Fake degrees scandal hits dozens of Pakistan's MPs

DOZENS of Pakistan's MPs could be barred from office after it emerged some used fake degrees to gain election, raising the possibility of a string of by-elections in a country beset by economic and political problems.

Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered officials check the degrees of 1,100 members of federal and regional parliaments.

It is the latest crisis to hit Pakistan, which is trying to cope with a shattered economy, a border war, years of corruption and long periods of military rule. Ordinary people, struggling with power cuts and rising fuel prices, have lost no time in castigating their leaders.

But politicians have reacted angrily to the scrutiny. Some have called for a law offering amnesty to offenders.

"A degree is a degree," said Nawab Aslam Raisani, chief minister of Balochistan when asked about the issue. "Whether fake or genuine, it's a degree. It makes no difference."

Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf introduced a law in 2002 requiring MPs to hold a university degree. He claimed it was to improve the calibre of elected officials but critics said the move was undemocratic in a country where barely half the adult population is literate.

They said the law was designed to keep his rivals out of parliament. It was overturned in 2008 when he left office.

However, last week the Supreme Court ordered an investigation into the qualifications of officials elected while the law was in force after hearing the case of Rizwan Gill, a member of the Punjab Parliament who had appealed against being struck off for holding a fake degree.

The court heard how he had asked a friend to sit the exam. During the hearing, Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday said: "I feel ashamed that such kinds of representatives are sitting in the assemblies."

So far the Higher Education Commission has discovered at least 35 members of parliament had not filed their university degrees with their nomination papers, while the diplomas of 138 members were illegible.

Many of the suspect degrees appear to have been claimed from Islamic seminaries. Other parliamentarians, however, claim to have earned degrees from institutions whose existence is difficult to verify.

Rana Mubashir Iqbal resigned his seat in a provincial parliament after being accused of using a degree awarded to another man with the same name.

It is not the first time that the qualifications of Pakistan's leaders have been called into doubt.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who took over from Musharraf, has faced repeated questions about his claims to hold a degree from the London School of Economics and Business which apparently doesn't exist. Yesterday, his spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, insisted there was no mystery. "The president is a graduate of a school of business in London which probably no longer exists," he said. "Anyway, he was elected after the Supreme Court declared the law null and void so is not affected by this rule."

The scandal is a bitter blow to Pakistan which is still trying to prove its democratic credentials, while fighting insurgents along its border with Afghanistan. Military rulers have held power for more than half the country's 63 years of independence. A slump back into political instability would have politicians casting a wary eye at the generals once again.

Javed Siddiq, Islamabad editor of the Urdu newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt, said the fake degree scandal would get worse before it got better.

But he also claimed the Supreme Court had an ulterior motive and was flexing its muscles as part of a strategy to assert its independence after seeing some of its powers diluted by recent constitutional reforms.

"It's starting to smell as if the court is counting the MPs with fake degrees before taking on the issue of the eighteenth amendment, and arguing that they had no legitimacy - no right to change the constitution," he said.