Who pulls the levers?
Like Prime Minister Gilani, Hina Rabbani Khar has also confirmed that a high level committee would soon start investigating the Memogate affair. She has described the allegations of President Zardari’s involvement in the scandal as being ridiculous. Memogate came into the open two weeks back and was followed by calls for an independent and transparent enquiry from all quarters. There is still no word about the proposed committee’s scope and those going to be nominated on it.
This is yet another example of the failure to take timely action on important matters. As decisions on vital issues cannot be delayed indefinitely, they are taken by other institutions of the state allowing them to make inroads into the administration’s turf. The government needs to urgently appoint a committee capable of commanding wide respect to ensure that this does not happen.
Khar admitted quite candidly that the controversy about the memo had created the feeling of army pulling the levers of power. “Sadly, it does. I cannot deny that,” she acknowledged. While answering the question regarding who was in charge of the state’s affairs – the civilian government or the military, she maintained that full civilian authority comes as the result of “an evolutionary process” and things cannot be changed overnight.
What Khar says is the reality on the ground but is by no means an ideal one. No country practicing a free market economy can progress in the absence of strong institutions with clearly defined duties and obligations. The first thing that a military intervention does is to stop the natural growth of these institutions which remain stunted for quite some time even after its departure. With the military pulling strings from behind, the miasma of uncertainty continues to linger in the country affecting everything, the economy foremost. What is more, it causes a deficit of trust between the civilian government and military which does not bode well for national defence.
The government on its part needs to be widely seen as honest, efficient and transparent. This alone can provide the moral underpinnings required to bolster civilian supremacy. This is what has happened in Turkey and one hopes to see happening in Pakistan.