Mosharraf Zaidi

http://www.mosharrafzaidi.com/2010/02/16/david-james-hartman-and-2947-pakistanis/

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=224530

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

by Mosharraf Zaidi

Since 2003 there have been 2,947 Pakistani soldiers that have embraced shahadat fighting the menace of terrorism. I do not know and cannot recall, offhand, the name of a single one of those 2,947 Pakistani heroes. One name that I do know, and will be able to recall for a long time to come is David James Hartman.

David James Hartman was twenty-seven years old. His son Mikey is only a year old. His wife Cherise is pregnant with their second child. The Hartmans first met at Kadena High School at the US Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. David signed up for the US army almost immediately after graduating high school, and served several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cherise has endured multiple tours of duty and moving cross-country to be in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where David’s team within the US army — the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne), 95th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne) — is based.

David Hartman was one of the three US army service members that died in Lower Dir near the opening of a girls’ school where an explosive device killed three Pakistani girls and one Pakistani soldier on February 3, 2010.

Just what were Sergeant First Class David Hartman and 35-year-old Sergeant First Class Matthew Sluss-Tiller both of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion doing at the opening of a girls’ school in Dir? And just what was their American comrade, 39-year-old Staff Sergeant Mark Stets of the 8th Psychological Operations Battalion (Airborne), doing there with them?

In the first few minutes after the attack nearly two weeks ago, all kinds of speculation spewed itself across the ether. There were rumours that a group of foreign journalists had been killed in a terrorist attack near Swat. Then more rumours that the foreigners killed were not journalists but belonged to an NGO. Other rumours suggested that the deceased were part of the USAID mission to Pakistan. As media organisations and a range of official spokespersons, from the Pakistani military’s ISPR to the US embassy, kept clutching at straws trying to figure out exactly who had been killed, the rumour machine began to generate speculation about the possible links of the dead soldiers to Blackwater.

Luckily for Blackwater (and for the Pakistanis that lubricate its presence in Pakistan), rumours about the Lower Dir attack’s links to the company died a relatively quick death. On February 5, rather than dealing with the crisis in the desperately inadequate manner in which the Anne Paterson era has handled crises in Pakistan, the Special Operations Command (SOC) of the US military realised the need for damage control. It swiftly released the names and affiliations of the three US army soldiers that were killed. The soldiers’ commander, Col Michael Warmack, spoke very highly of his fallen comrades, and in the SOC press release, said that both soldiers had volunteered to be part of special operations and to be posted in the arena they died in.

While there’s no reason to doubt Col Warmack, Sergeant First Class David James Hartman’s regular status updates on Facebook suggested that life in Pakistan was no breeze for him.

Hartman spoke of leaving his son Mikey in November 2009 back home in North Carolina as, “One of the most difficult moments of my life”. On Christmas Day, Hartman is decidedly melancholy about not being home for Christmas, saying “Christmas is not the same when you can’t spend it with your family. But God is in control. So Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a great day.”

On December 30, Hartman came down with a bad tummy after having downed a Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets and fries from McDonalds. He is emphatic in advising Facebook friends, “I don’t recommend eating McDonalds in a 3rd world country. Never do that.” On January 14, in a conversation with a friend, he complains about the load-shedding, and then when reminded by a friend about Pakistan’s nuclear power, says “Supposedly, the only developed thing about this place”. After a couple of clearly bad weeks, Hartman announces he will “have Pizza Hut” on January 21.

All indications suggest that Hartman was a practising Christian, with a strong and abiding faith. Hartman’s father is Pastor Greg Hartman, and leads the Freedom Worship & Education Centre in California. His mother, Mikail Bacon, who lives in Wisconsin, told local NBC affiliate news team that “she just talked to him a few days ago. He told her he was delivering food to poor people in the area, so she says he died doing what he loved: helping others.”

Why have I dug into Hartman and his family’s Facebook profiles, and scanned the newspapers of the areas in which these families live in the US? I wanted to humanise the lifeless bodies of the three American soldiers killed in my country. David James Hartman’s beautiful young bride and his adorable three-year-old son are scarred with the death of the most important person in their lives. Hartman’s unborn child will never know what it is like to be held by his or her father.

The dangers to which US soldiers are exposed in Pakistan are a product of the same vile hatred that makes Lahore’s markets, Karachi’s streets and Pindi’s mosques a target of terrorists. But the degree of risk to US soldiers’ lives is quite clearly and indisputably exacerbated and accentuated by an ugly — and for warmongers in Washington DC and in Islamabad — an inconvenient truth. When those boots hit the ground in Pakistan, they are stepping in a country whose people simply do not want them there.

The FC and other Pakistani instruments of defence against terror are technically inadequate. But are Civil Affairs and Psy-Ops Special Forces from the American heartland the only instruments available to address those inadequacies? Could the ambient level of training for the FC not be improved by skill injections from Turkish soldiers, or Malaysian trainers? Those kinds of alternatives would be dramatically less combustible.

Of course, Americans will solve America’s problem in Afghanistan, and in part in Pakistan. Ultimately, American democracy, warts and all, will generate an Afghan war equivalent of Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan is the anti-war activist who shot to fame for her famous protest against the Iraq war, after her son was killed in action in that misguided American war. Cherise Hartman may be that Afghan war equivalent — despite the irony of her husband having been killed in Pakistan. But it may also be one of the family members of the nearly 1,000 US soldiers that have died serving their country’s fuzzy and conflicted goals in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama and his administration will eventually have to be accountable for sustaining a war and putting in harm’s way thousands of young Americans needlessly and aimlessly.

The real question for Pakistanis in the meantime is not about what American soldiers are doing in Pakistan. That is an important but secondary question.

The real question is where is Pakistan’s Cindy Sheehan? Since 2003 there have been 2,947 Pakistani soldiers that have embraced shahadat fighting the menace of terrorism. In the less than two months of 2010 alone, 71 young Pakistani heroes have fallen while fighting terror. How many young Pakistani widows like Cherise Hartman are out there? Will Fauji Foundation and Askari Welfare Trust support them all adequately? But most importantly, when will a mature and balanced discussion emerge, about the costs and benefits of perpetual war in an already military-dominated Pakistani culture?

Jacksonian Politics in Sindh

http://www.mosharrafzaidi.com/2010/02/03/jacksonian-politics-in-sindh/

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=222145

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

by Mosharraf Zaidi

“To the victor belong the spoils,” said William Marcy, the US Senator from New York back during President Andrew Jackson’s administration. Pakistanis often tell Americans that their country is but a couple of decades behind Uncle Sam. But President Jackson, who passionately and brilliantly promoted a vulgar kind of patronage system that came to be known as the spoils system, won the 1828 election to become US president. The closest thing that Pakistan has had to a passionate and brilliant advocate of a vulgar kind of patronage was Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Bhutto’s era ended in 1979. The distance between the Jacksonian spoils system and Bhutto’s feudal patronage megastructure is not a couple of decades. It is 150 years.

Of course, Bhutto Sahib’s socialism, unionism and Islamism were all part of a cacophonous orchestra of smoke and mirrors that masked a vacuous and prolific feudal and rural enterprise — the cost of which Pakistan continues to bear today. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Bhutto, however, was not that he used many emotional and intellectual pressure points to sustain a feudal system of power in Pakistan. Instead, it was that Bhutto forever changed the narrative of Pakistani democracy. We need not like what it produces, but how in God’s name can anyone deny the people their right to be represented by whomever they choose? The long-term lesson that the Bhutto narrative should have taught Pakistanis may be depressing, but it is achingly, and searingly real. The pace and contours of reform in Pakistan cannot be controlled by donor logframes, nor can it be stimulated, or slowed down by soldiers (retired or serving). No matter how much money a donor gives, and no matter how many gold stars a soldier may have earned at Sandhurst, or Quetta, or West Point — reform will take place at its own merry pace — within the context of a still infant Pakistani spoils system.

The decentralisation issue is a classical case in point. The local government system introduced through the province’s Local Government Ordinance 2001 was a remarkable and revolutionary change of pace from how local governments worked in Pakistan till that point. It had so many redeeming features that it would be difficult to summarise them in a short op-ed. But it had one overwhelmingly flawed quality that ensured an unremarkable and long-drawn-out demise. It was an inorganic imposition upon a system of governance that has been in place through various permutations and evolutions for well over 500 years. That system of governance is underpinned by what is today called the District Management Group (DMG). The DMG, Pakistan’s elite civil service group, did not like the Local Government Ordinance 2001 and has been instrumental in engineering its collapse. The pace of the collapse has been staggeringly slow. The retarded pace of its collapse is owed entirely to the most unattractive element of decentralised local government — its potential to generate spoils.

The deal on local governments being worked out between the MQM and the PPP in Sindh is being described as a tortuous discussion between two serious and diligent groups of people armed to the teeth with evidence, data, and robust arguments about what does and does not work in the realm of decentralised local government — in both urban and rural areas. Optimists and dreamers in Pakistan and abroad might be tempted to wonder about the depth of detail that will be discussed during these negotiations. Perhaps they will deconstruct the value of having citizen entitlements, such as Citizen Community Boards, as part of the legislative package for decentralisation? Perhaps, there will finally be some attention paid to the oft-promised issue of staffing local governments with local talent, through devolved civil service cadres? Perhaps, a discussion about the need for three layers, district, town/taluka/tehsil, and Union Council will occur, and a cost-benefit analysis of adding or removing tiers will take place? Most crucially, perhaps these two pillars of Pakistani democracy — the PPP, a party that has sacrificed two generations of its leaders in pursuit of democracy, and the MQM, a party that has been demonised and rehabilitated through a most turbulent and violent history — would discuss the need to democratise local governments? At its core that would mean direct, party-based elections for mayor in Karachi and across all of the other 22 districts of the great province of Sindh.

Optimists and dreamers should prepare for utter disappointment. Hoping for any degree of seriousness on the part of the PPP and the MQM in their approach to the reform of the local governance system in Sindh is a fantasy borne of the mistaken notion that Pakistani democracy has progressed in any meaningful way beyond the feudal, tribal and rural instincts of even Pakistan’s supposedly progressive, secular, liberal and urban parties. The MQM (notwithstanding its urban credentials) and the PPP are not discussing local governments in the pursuit of discovering the most efficient, most effective, most transparent and most inclusive means of delivering essential social services. They are discussing local governments in pursuit of deepening and broadening a pool of clients, as they solidify and consolidate their roles as patrons.

In discussing the shape of local governments in Sindh, the MQM and the PPP are fighting it out for how each will be able to maximise their share of the spoils in Sindh — which is Pakistan’s most revenue rich, most economically vibrant and most globally relevant province (never mind the obsession of security analysts with NWFP, or mini Husain Haqqanis and their obsession with North-Central Punjab). The post-1999 the MQM’s remarkable appetite for sharing power in Sindh is not the product of a change in the identity matrix of Muhajirs, nor is it the product of a more evolved approach to acquiring power. Its appetite for sharing power (in Sindh, and at the centre) is predicated on the sustenance of both provincial and federal grants to Karachi, and the MQM’s near-certain hold on the Karachi vote-bank. As long as the MQM gets to run Karachi, and the Muhajir-heavy enclaves of Hyderabad (and control the spoils/grants), the MQM is happy to let any party run the federal and provincial governments.

The PPP doesn’t quite have the luxury of a guaranteed vote-bank anymore, even in rural Sindh. To shore up its status there, it needs to induct a new generation of young Sindhis into government jobs, while it stokes a self-defeating Sindhi nationalism that is essentially anti-everyone. Most recently, this job was assigned to Zulfiqar Mirza, who performed admirably as a victimised member of Pakistan’s feudal elite. Those who laugh at the histrionics of the PPP’s ‘wounded-feudal’ performances should think twice. The PPP’s histrionics have real and palpable appeal that have successfully managed to hold Sindh for over two generations. Its influence may be on the decline, but it is far, far from over. As long as the PPP gets to run Sindh, (and control the spoils), the PPP is happy to say or do anything.

Within the framework of a very specific set of political parameters, the MQM and the PPP could care less about which version of decentralised local government will deliver efficient services. How does water get to taps in cities? In villages? How do parents and teachers come together to monitor both educational budget expenditure and learning achievements? How do goths work together to oversee the building of community infrastructure like wells and drainage systems? How do CCBs become accountable for the expenditure of taxpayers’ money? Elected politicians at the individual level not only have opinions about these issues, but also the legitimacy of having to be answerable to constituents around these very kinds of issues. But elected politicians do not run the MQM or the PPP. The overarching feudal instinct of retaining, sustaining and deepening the pool of clients for patronage runs these parties. And it is that instinct which shapes, in its entirety the dialogue between the MQM and the PPP around local governance.

Fixing Pakistan’s Election Commission

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=220722

http://www.mosharrafzaidi.com/2010/01/26/fixing-pakistan’s-election-commission/

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

by Mosharraf Zaidi

One of the most important organizations in Pakistan is the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). It has a very, very difficult job. With limited resources and at the mercy of the military, the political and the bureaucratic elite of Pakistan, the ECP is supposed to somehow conduct free, fair and credible elections in Pakistan. With more than two dozen 24-hour news channels and a civil society umbrella group like the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), the ECP’s job has become significantly easier. In the February 2008 elections FAFEN mobilized more than 19,000 observers on election day. Added to the hundreds of DV cameras, the thousands of voice recorders and the millions of mobile phones that both professional and part-time journalists were wielding, the February 2008 election was one of the fairest in memory. And yet it had serious flaws. This is because ultimately, no matter how vigilant and engaged a country’s press and civil society is—the work of holding elections to a certain standard is the responsibility of the ECP. The question of how well equipped the ECP is to handle this responsibility requires very little assessment of the ECP itself. In the most important matters, it is not the ECP that disables elections from being truly free, fair and credible. It is the overarching culture of governance in Pakistan.

Beyond the obvious pre-poll, polling day and post-poll electoral fraud, one of the biggest problems in elections is the use of state resources as instruments of electoral fraud. This is a two-layered problem. The first layer is the fact that state resources are susceptible to misuse at all. The second is the fact that, given the availability of these resources, the mitigation of the risk of misuse tends to be extremely weak, and therefore, effectively negligible. Active misuse of state resources as instruments of electoral fraud is a function of both systemic gaps, and procedural gaps.

Systemic gaps are the shortcomings in the system of checks and balances that protects state resources from misuse or abuse. This public financial management system includes the range of institutions, organizations, mechanisms and processes that relate to the oversight of public funds, the formulation of budgets, appropriations decisions, and the audit and accounts functions. Procedural gaps that enable the misuse of state resources are specific to the processes that govern the planning, conduct and administration of elections by the ECP. If elections were to be administered with strict adherence to both the letter of the law and the spirit of fairness, the ECP could not possibly countenance the exploitation of the existing weaknesses in the public financial management system. Instead, for structural, cultural and operational reasons, the ECP is neither willing, nor able to stem the use of state resources as instruments of electoral fraud.

The threat or prospect of state resources as instruments of electoral fraud is not an abstract or conceptual one. There are three ways in which state resources are misused during elections.

The first is the misuse of office itself. Remember Gen. Musharraf? In 2002, then Chief Executive Gen. Musharraf conducted a referendum on whether he should hold office or not. After using state resources, including the Press Information Department of the Ministry of Information, as well as dozens of advisers and consultants, he won the roundly discredited referendum by an overwhelming 97%. Subsequent elections were equally unfair, if not as widely discredited. In 2003, the Finance Minister was elected to parliament, so that he could take oath as Prime Minister, despite never having visited the constituencies he was elected from (again, with overwhelming margins). The parliament, the Finance Ministry itself, as well as the Chief Minister of Sindh were actively involved in that campaign.

The second manner in which state resources are misused is through the provision of cash or in-kind payments to citizens, for the purpose of achieving favourable electoral outcomes. Most frequently this takes place through social protection programmes. In the 2008-2009 election cycle, widespread allegations of the use of a short-lived instrument called the Kefalat Fund were corroborated. The Kefalat Fund was begun by Chief Minister Pervez Elahi several weeks prior to the election, and continued to make payments well after the election was over (interestingly this fund was launched by the bureaucrats that now lead the federal government). The Kefalat Fund, whose sole purpose was to ensure that the CM’s son won his election, provided Rs.1,500 per household, mostly in the electoral constituency that the CM’s son’s was running in. Ironically, the CM’s son lost that election

In the 2009 elections in Gilgit Baltistan, quite apart from a bevy of administrative issues, the widespread use of the federal government offices by the ruling party was widely reported in the press. The PML Q has alleged widespread misuse of the Baitul Maal fund, among a bevy of other allegations. Even without the PML (Q)’s allegations, the Prime Minister himself made a visit to the area to urge voters to turn out for his party, and in the process committed to ensuring that 50,000 Benazir Income Support Programme forms would be distributed to the area’s residents.

Finally, the third manner in which state resources are misused is through the provision of employment in the public sector. Handing out jobs in the public sector represents a major problem for several reasons. Guaranteed job security, and low accountability for eompoyees, aside, public sector jobs represent a long-term liability for the public sector (salary, health coverage, pension), and a serious performance risk (government employees are unaccountable and inefficient generally, and those hired because of political connections, doubly so). Since most jobs are those of teachers, the liability is particularly important, damaging the education sector, and ensuring skewed allegiances on Election Day (since so much election administration is out-sourced to teachers) Those teachers that owe their jobs to local politicians invariably represent a risk to free, fair and credible elections. In the recent Gilgit Baltistan election, the Prime Minister announced 8,000 new government jobs for residents of the area and Rs. 6,000 salary top ups for existing employees of the government.In the Punjab, though there is no election on the horizon, the PML (N) government in the province announced the regularization of all its contractual employees, even though it is in the midst of an unprecedented fiscal crisis.

While the overarching systemic weaknesses in Pakistan’s public financial management system are not going to be reformed in the foreseeable future, the procedural weaknesses can be overcome by the relatively manageable realm of electoral reform.

To arrest the misuse of state resource in elections, five things need to take place urgently. First, a serious and comprehensive electoral reform process needs to be realized for ensuring a neutral, credible, efficient and empowered electoral institution. Second, the ECP needs to become truly independent from the executive branch. To gain this independence, the ECP needs to be fiscally autonomized. Third, in order to neutralize the impact of the use of public policy and budgetary processes as enablers of elections, all new development activities needs to be declared six months before an election is scheduled, including any kind of employment decisions outside the routine. Fourth, a national discourse on the fiscal implications of a constant growth in the size of government, and specifically of permanent employment in the public sector in Pakistan needs to begin. Finally, caretaker governments need to be truly neutral. To achieve such neutrality, caretaker governments need to be made up of a mix of actors with diverse political backgrounds and sympathies.