‘Good Governance’: A Class Explanation of Musharraf’s Coup (October, 1999)
The liberal project became disenchanted with the democratic experience. Nawaz Sharif’s success in the 1997 election was one step forward, yet it occurred in the context of a decade-long tradition of non-issue and non-policy politics or ‘de-ideologized’ politics.[1081] For Rasul Bakhsh Rais, the transition to democracy was not working due to the feudal political ‘culture’.
The underdeveloped civil society was not in a position to enhance this democratic polity.[1082] Devoid of structural issues, and class formations, ‘institutionalist’ studies were analyzing the voting behaviour in elections to solve the question of who is voting for whom and why?[1083] One such study, by Andrew R. Wilder, examined the self-interested rational voter who sought patronage in order to reject the claim that social factors like traditional ‘feudal’ relationships and ties of family, clan or tribe determine voting behaviour.[1084]In terms of class formations, the tug of war between the two fractions of the reigning class saw both sides using the state apparatus of bureaucracy and judiciary against each other. The decade of 1985-95 led to the politicization of the bureaucracy, particularly the District Management Group and Police Group with large-scale postings.[1085] According to Saeed Shafqat and Saeed Wahlah, every regime, whether civil and military, tried to curtail the powers and authority of the Civil Services of Pakistan, and break its ‘institutional will and capacity’.[1086] Apart from this, we can translate this change in Civil Services as class formations affecting the state formations. Every regime tried to re-mould the frame of the bureaucracy and judiciary. Nawaz suspended 87 civil servants in 1997 and formed a task force for civil reforms.[1087] Close to the end of the 1990s, all the class forces agreed to break the back of civil bureaucracy, including the hegemonic metropolitan bourgeoisie and emerging petty bourgeois ‘liberal’ project.
The World Bank worried about the high transaction costs of doing business in Pakistan.[1088] Until 1998, the World Bank clearly stood against over-centralized organizational structure and seriously eroded internal accountability, as well as the politicization of civil-service decision-making in Pakistan.[1089] Reformist economic managers of the World Bank were struggling hard to restrain and block the pursuit of populist policies by the political leaders.[1090]The dilemma for the reigning class was that the political leadership was given the task of the state’s strategic imperatives and the economic needs of its populace, and they did not have the authority or resources to meet these needs.[1091] Democratic regimes were vulnerable to both, an overthrowing by a military-backed president and to voters’ expectations. They reached short-term ‘politically optimal solutions’ to stay in power.[1092] Aid programs, like the Rural Works Program, the Integrated Rural Development Program, the People’s Works Program, and the Tamir-e-Watan Program, were established to bypass bureaucracy and so that the elite could direct patronage towards the members of the national and provincial assemblies.[1093]
Proponents of the liberal project were not happy with this situation. They vigorously attacked development planning, as the policy-makers were asking local Members of National and Provincial assemblies—MNAs and MPAs—where schools should be located. Funds were given as a prestige and to please MNAs and MPAs.[1094] [1095] [1096] Their conclusion was that “if the state can’t deliver, it should leave the poor alone”, or that NGOs should lead development. Insofar as there was a critique of Structural Adjustment Programs,[1097] the liberal project recognized the need for breaking the nexus of politicians and the bureaucracy with land reforms and decentralization. However, land reform was a ‘structural issue’, and the quick solution was decentralization and ‘good governance’, which the metropolitan bourgeoisie (through International Financial Institutions) had already developed as a response to critiques of Structural Adjustment Programs. Suffice it to say, this milieu was ready for a regime change to one that prioritized the principles of ‘good governance’ instead of democracy, and consequently welcomed the ‘liberal’ coup of General Musharraf.