Bhutto and Corruption Again

For a bit more on the subject of everyone's favorite Pakistani opposition leader and her formidable record of corruption, it's worth taking a look back at this old Slate article on Pakistan written the week after 9/11 by James Gibney, now an editor here at The Atlantic. Back then he wrote:

While Pakistani political parties backed by extreme fundamentalists don't command wide support, they have built ties to Pakistan's military and intelligence services—an ironic byproduct of a political coalition forged in 1993 by that ex-darling of the West, Harvard-trained kleptocrat and former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Obviously, Bhutto's corrupt past and the problems with her administration aren't a reason not to support Pakistani democracy. They are, however, a very good reason not to make the concept of "democracy in Pakistan" identical in our heads to the political fortunes of the woman who happens to be the West's favorite Pakistani politician. That kind of approach hasn't served us well with regard to Ukraine or Georgia, and didn't serve us well in the 1990s with regard to Russia. We should understand that something like a Musharraf-Bhutto power-sharing agreement of the sort we were trying to broker before the current crisis broke out isn't a close substitute for actual democracy.

That's something to keep in mind when you read that two major Pakistani opposition parties say they won't agree to participate in elections held under emergency rule, while Bhutto's party remains uncertain. Obviously, the issue of what sort of arrangements are or aren't acceptable is something on which sensible people are going to want to defer to actual Pakistanis. But that, in turn, requires a recognition that there are multiple opposition groups in Pakistan and multiple opposition leaders, each with their own agendas. Westerners are entitled to like Bhutto more than the others if we like, but it's important not to let the fact that she went to college in the states totally obscure the existence of other Pakistani factions.

Comments

This is probably sexist, but she is really quite lovely by female head-of-state standards.

Posted by JH | November 12, 2007 11:10 AM

My problem is, hasn't every civilian administration in Pakistani history been accused of corruption to justify the subsequent coup? As an american, I always feel sort of immobilized by accusations of corruption, opinionwise. Nawaz Sharif was also put on trial for corruption. I value government transparency, but whether the claims are true or trumped up, and if the corruption is structural, whether they are important. To untangle it, I'd actually have to know what was going on, and the nature of authoratarianism and corruption is that data is hard to come by and harder to believe.

It's much easier on westerners when dictators put opposition leaders on trial for sodomy, as with Anwar in Malaysia. Makes it clearer what is happening.

Posted by Boring Commenter | November 12, 2007 11:22 AM

hasn't every civilian administration in Pakistani history been accused of corruption to justify the subsequent coup?

Every civilian administration in Pakistani history has been incredibly corrupt. The country has been ruled by a small group of rich landowners since its creation. Much of the Islamist political movement in Pakistan is class-based and draws on a strong resentment for what is a de facto aristocracy.

Posted by James Gary | November 12, 2007 11:35 AM

Much of the Islamist political movement in Pakistan is class-based and draws on a strong resentment for what is a de facto aristocracy.

That's probably true of Turkey as well. My view on the rise of the AKP is that it's a case of new power confronting old power. The whole political Islam thing is mostly a convenient shorthand, I think.

Posted by JH | November 12, 2007 11:45 AM

It seems to me that these sorts of corruption problems are so common in many developing nations—and that they are so independent of the circumstances of the ruling parties involved—that I feel like I don't really have any comprehension of the context in which this occurs.

For example, when I say “the circumstances of the ruling parties”, what I mean is that you can have a leader who is some thug that was a warlord and came to power through a coup, or you can have a democratically elected person who had the best education, including the best Western university education, and they will still be corrupt.

Doesn't that indicate that a lot of it is independent of character? There must be powerful cultural forces arrayed against refusing to be “corrupted”.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | November 12, 2007 12:28 PM

it's important not to let the fact that she went to college in the states totally obscure the existence of other Pakistani factions.

I'm sorry, but I simply can't see what factor could possibly be more important here than whether a potential foreign leader's name is graffitoed in a bathroom stall at the Porcellian.

Posted by brooksfoe | November 12, 2007 12:31 PM

Every civilian administration in Pakistani history has been incredibly corrupt.

The military rulers have not exactly been paragons of virtue.

Posted by gregor | November 12, 2007 1:08 PM

The military rulers have not exactly been paragons of virtue.

There actually hasn't been much difference, since all of Pakistan's rulers--whether purportedly civilian or military--have been part of the same landowning aristocracy, which has always governed corruptly.

There was an excellent article on this in the print-edition New Yorker sometime in the last several weeks. (Again, I've forgotten the author and exact date. I suppose I should get off my ass and dig through my stack of magazines-to-be-recycled, so that next time I cite this article I will be able to properly source it.)

Posted by James Gary | November 12, 2007 1:22 PM

The other problem I've had struggling trying to become informed about Pakistani politics and history, is that I'm used to thinking in terms of two sides and two parties. With their 4 languages, internal military struggles and Cold War non-alignment, that model just isn't doing me much good. Which is Matt's point, I guess; none of the obvious narrative's fit the Bhutto story. You just don't get vengeful princesses all that often in american politics.

Posted by Boring Commenter | November 12, 2007 1:51 PM

Wow, the comments here are a lot better than I would expect on a Pakistan-issues thread on an American blog.

Corruption has become the catch-all accusation to use against any politician in the developing world, which has the added benefit of often being true. Sometimes its use can be good, as anti-corruption was a major motivating force behind the Korean democracy movement since at least the 1970's (but the whole anti-corruption part didn't really turn out as planned). It helped bring down Suharto in Indonesia. However, since so many officials are corrupt in the developing world, whenever one faction needs to take down another, they just need to figure out where the corruption dirt is. Just because a leader is corrupt doesn't mean they aren't the least bad leader around. With that said, I'm not sure if in the US we can really know which leader that is and be able to help them out. It would be nice if free and fair elections would allow the Pakistani people to determine that, but the military is probably not going to go along with that in good faith. Unfortunately, we have hitched our wagon to the Pakistani military since Partition at the expense of civilian administration (e.g., Nixon preferred Pakistan to India because he liked the military ethos and grandeur of Yahya Khan's military administration). The Obama plan that offers incentives for the military to allow reform is one of the better ideas I've seen, but the chances of success on any near-term basis are probably still not good. Then there is always the wildcard of what Pakistan's most reliable ally, China, will decide it wants to see in Pakistan. Warts and all, Bhutto may end up being the most useful person in the medium-to-long-term for American interests to see in power (more democratic than Musharraf, a real base of support in Pakistan, etc.), which just underscores how closed the world of political-military leadership in Pakistan is that better voices can't be heard.

Posted by Reality Man | November 12, 2007 2:28 PM

If you think what are the countries with large corruption affairs, you will see countries with elites split into opposite camps. So one camp makes a big issue of the corruption by the others.

Mexico offered an alternative for a while: they were changing president religiously every 6 years, and there was a talk about wow, how the previous guy was corrupted, but the new guy, why, he is a technocrat with no dirt on his hands, at long last Mexico will have a cleaner government. Worked like a charm quite a few times.

A nice thing about being a corrupt military leader is that you can kill the ingrates looking at your finances. A lesser forms of contumly, like calling you a tyrant, idiot etc. can be dealt with in a milder way.

The other nice thing is that the military in a country like Pakistan runs its own economic activity, and it can honestly compete with civilian enterprenours. What is a mafia racket compared with people packing actual heavy weapons, detension centers etc. So you do not need to go for the tawdry "5%" or "10%" bussiness.

Other than that, for really serious corruption you have to go to oil producing countries. Billions of dollars are sloshing around, and you can buy an amazing amount of cooperation if you spread around a billion or two. In the heyday of Suharto rule in Indonesia, they somehow managed to bancrupt national oil producing monopoly.

About non-split elite. There were some multi-billion scandals in USA, like phony billing by Boeing, and none more puzzling than 6 billion dollars of actual cash (ca. 10 truckload in 20 dollar bills, 4 truckloads of 50 dollar bills, I am talking about 18-wheelers) that, whaaah, vanished in Iraq.

Which actually was noticed that it vanished. By the way of contrast, it was estimated that Californians were overcharged for electricity to the tune of 50 billion dollars, and most of the companies involved (a) used a web of shell companies, (b) either went bacrupt, Exxon, or nearly bancrupt (Dynegy?). Is it possible that once you steal more money that a single political cycle takes in USA (what is it? 2 billions? 5 billions?), you can fear God, but nothing else?

Posted by piotr | November 12, 2007 2:54 PM

Since you're dealing with corrupt officials on all sides, the question devolves to exactly what said corrupt official can do for me.

The answer in Bhutto's cases is: nothing.

Just like Musharraf.

There's no controlling the FATA where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are holed up - unless of course you want to nuke a few million people, which I'm sure Giuliani would be willing to do, I ain't sure about Clinton.

Point is: to deal with the level of discontent in Pakistan that is fueling the Islamist movement, you have to deal with the basic issues of the country.

Which, by definition, the US cannot do, as we've proved yet again and very expensively in Iraq.

Therefore it doesn't matter which corrupt politician you support in Pakistan, nothing will change. The country will continue to grow more and more unstable, the Islamist movement will continue to grow more powerful, until the central government collapses into either a civil war or an Islamist government - or maybe, if we're lucky, another brutal dictatorship that actually will kill enough people to keep things in line for another few years (very unlikely, since again, that would require killing several million people - hard for even Pakistan's military to do without using nukes, especially since part of that military supports the Islamists.)

Again, Pakistan wouldn't have been in this situation - not this soon, anyway, probably - had it not been for Boy George unloading all the Pashtun Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership into Pakistan by his nitwit attack on Afghanistan, and then bribing Musharraf to be the US ally in the "War on Terror".

Bottom line: get the nukes out of there before it happens, or prepare for even more trouble in the future.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 12, 2007 7:44 PM

Actually, Matt should seem familiar two you right.
A tacitly pro American dictator who came to power in part due to the turmoil and corruption of the
other leading parties; refuses to leave. An insurgent force in the outer regions with some popular support; is embarked on a destabilization campaign. The supreme leader, yields to holding an election whose results are deligitimized by key institutions; The guerilla force triumphs toppling the regime; causing turmoil through out
the region.

The example referred above is not Pakistan; but Cuba in the 1950s. With Batista, the Autenticos
and Orthodoxos in the role of Bhutto and Sharif's
parties. The various Harakat, Lashkars, et al serve the function of the DRE, 26th of July, and
escambray front groups.

Now "The Hack" is too smart by half; the Taliban &
AQ in large member are generated from Pakistani sources; what would have been his solution invade
Pakistan, fight significant factions of the Army
the ISI and the Frontier Constabulary in a nuclear
rich power

Posted by narciso | November 12, 2007 8:19 PM

Um, third-party candidacy, yay?

Posted by bartkid | November 13, 2007 5:07 PM

Hi,

I'm a Pakistani-American journalist from Miami, Florida. I have visited Pakistan for a few weeks or months just about every year, or every other year of my life. I have family there in every sector of society, from the liberal independent media, to the military, to the business classes, to the uber rich, to women's rights activists, to mullahs and mystics and day laborers and the dirt poor, and school kids, and college kids who love rock and roll. Oh and some religious extremists, too.

And let me tell ou something. I am furious at the ridiculous and completely inaccurate coverage of this situation I'm seeing of this current situation in western media.

My basic message? Leave my dictator alone.

There is much hollow talk about President/General Musharraf right now, about him being an "extremist" and "uncompromising" dictator. I've heard him described as "the devil" who you have to make deals with there in news reports. He uses "strong-arm tactics," he "muzzles the media." He "destablizes the country." And on and on and on.

And it's all nonesense.

Musharraf is the best shot at stability and future democracy in Pakistan. If any of you had actually visited the country in the years before his rule versus the years since, this would be compeltely apparrent to you. Things have changed in Pakistan. Things have gotten better. There is development. There is growth. There is more freedom.

Musharraf opened up the media. In Bhutto and Sharrif's reign, you know how many independent media channels there were in Pakistan? None. It is Musharraf has allowed and encouraged independent stations to open up and now there are dozens of them. Sure, he's restricted some of their activities in the midst of the current situation, but don't forget that before him, they didn't exist at all!

Now, just this past week, he gave a press conference explaining all this in his patently frank and straight-forward style. No high-faluting hyperbolic theatrics. The man is known for being boringly clear, articulate and earnest when he talks. And he explained exactly his views of what has happened recently, how it came about, and where he's trying to go with it all. But, of course, you don't hear that quoted in any western sources.

Why does America want Bhutto, a fuedal ruler proven to be criminally corrupt, to run Pakistan?

Bhutto was insanely corrupt and thrown out of office on corruption charges. Her replacement civilian government under Sharrif was also corrupt and done away with due to corruption.

In both of their rules, people would disappear all the time and media was tightly controlled. And these were the "democractically" elected political leaders. Actually, they are fuedal landlords whose power is handed down along family lines. They are part of that uber secularized western-friendly elite which makes up a ten percent of the population but own 90 percent of the wealth (or something like that). The reason they win elections in Pakistan is not because of the spirit of democarcy there, but because they own large swaths of the country and TELL the people to vote for them through intimidation and communal pressure. They are worshipped by the people under them, not supported.

Musharraf is not from an elite. Musharraf comes from the working and new middle class and has worked for things like women's rights, minority rights, and bringing religious parties into the fold of regular civil rule. He has worked to create local level government and has worked to curb things like police corruption.

None of those previous civilian governments did any of this.

He has done this, all the while saying vehemently that he is setting up a foundation for democracy to REALLY work in the country, instead of just mouthing the merrits of democracy there.

In fact, the army is arguably the most continuously egalitarian force in Pakistan's history. People work their way up the ranks, power changes hands smoothly usually.

One thing Musharraf pointed out in his press conference was that the prime minister's term just ended (along with all the rest of the parliament) in the midst of this current emergency rule period. Musharraf was on-hand for the PM's stepping down ceremony. The two sat and talked cordially and now there will be a new prime minister once the elections along. A simple, peaceful, amicable transfer of power from one administration to the next, hopefully.

Musharraf pointed out the complete rarity of such a transfer under previous civilian governments, where one prime minister's replacement with another was also a cause for fighting, hatred, chaos, and "people throwing shoes at each other!" figuratively speaking.

Yes, he does play both sides of the fence when it comes to "extremist" groups in the wild regions, but so has every other leader (including Bhutto and Sharrif), and he has actually made more bold moves against these groups after 9/11 than previously done.

Posted by Fawad Siddiqui | November 16, 2007 5:35 PM

OH!! AND he's made peace with India!! which neither Bhutto or Sharrif did! So how are either of them better candidates for stabilizing the nuclear situation in the region? Reality check please!

Posted by Fawad Siddiqui | November 16, 2007 5:38 PM

oh and sorry for all the typos. got worked up and sent without editing.

Posted by Fawad Siddiqui | November 16, 2007 5:47 PM