New Pakistan cabinet sworn in

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf swore in a new 24 member cabinet on Monday under new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. Most members of the new cabinet are deeply hostile to Musharraf including 11 who came from Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), while nine others were members of the PML-N party of Nawaz Sharif. Both the PPP and the PML-N swept to victory in general elections six weeks ago on pledges to limit presidential powers and re-instate judges that Musharraf removed.

The nine PML-N members wore black armbands in protest against Musharraf as he swore them in. The new ministers said they wore the black armbands to make it clear that while they had agreed to be sworn in by him, it did not mean they had accepted his legitimacy as President. The PML-N is pushing for the reinstatement of the deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhary, and 63 judges of the superior courts dismissed in Musharraf’s emergency rule pronouncement in November last year. New law minister Farooq Naek told Pakistan’s Dawn TV that the November “provisional constitutional order” was not legal as it had not been validated by Parliament.

Later that day, the Cabinet’s first meeting under Prime Minister Gillani announced it had set up two committees, one for the restoration of the judiciary and the other into the abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). The FCR dates back to British Indian times is a set of draconian laws imposed by the Raj to subdue Pashtun areas. Its laws allow for collective punishment and securing easy convictions under a trial by jirga chosen by political authorities. Under the law, many women and children are serving prison sentences in the North West Frontier Province for crimes they did not commit.

The committee to reinstate the judiciary is a direct response to the six-point Murree Declaration signed between the PPP and the PML-N to finalise the formation of government between the two parties following the 18 February election. The six points are: 1. form a coalition to give practical shape to the mandate 2. restore the deposed judges sacked in November 3. support the candidature of the Prime Minister proposed by the PPP 4. the PPP to provide the speaker and deputy speaker of the national parliament and the PML-N to fill these posts in the Punjab assembly 5. Both parties would be part of the national and Punjab governments and 6. both parties were ready for the national and provincial assemblies to be summoned immediately.

The PPP’s choice of Prime Minister in point 3 above was Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani. The 55 year old Gillani was born in Karachi of Punjabi parents. He was educated at the University of the Punjab gained an MA in journalism. His family are influential in the southern Punjabi city of Multan and Gillani political career was launched there in 1985 when he was elected to the national parliament on a Muslim League ticket. After serving as a Minister under President Zia, he switched to the PPP in 1988 when he was re-elected defeated Nawaz Sharif in the process. He served as speaker of the national assembly between 1993 and 1996. Gillani was jailed in 2001 by Musharraf following a conviction over illegal government appointments. Gillani served five years for charges he said were “concocted and…fabricated”.

Given his background Gillani is unlikely to be a yes-man for Bhutto’s husband and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari. While many in Pakistan expected Zardari to nominate Amin Fahim (who was parliamentary leader of the PPP), D Suba Chandran writing in Indiapost.com suggests that Nawaz Sharif may have vetoed Fahim’s appointment as he was perceived to be too close to Musharraf. Another factor may have been the fact that like Sharif, Gillani is Punjabi and this would shore up PPP support in the north.

Whatever the reason, Gillani has started strongly and announced that every member of his cabinet would be expected to adhere to the 100-day programme he announced in the national assembly to provide immediate relief to Pakistan’s poor. Gillani said his government’s priorities were improvement in the energy situation, availability of wheat and job opportunities. He has asked each minister to provide a report on the conditions each of them had inherited in their new ministries. He told Dawn that Pakistani people wanted to see a change in the system of governance and a qualitative change in their life. This is an ambitious task. Gillani may start by insisting on a qualitative change in the life of President Musharraf by given him the boot in the next three months.

Dabbling with Democracy: The Musharraf Mess

Pakistan appears to be lurching towards a dangerous endgame. While General Pervez Musharraf refuses to lift his artificial state of emergency he declared on 3 November, he has acceded to parliamentary elections in January. The question remains which of Musharraf’s opponents will be free to contest the election and the power sharing arrangement between him and Benazir Bhutto seems in tatters.

Musharraf has promised to hold elections by 9 January but opposition leaders say the emergency rule makes it a sham. The opposition parties are now considering whether to boycott the polls. Musharraf swore in a new caretaker government earlier today. The government is headed by former Senate chairman Mohammedmian Soomro, a henchman Musharraf has appointed to guide the country towards election. "We are creating history today because never has Pakistan seen such a smooth transition of government," said Musharraf. "I take pride in the fact that I have introduced the essence of democracy, whether any one believes it or not."

Not many people in Pakistan share Musharraf's blithe optimism. The interim government has been rejected by Benazir Bhutto who was held under house arrest for most of the last fortnight. Speaking in Lahore shortly after her release she told Sky News that Musharraf was an "obstacle to democracy." She said the West's interests lie in a democratic Pakistan." "Please don't be deceived because I've seen the game played," Bhutto said, "If the people of Pakistan still want me to lead them, I will lead them."

Meanwhile hundreds of students at Punjab University have protested against a students union role in the arrest of Imran Khan. The students were protesting against Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT) a hardline student group who captured Khan on Wednesday. Khan was making his first public appearance since the declaration of the emergency was declared. He went to Lahore’s Punjab University in Lahore, where he planned to address students. There he was feted and hoisted on to supporters’ shoulders. However students belonging to IJT emerged and bundled Khan inside a building and locked the gates. After an hour a van drove up, Khan was shoved inside driven off at high speed and handed over to police. One of the IJT students, Rashid Mahmood Bhullar, said: "Imran Khan came here and he interfered. We do not like interference from any politician."

Meanwhile Musharraf continues to interfere to suit his own purposes. He has allowed two private TV channels back on the air for the first time since the start of the emergency. Aaj and Dawn have been allowed to resume broadcast but without popular current affairs shows that have been critical of the government. Two other channels, Geo TV and ARY, are still blacked out from cable but can be still be viewed by satellite. ARY’s news director news Mohsin Raza said the government has given no indication as to when his channel will be back on the air on cable.

According to Pakistani blogger Manan Ahmed who blogs at Chapati Mystery the plethora of private channels in the last eight years have played a fundamental role in providing access to news and analysis as well as taking on the regime directly in satire and news. Pakistan’s media has risen from one state-owned and operated TV channel in 1999, to 43 privately owned and independently operated TV channels today.

Ahmed told ABC’s Media Report that since the emergency all of these channels have been blacked out. The government have allowed a couple of business channels to come back to cater for commercial interests however he said the web has not yet been affected. He said the social media and blogs are co-ordinating protests and transmitting information, including the names of those arrested, as well as their emails, letters and opinions. “They're performing a very important function, which is that they're keeping these protests from completely dying off”, he said.

Meanwhile Pervez Musharraf is now facing heavy pressure from the US to end military rule. US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte, will soon go to Islamabad today to urge Musharraf to quickly end emergency rule. ”Negroponte's message to Musharraf needs to be simple and straightforward," according to Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "If he doesn't end repression, respect human rights and restore the rule of law, Pakistan will lose billions of dollars in US support."

Musharraf warns Bhutto to wait

President Pervez Musharraf told Pakistani TV yesterday that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto should not return home until after a court ruling on the legality of his overwhelming re-election victory last week. Pakistan’s Supreme Court will consider opposition challenges to Musharraf's eligibility in last Saturday’s election. The two are currently plotting an end to Bhutto’s exile and a power sharing arrangement next year. However Musharraf would not elaborate why he thought Bhutto should wait till after the decision.

The court reconvenes on 17 October and Bhutto, 54, is due to return from her eight year exile on the following day. Her Pakistan People's Party has requested a bullet-proof vehicle and extra police protection on her arrival. Their request follows a threat by a Waziri pro-Taliban militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, to kill Bhutto in a suicide attack. Bhutto told a newspaper interview on the weekend she accepts her homecoming is fraught with danger. "I know there are security risks, people who want to kill me and to scuttle the restoration of democracy,” she said. "But with my faith in God and trust in the people of Pakistan, I'm sure the party workers will be there and will protect me."

Two time premier Bhutto hopes to lead her party to victory in the next parliamentary election. Pakistan is scheduled to hold a parliamentary poll in early January 2008. Musharraf and Bhutto have already begun negotiating a power sharing arrangement post election. The pair have similar views and are both, in the main, pro-American and anti-Taliban. The deal would see the vulnerable Musharraf cling to presidential power while Bhutto would become Prime Minister.

Bhutto has now requested the Sindh High Court to review her claim to a National Assembly seat reserved for women. Her previous application for the seat was disqualified in 2002 after the government launched a corruption case against her. But last week Musharraf took a major step in the pre-election horse-trading by issuing a “reconciliation ordnance”. This was shorthand for an amnesty on corruption and grants across-the-board immunity for politicians who were active between 1985 and 2007. The ordnance quashes the corruption case against Bhutto.

The move has presented a quandary for Swiss authorities who also have charges of money laundering against Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now based in Dubai. The Swiss accuse the couple of gaining multi-million dollar kickbacks in exchange for handing out a contract to a Swiss firm during Bhutto's second term as Prime Minister in the mid 1990s. The Bhuttos were found guilty in a Geneva court in 2003 but have appealed. Dominique Henchoz, the Pakistani government’s lawyer in Switzerland said he was unsure if the legal action would be stopped. "We'll have to wait to examine the exact wording used in the decree," he said. "Because surely to speak of an amnesty implies that there has been an act of corruption.”

But whatever the outcome in Switzerland, bigger problems may lie ahead at home. Another former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, is also returning from exile in the next six weeks. Sharif’s son said his father would return to Pakistan sometime between 15 and 30 November – well ahead of the parliamentary elections. Sharif is a two time Prime Minister from the 1990s and long-term opponent of Bhutto. In 1999 Musharraf deposed Sharif in a military coup after Sharif had tried to sack Musharraf as army chief.

Sharif was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was later commuted to exile in Saudi Arabia after Saudi King Abdullah gave personal assurances to guarantee his conduct. Saudi authorities have now tried to dissuade him from returning to Pakistan but Sharif says he is going anyway. Sharif has been heartened by a recent Pakistani Supreme Court decision that he had an “inalienable right" to come back and the Government would be in contempt of court if it tried to stop him. Sharif will be the wildcard in the poker game to come between Musharraf and Bhutto.