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Asia Watch by Lynn Ockersz

An interesting damage-control exercise seems to be taking hold in Pakistan. While preparations are getting under way to conduct multi-party polls for the election of a civilian Prime Minister and a legislature, these branches of government will play second fiddle to the Executive President if some contemplated constitutional amendments are passed into law.

Under proposed constitutional amendments, the President will enjoy the right to dismiss the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Under the current constitution, the President is obliged to act on the Prime Minister's advice on issues such as, dissolving the legislature and appointing provincial governors. Under the proposed amendments, the President will also be empowered to name the future Prime Minister from among elected deputies.

While Musharraf will be acting out of defence to domestic and Western Presure by initiating these largely cosmetic charges, it is an open question whether these amount to real, democratic change.

For, the President would be essentially, exercising overriding authority over the Prime Minister and legislature, who would come to power on a popular mandate. Put crudely, the latter branches of government would be at the mercy of the Executive President.

These power consolidation strategies wouldn't prove unfamiliar to the observers of military rule in Pakistan. One is reminded of former martial law administrator turned "Civilian" president, General Zia Ul Haq's efforts at winning legitimacy through democratic engineering. If the proposed constitutional amendments come through, President Musharraf would be giving his administration a democratic garb although the scope of the legislature's power would be open to question.

Another important poser which presents itself is, how effective would be these "democratic" arrangements to absorb the tidal wave of opposition currently gathering strength in Pakistan? It is now well known, that the Kashmiri rebellion is principally in the hands of the Kandahar-based "Jehadis"; that is the hardline forces battling the Western-dominated anti-Taliban, military combine in Afghanistan. The 'Jehadis, of course have no sympathy for the Musharraf regime which is seen as collaborating with the West in its efforts at stifling the fundamentalist resurgence which the September 11th terror attacks in the US have sustained.

In fact, Western pressure has been intensifying on Musharraf to crackdown on forces associated with the Al-Qaeda terror network.

Perhaps, the facade of legitimacy and popular acceptance, which the elections in Pakistan would hopefully bring, would help the Pakistani. President in this task of collaborating with the West while keeping the lid on popular resentment. A very exacting effort at walking the tight rope indeed.

However, even for the West, time is fast running out. Poverty is remaining unaddressed in many parts of the Third World. The G-8 has tried to win more time by offering further debt relief to the worldiest poorest countries. Needless to say, this would prove a shabby patch-work solution to the ranking problem of increasing poverty. If the Western protests which greeted the G-8 summit in Canada are anything to go by, the poverty crunch is being felt by even increasingly marginalized Western Publics.

For those engaged in angry anti-globalization protests in the West and for their counterparts in East, including those who fall for the lure of fundamentalism while writhing amid economic hardships, nothing could be a substitute for real democratic change, which would give them a say in the running of their lives.

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