growth, and will most likely intensify the competition for resources by var-
ious social groups.
Finally, the unbridled increase in corruption has continued to tax the
government's ability to formulate constructive policies, and more impor-
tantly, has eroded government authority. In August 1991, IJI was accused
of sanctioning illegal borrowing of some Rs. 1.2 billion from government-
owned cooperatives in Punjab by the Ittifaq Industrial Group, which be-
longs to the Sharif family.20 Both the prime minister and his brother and
close political advisor, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, were directly implicated in
the transactions, which caused the collapse of a number of the coopera-
tives, and the loss of Rs.17 billion to some two million people.21 The

20. Herald, September 1991, pp. 35-54, and Newsline, September 1991, pp. 20-36.
21. Rais A. Khan, "Pakistan in 1991: Light and Shadows," Asian Survey, 32:2 (February
1992), p. 199.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SEYYED VALI REZA NASR 537

prime minister moved quickly to repair the damage by strongly denying

any wrong doing and by depositing back large sums in the cooperatives to
keep them afloat. The impact was nevertheless profound. PPP was resur-
rected overnight, and challenged the powers-that-be to take account of the
new surge in corruption. On November 8, the PPP led eight parties, in-
cluding the Jama'at-e Islamni, in calling on the president to remove Nawaz
Sharif as prime minister pending an investigation of charges of corruption.
Ishaq Khan declined the request, insisting that the political process would
continue, but the IJI government was greatly weakened. In a poll con-
ducted by Herald magazine of Karachi in October 1991, only 15.5% of
those asked viewed the IJI government's performance during its first year
in office as good.22

Conclusion
Democracy thus far has had an uncertain existence in Pakistan and an
even more uncertain impact on the country's politics. The greatest threat
to its viability has not come from its traditional foes in the bureaucracy or
the military, at least not yet. In fact, in 1990 the president and the armed
forces intervened, albeit unfairly, to restructure the Parliament with a view
to strengthening the government and hence the democratic institutions.
The greatest danger to democracy has rather stemmed from political decay
and the subsequent crisis of governability that have emerged pursuant to
the advent of the democratic process. The preceding pages have explored
the reasons for this unexpected linkage between democracy and political
decay, and it can be inferred from the foregoing that the interaction of a
number of key variables has created a negative correlation between democ-
racy and political development in Pakistan. The initial weakness of the
democratic movement, absence of strong parties and political programs,
politics of personalities and decline in the quality of leaders and their pol-
icy choices, mismanagement of government resources and functions, and
corruption in, as well as of the political process have all combined to erode
government authority. The onset of this decay at a time of greater scarcity
of resources and widening gap between institutional capacities and popular
demands has further reduced the government's ability to accommodate di-
vergent sociopolitical interests. The government has weakened, and vari-
ous political groups have taken matters into their own hands, creating and
perpetuating a cycle of violence in the process. As a result, a crisis of
governability has set in that, unless reversed, threatens the prospects for a
healthy development of democratic institutions.

22. Herald, November 1991, pp. 65-69.

This content downloaded from

154.59.124.112 on Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:13:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms