[The true target of Justice Chaudhry’s order, though, may have been President Zardari. The two men have been at odds since 2009, when Mr. Zardari opposed Justice Chaudhry’s reinstatement. They have engaged in proxy combat through the courts ever since; indeed, Mr. Gilani’s dismissal stemmed directly from his refusal to heed court orders to pursue a corruption inquiry against the president.]
By Declan Walsh
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s combative top judge made his most audacious foray into judicial activism yet on Tuesday, firing Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, emptying the cabinet and forcing President Asif Ali Zardari to reset his fragile governing coalition.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s order was the culmination of a three-year transformation that has injected the once supine Supreme Court into the heart of Pakistan’s power equation. Yet in doing so, Justice Chaudhry has ventured deeply into the political fray, drawing accusations of partisan, even grudge-driven, prosecutions.
“This is a court that is determined to establish itself as a player to be respected and feared,” said Cyril Almeida, a political analyst with the newspaper Dawn. “First it was elbows out; now it’s come out swinging — and it’s knocked out the prime minister.”
The true target of Justice Chaudhry’s order, though, may have been President Zardari. The two men have been at odds since 2009, when Mr. Zardari opposed Justice Chaudhry’s reinstatement. They have engaged in proxy combat through the courts ever since; indeed, Mr. Gilani’s dismissal stemmed directly from his refusal to heed court orders to pursue a corruption inquiry against the president.
Tuesday’s decision presented a blunt challenge to the president’s authority; one critic, the human rights campaigner and lawyer Asma Jahangir, called it a “soft coup.” And its disruptive effects on his governing Pakistan Peoples Party could lead to a new round of national elections well ahead of their scheduled date next spring.
For Justice Chaudhry, the action also offered a convenient diversion from an awkward turn of events: less than a week ago, the judge found himself explaining his personal finances in court after a billionaire property developer with close ties to both the Pakistan Peoples Party and the military came out with explosive corruption allegations against his family.
Now, those accusations, which damaged the judge’s anticorruption credentials and may have tarnished his populist appeal, are likely to be sidelined amid the political maneuvering over his ruling on Tuesday.
Experts said the judge’s dismissal of Mr. Gilani was legally contentious, but regardless, the Pakistan Peoples Party responded with uncharacteristic meekness. The party secretary general, Qamar Zaman Kaira, urged supporters to show “patience and restraint,” indicating that the government did not want its clash with the court to spill over into street violence, at least for the moment.
The muted reaction highlighted the cardinal principle of government under Mr. Zardari: ensuring his political survival, even at the cost of sacrificing his most loyal lieutenants. Others have already fallen, mostly at the hands of the court.
In November, Mr. Zardari jettisoned his ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, after the powerful military pushed claims that, in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death in May 2011, Mr. Haqqani had secretly approached the Obama administration for help in averting a military coup. Mr. Haqqani insisted he did not write the letter seeking help, but under pressure from generals and judges, he resigned.
More recently the Supreme Court forced Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Mr. Zardari’s political enforcer within the fractious governing coalition, to resign and surrender his British passport over rules that forbid officials to hold dual citizenship.
Other political parties, however, have largely escaped censure from the court.
Mr. Zardari’s strategy, said Mr. Almeida, the analyst, is to ride out the crises until the elections. “It’s a strategy of rolling with the punches, knowing that no rival has the ability to deliver a knockout punch and, in the absence of that, keeping your head down,” he said.
Mr. Gilani has, to a large degree, found himself caught in the cross-fire between Mr. Zardari and Justice Chaudhry. His dismissal stems from longstanding court demands that he write a letter to Swiss authorities requesting that they reopen a dormant corruption investigation into Mr. Zardari’s finances in that country dating to the 1990s.
Mr. Gilani has refused to do so, arguing that as president, Mr. Zardari has immunity from prosecution. After two years of delaying tactics, the court’s patience snapped last January when it issued Mr. Gilani an ultimatum: write to the Swiss authorities or face contempt charges. Mr. Gilani chose contempt.
“What will happen to independence of judiciary if speaker or Parliament tries to scrutinize judicial rulings?” Justice Chaudhry told the court on Tuesday. “No one can undo a court verdict except a court of appeals.”
The main opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, welcomed the Supreme Court decision. “This is real accountability,” he told Geo television, calling for early elections. “Otherwise,” he said, “this government will embark on a path of destruction.”
Mr. Zardari, on the other hand, may seek to head off elections as long as possible, in part because his government is being battered by accusations of mismanagement over the country’s continuing electricity delivery failures. In Punjab, the country’s most populous province, mobs angered over chronic power failures rampaged through several cities for the third day running, clashing violently with the police and burning vehicles and offices. The daily blackouts — up to 20 hours long in places — have left many people miserable and jobless in the grueling summer heat.
“Law has become subservient to politics, but this government had it coming. It has been singularly inept,” said Najam Sethi, a veteran commentator. “They had six months to anticipate the power crisis, and now it is upon them.”
Early Wednesday morning, Pakistani television stations reported that the Pakistan Peoples Party would nominate Makhdoom Shahabuddin, a longtime Zardari loyalist and departing minister for textiles, to replace Mr. Gilani. Other names that were circulating included Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and various stalwarts from the party’s political heartland in Sindh Province and southern Punjab.
Any candidate, however, will need the approval of the party’s coalition partners — smaller, ethnically centered parties based in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar that are likely to extract a high price from Mr. Zardari in exchange for votes in Parliament.
It was unclear what impact the decision would have on troubled negotiations with the United States to reopen NATO supply lines through Pakistan into Afghanistan.
In Washington, the State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, “Our hope and expectation is that we will continue to be able to work with Pakistanis to try to finish some of these issues.”
For his part, Mr. Zardari canceled a planned visit to Russia in order to contain the crisis. Officials said he would announce the party’s next step on Wednesday.
Salman Masood contributed reporting.
@ The New York Times
AN INDIAN STATE POINTS THE WAY FOR WOMEN
[Walking up the main road in Aldona toward the bus stand, with rain-washed emerald fields on one side and a line of gracious houses on the other, Infanta Maria was happy to discuss the recent achievements of female council heads. She reiterated a complaint common across India: that too many female council heads are fronts for male members of their families. But, she added, “That’s only the first-timers. Halfway through their term, they realize they could do more if they stopped listening to the men.” Like many of the women in Goa, she feels that the visibility of the female council heads is crucial. It encourages more women to take part in active political life.]
Goa’s location on the west coast of India and its laid-back beach culture have made it a magnet for tourists. Farther inland, the inroads of mining into forest areas have given rise to environmental disputes. The state’s village councils are active and engaged, and to have so many female “sarpanches,” or council heads, elected in one year is, to many, a very encouraging sign.
In some areas, like the popular resort towns of Calangute and Candolim, women have become council heads this year through the application of affirmative action policies. But in Salcete, 42 percent of the successful candidates were women — including many who won their seats in general wards, not just in constituencies reserved for women.
Walking up the main road in Aldona toward the bus stand, with rain-washed emerald fields on one side and a line of gracious houses on the other, Infanta Maria was happy to discuss the recent achievements of female council heads. She reiterated a complaint common across India: that too many female council heads are fronts for male members of their families. But, she added, “That’s only the first-timers. Halfway through their term, they realize they could do more if they stopped listening to the men.” Like many of the women in Goa, she feels that the visibility of the female council heads is crucial. It encourages more women to take part in active political life.
Her views were echoed by Fermina Menezes, who was taking her daughter and a young cousin out for a daylong excursion from Panjim around North Goa, stopping to meet relatives and friends. “This one is thinking that maybe she wants to be a hotel receptionist, or maybe run for election. Her friend’s aunt ran in Margao last year and won,” Ms. Menezes said, pointing to the cousin.
In their view, the reservation of seats for women has worked unexpectedly well. Ms. Menezes said that it had encouraged women to enter careers that, while not closed to them in previous years, were less obvious choices.
As an example of how well reservations can work at the grass-roots level, she cited the formation of a special council to discuss the implementation of the Right to Education Act, which took effect in 2010 and guarantees the right of free schooling for children up to 14 years old. The Goa State government had just announced that women would make up 50 percent of the council.
“They will have a different perspective from the men,” Ms. Menezes said. “Not better, not worse, just different.”
Traveling around Goa, especially in the inland villages away from the more well-visited areas, the contrast between the lives of women in rural northern India and here is stark. Except for a few high-crime areas, most women here can expect a much higher level of personal safety than women in Haryana or Uttar Pradesh, two of the north’s largest states. That sense of security is evident in the number of women on the roads and other public spaces in Goa, even after dark — and in the freedom with which they live and work.
Women have significantly greater land rights in Goa, thanks to the Common Civil Code dating back to the days of Portuguese colonial rule. Under the code, elements of which survived the Indian annexation of Goa in 1961, women are entitled to a share in both parental and marital property.
Still, even Goa is not quite a feminist paradise. Property disputes still occur, and in practice, many women have to fight hard to retain their rights to parental property after marriage.
Women’s organizations like Bailancho Saad often point out that, while Goa may be better than many Indian states in its treatment of women, it isn’t perfect. Goan women are often pinned with negative stereotypes — much as their equally confident counterparts from matrilineal pockets of northeastern India are. The relative freedom and self-assertiveness of these women can be held against them, especially by Indians in more conservative parts of the country, as “loose behavior,” a phrase that hints at a multitude of sins.
And the advance of women hardly eliminates other, more universal, problems.
The Goan Observer reported that three of the four women who ran against each other in a council election in the village of Colva had demanded that the results be overturned. They say that the winner, Zarina Blanca Alberto Fernandes, illegally manipulated the final recounting of the votes.
Once women make their way into politics, it appears that they face the same drama and, as one candidate said darkly, “skullduggery,” that men do.
AN INDIAN STATE POINTS THE WAY FOR WOMEN
[Walking up the main road in Aldona toward the bus stand, with rain-washed emerald fields on one side and a line of gracious houses on the other, Infanta Maria was happy to discuss the recent achievements of female council heads. She reiterated a complaint common across India: that too many female council heads are fronts for male members of their families. But, she added, “That’s only the first-timers. Halfway through their term, they realize they could do more if they stopped listening to the men.” Like many of the women in Goa, she feels that the visibility of the female council heads is crucial. It encourages more women to take part in active political life.]
By Nilanjana S. Roy
ALDONA, INDIA — After you have spent some time in relatively conservative northern India, the state of Goa can give the impression of a feminist paradise — especially this year, when women have been unusually successful in running for key posts in the powerful local village councils.Goa’s location on the west coast of India and its laid-back beach culture have made it a magnet for tourists. Farther inland, the inroads of mining into forest areas have given rise to environmental disputes. The state’s village councils are active and engaged, and to have so many female “sarpanches,” or council heads, elected in one year is, to many, a very encouraging sign.
In some areas, like the popular resort towns of Calangute and Candolim, women have become council heads this year through the application of affirmative action policies. But in Salcete, 42 percent of the successful candidates were women — including many who won their seats in general wards, not just in constituencies reserved for women.
Walking up the main road in Aldona toward the bus stand, with rain-washed emerald fields on one side and a line of gracious houses on the other, Infanta Maria was happy to discuss the recent achievements of female council heads. She reiterated a complaint common across India: that too many female council heads are fronts for male members of their families. But, she added, “That’s only the first-timers. Halfway through their term, they realize they could do more if they stopped listening to the men.” Like many of the women in Goa, she feels that the visibility of the female council heads is crucial. It encourages more women to take part in active political life.
Her views were echoed by Fermina Menezes, who was taking her daughter and a young cousin out for a daylong excursion from Panjim around North Goa, stopping to meet relatives and friends. “This one is thinking that maybe she wants to be a hotel receptionist, or maybe run for election. Her friend’s aunt ran in Margao last year and won,” Ms. Menezes said, pointing to the cousin.
In their view, the reservation of seats for women has worked unexpectedly well. Ms. Menezes said that it had encouraged women to enter careers that, while not closed to them in previous years, were less obvious choices.
As an example of how well reservations can work at the grass-roots level, she cited the formation of a special council to discuss the implementation of the Right to Education Act, which took effect in 2010 and guarantees the right of free schooling for children up to 14 years old. The Goa State government had just announced that women would make up 50 percent of the council.
“They will have a different perspective from the men,” Ms. Menezes said. “Not better, not worse, just different.”
Traveling around Goa, especially in the inland villages away from the more well-visited areas, the contrast between the lives of women in rural northern India and here is stark. Except for a few high-crime areas, most women here can expect a much higher level of personal safety than women in Haryana or Uttar Pradesh, two of the north’s largest states. That sense of security is evident in the number of women on the roads and other public spaces in Goa, even after dark — and in the freedom with which they live and work.
Women have significantly greater land rights in Goa, thanks to the Common Civil Code dating back to the days of Portuguese colonial rule. Under the code, elements of which survived the Indian annexation of Goa in 1961, women are entitled to a share in both parental and marital property.
Still, even Goa is not quite a feminist paradise. Property disputes still occur, and in practice, many women have to fight hard to retain their rights to parental property after marriage.
Women’s organizations like Bailancho Saad often point out that, while Goa may be better than many Indian states in its treatment of women, it isn’t perfect. Goan women are often pinned with negative stereotypes — much as their equally confident counterparts from matrilineal pockets of northeastern India are. The relative freedom and self-assertiveness of these women can be held against them, especially by Indians in more conservative parts of the country, as “loose behavior,” a phrase that hints at a multitude of sins.
And the advance of women hardly eliminates other, more universal, problems.
The Goan Observer reported that three of the four women who ran against each other in a council election in the village of Colva had demanded that the results be overturned. They say that the winner, Zarina Blanca Alberto Fernandes, illegally manipulated the final recounting of the votes.
Once women make their way into politics, it appears that they face the same drama and, as one candidate said darkly, “skullduggery,” that men do.