ISI Election Cell De-activated?

[Riaz Haq]

Is Military Brass Cooling To Musharraf?
By Riaz Haq
Haq's Musings

General Kayani's Orders
Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Kayani has initiated a number of changes that establish a divide between the uniformed army and Mr. Musharraf, say senior Pakistani officers. Last month, Gen. Kayani, 55 years old, issued an order barring officers from any unauthorized meetings with Pakistani politicians, including the president. The army commander also said the military wouldn't play any role in staging next week's parliamentary elections, outside of providing security, according to the Wall Street Journal.

ISI Political Cell
The moves, say senior Pakistani officers, stand as a clear signal to Mr. Musharraf that he can't rely on his former allies in the military to get "desirable results" from the vote, says an active Pakistani general. "We don't want the army to be seen as involved in political affairs in any way," he says, a move the army hopes will inoculate it from being tarnished by any potential electoral improprieties.

If these reports are credible, then the ISI's political cell can no longer to be used to manipulate the results of the February 18 elections this year. It was former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who issued the executive order creating this political cell within the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the purpose of influencing political processes in Pakistan. This fateful decision eventually brought ZA Bhutto's own downfall when he used this cell to unnecessarily rig the 1977 elections and was overthrown and executed by General Zia-ul-Haq. It was also this cell that helped Nawaz Sharif , a protege of General Zia-ul-Haq, get elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan after the General's death in a mysterious air crash followed by a brief term in office by Benazir Bhutto. In 1990 the ISI received 140m rupees (US$2.2m at current values) to rig national elections, according to supreme court testimony by the then chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg.
As recently as two weeks ago Chaudhry Shujaat Husain of PML-Q argued that this cell should continue working. It seems that General Kayani disagrees and has decided to not allow the use of the cell for influencing the upcoming vote.

Fair Polls
There have been a number of specific allegations of poll rigging such as ghost polling stations, ballot stuffing, and counting irregularities made by the opposition. Each of these allegations have been rebutted quite well by Staffan Darnolf, Pakistan Country Director of IFES in his responses to a blog post by Barnett Ruben. However, the one issue that hung over the elections was the acknowledged existence of the ISI political cell. These latest reports of Gen Kayani's orders, if true, should eliminate this issue as well.

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a NY Times story on ISI money used to help Nawaz Sharif's party against Benazir Bhutto's PPP in 1990s elections:

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, resumed hearings into accusations that the spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, paid $6.5 million to a right-wing opposition alliance to influence the outcome of the 1990 election.

The case is potentially explosive in a country where the ISI has a history of meddling in politics yet its officials have largely escaped judicial censure. But analysts are divided about its chance of success.

Wednesday’s hearing was cut short after the court heard that statements recorded in 1998 by three crucial witnesses, including a former ISI chief, Asad Durrani, could not be found. A lawyer for Mr. Durrani said he was out of the country.

Justice Chaudhry ordered court officials to find the documents and summoned Mr. Durrani to a hearing next Thursday.

The scrutiny began in 1996 when Asghar Khan, a retired air force officer and politician, asked the court to investigate allegations that the ISI had donated $6.5 million through Mehran Bank to the opposition in advance of the 1990 election.

The ISI, it was said, wanted to oust Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister, in favor of the Islami Jamhoori-Ittehad, a coalition of conservative and religious parties headed by Nawaz Sharif, who went on to win the election.

Early hearings in the case brought striking revelations that embarrassed the military. Mr. Durrani, the former ISI chief, told the Supreme Court that the money had been distributed on the instructions of Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, an army chief and Mr. Durrani’s boss at the time.

General Beg, in turn, said he had done so on the orders of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who opposed Ms. Bhutto.

The hearings stopped in 1999 after a military coup brought Gen. Pervez Musharraf to power but were revived in January at the instigation of Justice Chaudhry, who is eager to disprove critics who accuse him of going soft on the powerful army.

The resurrection of the case has potentially stark implications for certain politicians. Among the recipients of the ISI money was Mr. Sharif, the current opposition leader, who allegedly got $1.6 million. Should the charges stand, he and other prominent politicians, like Syeda Abida Hussain, a former ambassador to Washington, could be barred from office.

But just how far the court is willing, or able, to go against the powerful ISI remains to be seen.

On Wednesday, the court heard that a confidential statement recorded by Mr. Durrani in 1998 had disappeared, as had separate statements by Naseerullah Babar, a former interior minister, and Younis Habib, a businessman and banker who helped distribute the illegal money.

Moreover, two central figures in the affair — Mr. Babar and Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the former president — are dead.

Many in Pakistan are skeptical that the case against ISI will succeed. An editorial on Wednesday in the English-language newspaper Dawn expressed doubts that the case could “become a transformative moment in the history civil-military relations.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/world/asia/pakistan-court-resurre...