By Thomas Houlahan
Sunday, 12 July 2009.
WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM
WASHINGTON, D.C.—It seems to me that just about monthly, leaks start coming out of the Prime Minister’s office in Islamabad. “The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, feels betrayed by President Asif Ali Zardari,” say the leakers. “The prime minister is supposed to be the real leader of Pakistan, not the President.”
Of all the things going on in Pakistan, this is the most stunning to me. Though his tenure has been a catastrophe and he’s bungled every assignment handed him, even the most simple, Gilani continues to intrigue behind the scenes for more power.
Originally, after his appointment by President Zardari, Gilani was supposed to play a starring role for Pakistan on the world stage. Unfortunately, on his first trip to the United States, he was inarticulate and struck most who follow Pakistan in this country as shockingly uninformed. There is no point in mincing matters. He embarrassed himself. Later trips by President Zardari and Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, were required to calm American jitters.
From that point on, Gilani was kept well away from foreign policy. That put the pressure squarely on Zardari and Qureshi who were on a world tour to get the money Pakistan needs to avoid bankruptcy. Both men have worked to the point of physical exhaustion only to come home to find the country in turmoil time and again because Gilani has been unable to exercise control over the government —more about that later.
After his disastrous American trip, it seemed that he might be useful as the public face of the government. Unfortunately, Gilani was unable to master complex technological innovations like the TelePrompter and had a tendency to make statements that necessitated “clarifications” within 24 hours of his having made them. Eventually, the Pakistan People’s Party decided to eliminate the middle man and have Information Minister Sherry Rehman, whose portfolio included issuing clarifications for Gilani, issue most government statements herself.
Still, it seemed Gilani might be useful after all. Since he was a former Speaker of the National Assembly, it was assumed that he would be ideal to guide that body. Not exactly.
The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) found that in the first year of its sitting, the National Assembly had managed to pass a grand total of three government bills. That is not a typographical error. It passed three government bills.
In addition, twelve of the forty-six standing committees in the National Assembly had not even elected chairmen, and could therefore do no work. At least ten had elected chairmen, but had done nothing further.
If this is not a world record for legislative futility, it’s got to be close.
Okay, so foreign policy, public speaking and legislative direction are not Gilani’s strong suits. He could at least direct the ministries, right? Wrong.
Gilani has not even been able to control cabinet meetings, looking flustered as they have repeatedly dissolved into shouting matches.
Meanwhile, with the exception of the Foreign Ministry, Pakistan’s ministries are an absolute mess.
Gilani has exercised little control over the ministries themselves, other than to help applicants with connections in the upper reaches of the Pakistan People’s Party get postings that they are either under- or completely unqualified for. Ansar Abbasi of the News International has done some excellent reporting on this scandal. Abbasi has found that party bigwigs take their demands to the prime minister’s office and that office directs the ministry concerned to make the hire. “Politicization of bureaucracy was never like this before,” he quotes a senior prime minister’s secretariat official as saying. Given Pakistan’s history of misgovernment, that’s saying something.
Given that Gilani once did a stretch of almost six years in prison for putting some 600 of his constituents on the public payroll while he was Speaker of the National Assembly, I am compelled to question the prime minister’s judgment. If serious jail time doesn’t wise you up, what will?
Some foreign capitals seem to share my concern. The majority of the money committed by the Friends of Pakistan has not been sent yet partly due to concerns about Pakistani government corruption. The governance situation is also complicating matters in the United States Congress, which is currently debating aid for Pakistan.
In short, few prime ministers in any country have ever turned in as weak a performance as Gilani has, and this is the worst possible time for such a performance. Pakistan is facing a perfect storm of crises that it may not come out the other end of intact.
Instead of demanding additional powers, Gilani should be doing some serious soul searching. Instead of complaining about what the president owes him, Gilani should consider what he, as prime minister, owes the people of Pakistan. If he can’t handle the job, he needs to hand it over to someone who can.
To put it bluntly, it is time for the prime minister to get serious or get lost.
Thomas Houlahan is an associate at the Center for Security and Science. He has served in the New Hampshire legislature and as an election monitor in Pakistan in February 2008. He can be reached at wksi@juno.com
