In May 2000 Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry of Pakistan was one of 12 supreme court judges who endorsed the military coup of former president general Pervez Musharraf. This was the start of a love-hate relationship between the two which would see Chaudhry, then chief justice, suspended by Musharraf during March 2007 and then reinstated during July 2007 — flowing from the rulings against corruption at government level — before his suspension and house arrest in November 2007 for ruling against Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency.
When the current and 11th president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, assumed office last year it was against the backdrop of inter alia election promises that he had made to reform the constitution. Zardari is the widower of Benazir Bhutto (former prime minister), the co-chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and one of the richest men in Pakistan. He is also the proud owner of a cloud of corruption and money laundering, which hangs over his head, and which makes Jacob Zuma appear lily-white by comparison.
Unfortunately for Pakistan he has begun to act very much like the military ruler he replaced rather than the civilian president everyone assumed he would be when he took office. Far from amending the constitution and reducing the tension he has turned his attention to his political opponents and begun utilising the provisions which had made Musharraf’s continued stay untenable. The most serious abuse of the powers handed down by his predecessor being his attack on the Sharif brothers in the vital Punjab province. This took the form of the supreme court declaring the Sharifs ineligible to stand for election, removing them from office in Punjab while bringing the province under federal control and refusing to release Chaudhry, the chief justice.
If regard is had to the fact that the PPP are the majority party and Zardari, as co-chairperson and president, their leading light then, based on South African experience, we have a situation where nothing can be done to change anything. In Pakistan and taking their lead from the Sharifs, marches were begun in 3 major cities all of which were to converge on Islamabad today. Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader, rejecting house arrest initiated it and styled it the “prelude to a revolution”.
Late last night Zardari backed down conceding that he would reinstate Chaudhry, review the bans on the Sharifs and uplift federal rule in the Punjab. A victory for democracy which could not have come at a better time for Pakistan, which has reeled under a number of body blows recently. Moreover it demonstrates that while the masses may support the majority party that does not mean they are abandoning the right to be governed in accordance with sound principles, integrity and the promises that were made to them during the elections.
South Africans have to start adopting the same mentality. Instead of saying “why bother”, “nothing can be done” and “they’ll just keep on doing it anyway” why not make your own voice heard? Instead of rushing to tell the people who are confronting the government and people in authority that nobody is listening why not use that energy to do something constructive like making your own views known?
In the case of Vusi Pikoli’s dismissal we have a clear abuse of our legal system by the government in order to bring in a national director of public prosecutions more friendly to the ruling party. This in the face of their disbanding of the Scorpions and corruption run amok. It is vital to this democracy that on this issue — the dismissal of Pikoli — you make yourself heard.
Now let us distinguish between being a supporter of the ANC and corruption. If you are a loyal supporter of the party then you would want what is best for your country and the ANC. What you would not want is for opportunists in your government and the one to follow it, to think that once they have your vote then they can do anything, steal anything or fire anyone who stands in the way of committing criminal acts. The victims of that are the masses of this country ie all of us.
Accordingly the concepts of voting ANC and marching against corruption are not in anyway at odds with one another. If any group or party calls for a march against the sacking of Pikoli or disbanding the Scorpions then like the masses in Pakistan, stand up and be counted. Demonstrate to this government that it is one thing to be popular (your vote if you are ANC) and quite another to accept the criminal acts that some commit in the name of the party (your feet and voices at marches).
It’s called accountability.
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