The Damocles Sword Over Saudi Aid to Pakistan

Saudi aid package to Pakistan has come as more than a relief. It is indeed a panacea – and comes as the first national morale boost after Imran Khan’s PTI came into office in mid August. Pakistan’s Stock Market has reacted positively with immediate effect. The Rupee has halted its free fall and has gained against the dollar. Imran and his team are beaming with confidence. The press coverage of the government has taken a turn for the better. The opposition’s threatening posture is beginning to look immaterial.

And yet, Islamabad needs to be mindful of the Damocles sword that hangs over Saudi monetary aid to Pakistan. The Khasoggi crisis is getting more grave every day. For the first time in US history, we are told, the head of CIA has traveled to a foreign country to personally look in to the evidence regarding the murder of a journalist. Even before Gina Haspel’s return from Turkey, Donald Trump called Saudi response the worst cover up in the history of cover ups and has threatened serious reprisals. Germany has halted approval of arms deal to Saudi Arabia. Europeans have boycotted the Davos in the Desert. Human Rights Watch is calling for a probe by the UN.Senior UN officials have shown interest – subject to Turkey making a formal request.

The Saudi counter narrative, in the face of all this, is non existent. The implications of this matter seem to have dawned way too slow on MBS and his team. As things stand now, MBS has been thoroughly implicated. The sacking of eighteen officials, one of who, Qahtani, tweeted in recent past that he does nothing on his own, and only carries out orders from his royal highness and the Crown Prince MBS, is not going to pacify what is likely to be growing international outrage as the information coming out gets more gory in its details.

Two things are clear at the outset. One, the west, led by the USA, will use this outrage to try and topple Shah Salman’s government in Saudi Arabia. West’s coercive diplomacy could include economic measures. Two, the international pressure could reverberate inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where an escalation in tensions could even take a violent turn.

In the event, Saudi ability to deliver aid to Pakistan could be shackled. The way Pakistan’s economy has reacted to the announcement of Saudi aid has revealed Pakistan’s vulnerability to its enemies. The game that is going to be played on the strategic chess board could impact Pakistan’s economic prospects. Putting it another way, Asad Umar’s travails and the Jamal Khashoggi crisis could end up being terribly intertwined.

Imran Khan and his team “MUST” prepare to deal with the shifting sands in this very serious and rapidly evolving crisis.

SHAHID KHAQAN – A SIGNIFICANT CANDIDACY IN PAKISTAN’S BY ELECTION 2018

The By-election for 11 national assembly and 24 provincial assembly seats is currently underway in Pakistan. Polling has started half an hour ago. Though there are more than three hundred candidates, the fate of one particular candidate happens to be more significant than the rest, because of the role he is slated to play in one of the largest political parties of Pakistan- the PML-N. The party has hitherto functioned under the leadership of the Sharif family – Nawaz Sharif, the founder of the party and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, who ruled as Chief Minister of the largest and most prosperous province in Pakistan, the Punjab.

Both the brothers have been nabbed in mega corruption scandals. Nawaz Sharif’s entire family is convicted while Shahbaz Sharif has been arrested few days ago. The Sharif family, for all practical purposes, will not be able to head the PML-N. Cognizant of this, Nawaz Sharif chose Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to step in as Prime Minister in July 2017. A wise choice in hindsight as Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was able to steer the PML-N government to the end of the term. Shahid Khaqan has now been nominated to contest by-election from the stronghold of the Sharifs in Lahore. The message is clear.

The Sharif family seems to have chosen Shahid Khaqan to project a new image of the Party. He has been given the ticket to contest a very important election on the seat vacated by Shahbaz Sharif’s son, Hamza Shahbaz, in the interior of Lahore, the birth place of the Sharifs. The Sharif brothers have launched Shahid Khaqan at the helm of party affairs by giving him the opportunity to prove his mettle at precisely the place they began their political career. The fact that the constituency where the Sharifs held sway till their conviction has now been handed over to Shahid Khaqan means Shahid Khaqan is slated to be the future leader of the PML-N.

Shahid Khaqan, as such, is not just a candidate in a by election. He is the key to the survival of the PM-N as a political entity. Whats more, his induction at the helm of affairs in the PML-N is in effect being supported by the ruling PTI, who seem to have abdicated the constituency to Khaqan by fielding a lackluster candidate against him. PTI could have chosen a better candidate but decided not to.

Shahid Khaqan is contesting the election in Lahore with far greater vigor than he contested election earlier on in his own home town Murree and in Islamabad, the two national assembly seats he was nominated to contest on PML-N ticket during July 2013 general election. The strategy of putting Shahid Khaqan at the helm of the PML-N, and Hamza Shahbaz, a scion of the Sharif family not yet down by law, in Punjab, is thus the linchpin of PML-N’s strategy for survival as a political party in the face of tremendous misfortune that has befallen its founding leaders.

Shahid Khaqan has the attributes of some one who can deliver. At the time the Sharifs had alienated both the military and the judiciary beyond redemption, Shahid Khaqan became replacement PM, and without openly contradicting the Sharif narrative managed to successfully launch his charm offensive with both the COAS and the Chief Justice. Khaqan met with the Chief Justice Saqib Nisar by arriving at the latter’s office without protocol. Khaqan joined the GHQ in handling the Tehrik-e-Lubaik protest without exacerbating the stand off between Khadim Rizvi’s followers and the government. Khaqan helped avert what could be a terrible crisis by reaching an agreement with Khadim Rizvi and pressing for the resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid. Khaqan visited Saudi Arabia, accompanied by the COAS, and helped placate the Saudi ire at Sharif government’s refusal to send Pakistani troops to help Saudi Arabia in Yemen. All along as Shahid Khaqan handled one crises after another, he managed to look uncomfortable in his position as PM, and conveyed to Party cadre that he was sorely missing Nawaz Sharif in the PM office. Khaqan’s style eased the pain of transition for all concerned.

At personal level, Khaqan can promote party unity because his professional style as a leader is far from stuffy. Khaqan practices the opposite of escalation dominance, what ever the word for it. When feeling angry at some one above him, below him, or besides him, instead of acquiring a menacing countenance, Khaqan can look like he wants to beat his own self on the head. The unique mannerism defuses tension, and disarms opponents. While this has turned Khaqan into an unrivaled recipient of appreciation by the PML-N cadre, his loyalty to the Sharif family renders him trustworthy to the latter even during the time when paranoia was manifest in their behaviour. In the event Shahid Khaqan can turn the party fortunes around, and bring the party into power again, the Sharifs can expect Khaqan to go out of his way in helping assuage their troubles with the state.

Shahid Khaqan is likely to win the important seat in Lahore, balloting for which is currently underway. Whether or not he succeeds in piloting the party out of current turbulence depends on Khaqan’s own survivability during the accountability derive currently in top gear in Pakistan. The LNG probe could prove to be Khaqan’s achilless heel.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DPO RIZWAN GONDAL CASE

via THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DPO RIZWAN GONDAL CASE

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DPO RIZWAN GONDAL CASE

The only scandals about the nascent PTI government, coming out in rapid succession, (three since it took office in mid August) are the ones in which the police is the initiator of the blame. Two of the scandals (Gondal scandal and sons of Mahmud ul Rashid scandal) involve officers of the police from Pakistan’s largest and most prosperous province, Punjab, while one has surfaced in Haiderabad, Sindh, where police accused a PTI leader of taking drugs. The most prominent case is that of District Police Officer (DPO) Rizwan Gondal, subjudice in Supreme Court at the time of writing. The case is likely to be known in Pakistan’s judicial history as a very significant case, and may become the catalyst for fundamental reform in both the ethos of the police as well as the socio-political environment in which the police functions in Pakistan.

Police is, by all standards, the most corrupt institution in Pakistan. It is also
the institution most abused by power, be it feudal, political, bureaucratic, or naked financial power. The tradition of abusing police and making it subservient to political power has been carried over from British colonial times, when the British administrators co-opted the Indian elite to deliver peace to the colonial masters and help fulfill imperial economic needs. The police was made subservient to the elite in order to enable the latter to smoothly service the imperial rulers.

During India’s administration by the East India Company, localized battles with officers of the East India Company were frequent in different parts of India. East India Company found it convenient to maintain peace between their administration and the Indian subjects by forming alliance with the Indian feudal elite class, and by politically empowering it with titles, plus clout with the Company, in order that they may have an incentive to prevent the local population from carrying out insurrections against the British. Sustained use of this practice led to the law enforcement at local levels being deferential to the local elite, and the latter utilizing the local police as their vassal without fearing reprisals from colonial rulers. If a police officer was abused by a local feudal elite, he could go home or knuckle under. The East India Company could ill afford to alienate the local elite if he showed dislike for the police officer. From 1757 to 1857, the formula enabled the British East India Company to administer India.

Company officials were rattled when the arrangement backfired in 1857, intensely in some places. Examples were set by hanging bodies of India’s elites, defeated in battles with the Company Bahadurs, from tree tops for days, to teach others a lesson. The breakdown of East India Company led order invited Crown’s intervention and end of direct rule by the Company. However, the crown too had no better formula for governing India’s vast expanse, and continued the practice of utilizing the influence local feudal elite had over the local population for the benefit of the Raj, even if it entailed putting the local police at the disposal of the local elite. Surface police reforms were carried out from time to time, to have something to write London about.

The colonial practice continues in the South Asian countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. However, matters of police stand a greater chance of changing for the better in Pakistan now than at any other juncture in history. This is so due to a distinct development unique to Pakistan, unlike its other neighbors. Pakistan’s economy is undergoing transformation as its ruling elite realizes that their country enjoys an unprecedented opportunity of prospering through becoming a regional commercial hub and a busy international trading port. To this effect, during the last four years, foreign investments are encouraged and economic corridors are being built in collaboration with globally strong economies such as China and Saudi Arabia.

A commercially bustling environment, involving active participation of global financial elite, must be manned by an effective police. It is therefore imperative that real reform in the character and practice of policing Pakistan is carried out. This time, Pakistan is cognizant of the fact that its commercial value will draw foreign direct investment from regional as well as international actors. Had it expected the investment to arrive from one single source, it could have let the same source imperceptibly slip into “elite above the law mode,” due to the single source’s unrivaled position in Pakistan’s economy.

To inspire confidence in foreign investors from several different countries, the law and order environment in Pakistan must be secured in a sustainable manner. So far, the Pakistan military has taken care of providing security to the China Pak Economic Corridor. However, it cannot, and should not, continue to define the details of domestic security. The police is an indispensable institution in this regard. It is vital that it transforms itself from an institution that abuses power at its disposal, with impunity, to one that must guard society with the power vested in it. Fundamental changes within the organizational character, cultural ethos, and training methodologies of the police must take place. The changes must be capable of breaking with the age old and entrenched tradition of a police order at the disposal of the elite, to be utilized by the latter as they will.
Cultivation of a socio-political environment in which police can survive with independence and dignity, and earn accolades instead of punishment for standing up to power, is therefore necessary.

In this regard, two vital institutions in Pakistan, the Supreme Court of Pakistan under Chief Justice Saqib Nisar and the Prime Minister’s office under Imran Khan, have both chosen to act with unprecedented zeal and candor, respectively. The Chief Justice has shown zero tolerance for the actions of the political elite who unduly interfere with police work. He has summoned the Chief Minister of Punjab, Usman Buzdar, along with the latter’s friends, and the IG police, in suo moto hearing of the Rizwan Gondal case, and threatened with dire consequences if court found any one of them guilty of unduly interfering with police work in Punjab. The Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has maintained a candid distance from the Chief Minister he himself appointed, deferring to the court in letter and spirit. No comment, what so ever, has been issued from the Prime Minister’s Office as Imran Khan’s appointed Chief Minister in the most powerful province of Punjab is summoned to the court upon complaint by district police officer Rizwan Gondal. Realizing he is not going to get any help from his party leadership, Usman Buzdar is seen humbly bowing to the Chief Justice, admitting he made a mistake, and begging forgiveness. No indictments have taken place in the Gondal case yet, but it seems the Chief Justice is in no mood to easily give up on an opportunity to discipline the elite. He may not consign the matter to record because he has received an apology. He seems cognizant of the crux of the matter. Pakistan can not grow into a regional hub and an operational economic power house without a modern, viable, and thoroughly independent system of police.

Prime Minister Imran Khan too seems amply aware of this imperative. He did not defend his Chief Minister, Usman Buzdar, even once during the hearing currently underway in the Supreme Court. He did, on the other hand, object to DPO Rizwan Gondal’s recourse to social media to complain about how the Chief Minister arm twisted him, instead of lodging formal complaint along the chain of command, even if it entailed arriving at the apex court in the end.

Both the Chief Justice and the Prime Minister are rightly laying their respective emphasis where it belongs. In the process, an unprecedented and auspicious environment has been created for giving Pakistan “new police for the new millennium.” To sustain the environment, it must be ensured that the corrective oversight continues beyond the term of the current chief justice Saqib Nisar. The court is of greater relevance than the Prime Minister in this regard.