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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
A powerful player in the political equation was
President
Ishaq Khan. The president, under the constitution, is
elected by
a majority of the members of the national and provincial
assemblies. Ishaq Khan was a seasoned senior
bureaucrat-turned
politician who had been a key figure in Pakistan for more
than
three decades. Born in 1915 in the North-West Frontier
Province,
he was appointed to the prestigious Civil Service of
Pakistan
after independence in 1947. After holding various regional
posts,
including being chairman of the West Pakistan Water and
Power
Development Authority (1961-66), he was appointed to
several
positions in the central government--first as secretary,
Ministry
of Finance (1966-70) and later as governor of the State
Bank of
Pakistan (1971-75). In the latter position, he questioned
the
wisdom of a number of the economic policies of then Prime
Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He was subsequently moved
from the
bank and made secretary general at the Ministry of
Defence.
Although an unusual post for a senior economics expert, it
proved
to be fortuitous in that it brought him into close contact
with
the senior officers of the armed forces. Among them was
General
Zia, who later ousted Bhutto and turned the management of
the
economy over to Ishaq Khan. During the martial law period
(1977-
85), Ishaq Khan's titles changed, but he was responsible
for all
important economic decisions
(see Zia ul-Haq and Military Domination, 1977-88
, ch. 1). Among other things, he
supported the
Zia government's efforts to Islamize the economy by
changes in
the fiscal and banking systems.
In 1985 Ishaq Khan was elected to the Senate and later
became
chairman of the Senate. The death of Zia in 1988 thrust
Ishaq
Khan to the center of the political stage. When the
military
decided to use the constitution to handle the issue of
succession, Ishaq Khan, as chairman of the Senate and
therefore
next in the line of succession, became acting president.
He and
the emergency council he instituted decided to hold
general
elections and to allow political parties to participate.
Thus,
the country was guided back to democracy, Benazir became
prime
minister, and Ishaq Khan was subsequently elected
president by
the national and provincial assemblies.
Ishaq Khan's position was considerably strengthened by
the
Eighth Amendment to the constitution, introduced by
President
Zia, which allows the president to dismiss the government
and to
override the government's choice of army chief. When the
previous
army chief died unexpectedly, President Ishaq Khan
reportedly
turned down the government's choice and named General
Abdul
Waheed to head the army. General Waheed, who is not known
to have
any political ambitions, is from the same ethnic group as
Ishaq
Khan--the Pakhtuns of the North-West Frontier Province
(see Linguistic and Ethnic Groups
, ch. 2).
Intermittent and conflicting signals of rapprochement,
realignment, and behind-the-scenes alliances among the
various
political players heightened the political tension in late
1992
and early 1993. There was speculation that the opposition
and the
government might join forces to muster a two-thirds
majority in
the parliament to repeal the Eighth Amendment or even that
they
might field a candidate against the president. However, it
was
also noticeable that Benazir had stopped openly attacking
the
president, and some observers considered that she might be
playing for time, hoping to use the differences between
the
president and the prime minister to her own advantage. The
army,
however, always a key ingredient in the mix, continued to
support
the president as well as the continuation of the Eighth
Amendment. Against this backdrop, Pakistan's developing
democracy
continued to be tested by economic problems, persistent
violence,
and corruption, as well as the power struggles of its
leaders.
Data as of April 1994
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