AT PENPOINT
The resignation of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister of the UK, and the assassination of Shinzo Abe, the ex-Prime Minister of Japan, occurred at opposite ends of the Eurasian landmass, but both illustrated how one of the main dilemmas of modern democracy has been to arrange for accountability, which is after all supposed to be at the heart of the democratic system. It could be said that accountability is an essential component of any rules-based system, but it is particularly important in democratic systems.
However, while Johnson’s resignation represents an acceptable method of accountability, Abe’s example is of how accountability need not be accurate.
Johnson’s example showed how accountability was supposed to flow from the principal tenet of democracy, that the people are sovereign. One of the principal means of accountability is election defeat. In a representative democracy, the loss of the support of the elected representatives of the people is supposed to mean the fall of the government.
In a parliamentary system, the chief executive holds office because he has the support of the majority of those representatives. Even in a presidential system, the chief executive may well be directly elected, but his is removable by the elected representatives of the people.
Johnson had escaped ouster by the parliamentary party, but there was so much feeling expressed against him, that his departure was only a matter of time. That time came when there was a mass of resignations because of another example of the kind of problems that Johnson had. Johnson appeared to have been removed because he was a compulsive liar, a shifty character and generally a bad person, but these qualities had been apparent for years, and had not prevented him becoming leader of the Conservatives and thus PM.
What seems to have made people sit up and take notice now, seems to have been the defeat in recent by-elections, which indicated that if Johnson was to lead the Conservatives into the next election, the result would be a disaster.
Also, the discoveries of his bad behaviour were becoming more prominent, even public. The long investigation into his violation of covid-19 restrictions also revealed the non-criminal but sybaritic culture that pervaded 10 Downing Street, notably the excessive drinking. He ended up paying a fine for that, thus becoming the first PM to be convicted while in office.
In a strange way, Pakistan seems joined with both the UK and Japan in their prime ministerial crises, while in the middle of its own. The big difference is that Pakistan is the only one of the three with an establishment that has a role in determining who rules.
The last straw was his appointment of Chris Pincher as Deputy Chief Whip. Pincher had previously been a junior minister at the Foreign Office, where he had been investigated for attempts on young men. Pincher, who seems to have been a Johnson favourite, finally resigned on June 30 June, for having drunk too much the night before and having groped two men. Much has changed, but not being able to hold one’s drink still remains a cardinal sin. Pincher is not the first British politician to be guilty of homosexual behaviour, and in the post-Sexual Revolution age it might be spun as a positive, but drunken pawing is still not on.
This was used by two Cabinet members, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid, both children of South Asian immigrants, to resign. About 100 junior ministers also resigned, and with his ministry collapsing about him, Johnson really had no choice but to resign.
Abe’s killer, on the other hand, did not really assassinate him because of any character flaws. Tetsuya Yamagami, who fired the fatal two shots from a homemade firearm, was a former sailor in the Japanese Navy, but his grievance did not have anything to do with Abe’s attitude towards the Japanese Self-Defence Force, but to his alleged help to the Reunification Church of South Korean pastor Rev Sun Myung Moon, to get into Japan. Both his father, a onetime Foreign Minister, and maternal grandfather, a former PM, are alleged to have helped the Rev Moon in their time.
This is accountability carried out on the basis of a suspicion. It might be a strong suspicion, and even accurate. But a court has to determine the guilt. There is also the issue of the sentence. Even where a jury determines guilt or innocence, it is the court which determines the appropriate punishment.
It seems that there has been a confusion about accountability. This is based on envy in Pakistan, not the desire to prevent abuse of power. The PTI has spread the doctrine of other parties being thieves that it is almost as if it is reviving the old pre-Marxian dictum (what Engels called ‘utopian socialism’):”property is theft.” That is the spirit behind former Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa’s beginning of his judgement disqualifying Nawaz Sharif, when he quoted The Godfather, where author Mario Puzo had himself quoted Balzac: “Behind every great fortune is a crime.”
In Pakistan, whatever the party in power, the way Johnson was ousted was not going to happen. Any minister having the temerity to resign would find himself the subject of a name-calling campaign, and no party would tolerate such a person.
It is not as if the fate of such rebels has been particularly good in the UK. If either Sunak or Javid make it to the leadership now, or even in the future, it would be an exceptional development.
At the same time, internal rebellions are the main cause of changes in party leaders in party systems, along with electoral defeats. However, this does not apply to South Asia, with the 1969 Congress split instructive. After Congress suffered electoral defeats at the state level, there was a move to replace Indira Gandhi as Congress chief, and thus as PM. Instead, she split the party, forming the Congress-I, and then won the 1971 general election handily.
The use of violence has been given a lease of life, again by the PTI, with the labelling of opponents as corrupt, merely because of an accusation. Every conviction starts as an accusation, but it has to go through testing by the courts. Despite three years of effort, there was no conviction of Shehbaz Sharif. To call him names would thus be a sort of contempt of court.
It should be remembered that Pakistan, in the person of Imran Khan, is an example paralleling both Johnson and Abe. Of course, when he was about to be removed from office, he did not resign. By that token, Johnson has proved a poltroon, who should have toughed it out, and then refused to give up even when he had lost his Commons majority.
Johnson shows that fresh elections is not necessarily the best solution, for unlike Imran he won an absolute majority, and depended on no allies for survival. He also owed nothing to the establishment, and has not blamed the USA for any conspiracy.
As for Abe’s fate, Imran is a former PM who says he has received death threats. However, he should note that Abe was actually killed. While the whole of Japan has mourned him, he has had no opportunity of using this for his political benefit.
In a strange way, Pakistan seems joined with both the UK and Japan in their prime ministerial crises, while in the middle of its own. The big difference is that Pakistan is the only one of the three with an establishment that has a role in determining who rules.
