The Supreme Court recently threw out the entire list of civil service promotions made by the Gilani government. Nepotism and favouritism had been on display at its very worst. Deliberate manipulation put the entire selection process into jeopardy. It affected both those who were promoted, on merit or not, and those who were superseded, on demerit or otherwise. The evaluation process should not only be fair, it must also appear to be fair. There is no mechanism of checks and balances to ensure the process is not circumvented. In rejecting the undeserving, their lordships had also to cancel out the promotions of those who were eminently deserving but had the bad luck of being thrown in with the unworthy.
My article on "Leadership and merit," on Jan 27, 2001, recognised a truth universal to all, including the civil and military services, the corporate sector: "Barring the solitary and unique magnificence of the Quaid we have had a succession of terrible leaders, only a handful can be counted as being above par. The natural emergence of leadership is stunted because we only give lip-service to the merit system, relying mainly on a client-patron relationship to influence the choosing of our leaders, comparable to marriages among blood relations, the mating of similar genes leading to retardation and deformity. This causes frustration among those with the aspiration to rise on their merit, the upwardly mobile, causing a talent drain as people leave service or even the country for greener pastures where merit is recognised and rewarded. Not recognising merit and giving it its legitimate due is bad enough. What is worse is when merit becomes a disqualifier. Those with merit are earmarked for getting 'special treatment,' meant to never let them rise in their profession, unless, of course, they have mastered the quality of being double or even triple-faced. The system forces people to have dual personalities, one face for your seniors and another for your subordinates. Very few people with merit graduate to higher levels, even then they are subject to systematic mean and vicious character assassination. The means do not matter, the end justifies it. Many up and coming leaders with great amount of potential have thus been derailed from contributing their actual worth for the good of the institution they serve or for the country at large."
Tariq Khosa is one shining exception. Thankfully, the Supreme Court recognises his potential even if those behind the Gilani government have good reason to fear his qualities of honesty, integrity and merit.
The PM (and those pulling the strings behind the scenes) got off scot-free, corrupting the sanctity of the selection process. The ends of justice will only be served by bringing to book those who deliberately compromised this trust. Fabrication, falsification and concealment of facts amounts to perjury. To quote my article of Dec 15, 2005, "Eliminating perjury": "Recently, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Mr Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has set about enforcing a code of conduct in the superior judiciary. Why not also go after those who have brought false evidence under oath to the High Courts and the Supreme Court itself?" The PM plays to perfection the "good cop" to President Zardari's "bad cop" act, but this is wearing thin.
After the charade of the president's powers ostensibly being taken away by the 18th Amendment, PPP chairman Zardari was in fact confirmed as a civilian dictator. The legal challenge before the Supreme Court is: can any party leader arbitrarily dismiss any parliamentarian who dares go against his will? Don't the votes of tens of thousands in direct elections count against the whims and wishes of one indirectly elected person, and that too someone who is mired in manifold controversies? And this farce is supposed to be a "democracy"?
The armed forces also suffer from this malaise, but not on the scale witnessed in civil bureaucracy. Musharraf promoted a majority of brigadiers to major general on merit, but beyond the three-star rank was another story. The basis was "loyalty only"; merit was a force-multiplier. A case in point was the advancement to the rank of lieutenant general of two powerful intelligence bosses serving Musharraf's individual interest to the exclusion of everything else. Even officers senior to them dared not cross these two, who took law into their own hands with impunity. Their promotions were imminent if Musharraf had stayed on as COAS a little longer beyond November 2007. Once they were lieutenants general, who else would they have pushed for promotion except those who done their bidding without question? Such anomalies tend to disfigure the senior military hierarchy. Kayani passed over both, graphically illustrating how the system had been corrupted earlier to favour undeserving favourites. The military hierarchy's quality is eroded when those with self-respect opt for retirement on being superseded unfairly, rather than serve under those clearly lacking merit. A triple whammy where, losing the services of quality officers, we get mediocre individuals instead, who, in their turn, chose similarly mediocre persons.
On Jan 27, 2001, I wrote: "The Pakistan Army has been somewhat spared this merit disqualification syndrome, but not altogether. The evaluation process having become computerised, another issue has cropped up, altering of records by electronically changing the basic data fed to the computers, the human element subverting the integrity of the machine. Thankfully, the COAS (at that time Pervez Musharraf) has punished both the perpetrators as well as the beneficiaries of this fraud. It is mind-boggling what would have happened had this chicanery not been discovered: (1) not only the future leadership of the army would have been disfigured and distorted but (2) the integrity of the army as an institution would be compromised when such leaders come to office, their CVs being enhanced by 'electronic' sleight of hand to a far better one. Consider when one resorts to nepotism and favourtism, it has the same effect." The same Pervez Musharraf who had corrected the "electronic" anomaly undid all the good work of his first three years of incumbency by "manually" undermining the same process to stay in power for another six years.
The people have more confidence in the military leadership to deliver on the public promises made, an acknowledgement that in the military merit is recognised for the most part. The quality of senior military officers is therefore very important in Pakistan. Scrupulously promoting fair play based on merit and performance till now. Kayani's acid test will come when someone comes up for consideration he personally favours but whom the whole army knows does not merit advancement on professional grounds. Good leadership must evolve naturally. Otherwise the natural corollary of good governance will never be available to this country. Poor countries are only poor because they have poor leaders. Countries get the leadership they deserve. For Pakistan this is not a correct premise. We have a great country and great people inhabit this country. We deserve good leaders, if not great ones.
To preserve the quality of our leaders across the broad spectrum and prevent it from being destroyed or diminished, the Supreme Court should impose exemplary punishments on those who deliberately subvert what must be a transparent and fair promotion process.
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