The
polarizing May 11 elections won’t make governing Pakistan any easier. Here’s
what the next government in Islamabad must do to fix the dysfunction.
Elections
tend to hand down economies battered by deficits. Pakistan has experienced
upheaval after each election—with White Papers issued by newly-elected
governments lowering expectations by announcing how the problems left behind by
their predecessors are actually terminal crises no one can resolve. Elections
leak precious funds and damage an already listing ship of state. Running
Pakistan is not easy, and it certainly won’t be any easier after the May 11
elections, which look set to be highly contentious and polarizing.
If
democracy is to be the norm, whichever party, or set of parties, that leads the
next federal government will have to work on shedding Pakistan’s honor-based
isolationist foreign policy that has a direct bearing on the economy, peace and
security within its borders, and regional cooperation.
Here’s
what the next government needs to do, with single-mindedness: clamp down on
terrorists; closing down, for instance, the terror training camps in
Muzaffarabad and Mansehra, allegedly being run by nonstate actors, to give the
country the law and order it has lacked for a decade. Push for normalization of
relations with India through free trade, engage with it in seriousness on
climate change that is reducing the rivers of South Asia to sand dunes, and
cooperate with both India and China on Afghanistan after the withdrawal of
U.S.-led troops from there. The world has to be dissuaded from sanctioning the
Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline. Corruption has to be brought down to tolerable
levels in a year if not in “90 days.” Loss making state enterprises must be
gotten rid of to give the economy a chance to breathe. We have to be able to go
to the International Monetary Fund once again, with some credibility. And
finally, the ongoing suo moto duel-unto-death between the judiciary and elected
representatives must end.
Sucking
Up
Whoever
wins on Election Day will have to run a dysfunctional state whose population
has internalized extremism of the Taliban variety and whose state functionaries
are too scared to fight the war against terrorism, resulting in not a single
terrorist being punished by the courts. The first cliff to climb will be an
economy haunted by a paralyzing energy crisis while the state remains hostage
to a foreign policy undermined by self-defeating notions of national honor.
Because
of the security lock imposed on seeking new options, Pakistan is almost certain
to stick to its old perceptions of Afghanistan on the western border and of
India on the eastern front. The process of normalization of relations with
India through free trade and freer movement of people across borders will
remain stuck, and there will be no advance on efforts to come to an
understanding with China and India—the two major players in Afghanistan after
the exit of foreign forces—with Pakistan still unable to draw a line between
terrorism that harms Pakistan and terrorism that advances its foreign policy.
At
the fag-end of President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party’s term in
power, the IMF was not keen to come to Pakistan’s rescue. This was an
understandable caution since on numerous previous occasions Islamabad was
unable to complete the programs it had signed up for with the institution. Any
approach to the IMF will be haunted by Pakistan’s fixed Afghanistan policy.
Shahid
Kardar, an ex-president of the State Bank of Pakistan, wrote recently: “If we
cooperate and play ball by facilitating the safe and early exit from
Afghanistan [of U.S.-NATO forces], the Americans should be able to persuade the
European members of the IMF board to forge less stringent conditions for the
new program, although we would not get more than $5 billion against the $8
billion we would be repaying the IMF.”
Pakistan
will be forced to neglect its economy again in favor of advancing its anti-U.S.
“populist” foreign policy that reduced the flow of desperately needed economic
development assistance to a mere trickle last year. The State Bank in its
report for fiscal year 2012 was alarmed at the deficit run up by the
government, which it estimated at 8.5 percent of gross domestic product.
Switching
Off the Economy
The
projected growth rate of 4.3 percent for the current fiscal year will also be
scuttled by the political chaos that will ensue after the likely hung
Parliament produced by the elections. The euphoria at the completion of five
years in office by the last incumbent government will give way to regrets and
proposals that power-tenures be cut short. Democracy and the coming elections
may appear to have come at a heavy cost.
Governance
gets switched off in the run-up months to the elections. The Musharraf era left
behind a circular debt of some Rs. 100 billion, the PPP has bequeathed Rs. 364
billion, add to that the bankrupt state sector enterprises and you have a
separate mountain of receivables amounting to Rs. 524 billion.
The
ongoing suo moto duel-unto-death between the judges and elected pols must end.
Governance
was seriously undermined by five years of institutional competition permitting
the rise to preeminence of the Supreme Court that thought nothing of
trespassing in the economic domain. No one will be held accountable for the
damage thus inflicted on the economy. Lack of movement on foreign policy issues
has made the post-elections scene bleaker than ever before. Populist shifts of
perception on the part of state institutions and the media on such issues as
Lal Masjid and Aafia Siddiqui have contributed to the unnatural stiffening of
policy while dealing with the outside world. This populism will hogtie the next
incumbents in Islamabad and fix the country in the amber of honor-driven
dysfunction.
The
new government will hear the bad news that production of gas in Pakistan has
depleted rapidly—down to a fourth of its original capacity—and that buying gas
and its alternatives is no longer easy because of nonpayment of dues to related
institutions. The Pakistan State Oil Company that pays for all imports meant for
the energy sector is owed Rs. 114.67 billion. PSO itself owes Rs. 22.17 billion
to local refineries.
Living
with the Indian Bugbear
Relations
with India will not improve. President Zardari, who spearheaded the PPP’s
pragmatic foreign policy toward India after the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks
and with the U.S. after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, came to
grief in both cases (in the latter case nearly getting convicted for treason
under Article 6 ). This precedent will daunt the next setup into staying in the
old groove.
This
can also mean an escalation in cross-border incidents, like those that flared
in December and scuttled the free-trade move which would have eased the award
of Most Favored Nation status to India “inside 2012,” as promised by Islamabad.
(The status was in part meant to equip Pakistan to challenge India on its
protectionism while implementing the free-trade agreement.) There will likely
be an escalation of threat perceptions of “encirclement by India” in Rawalpindi
followed by a more hawkish, rejectionist stance on Afghanistan, where India is
seen in unholy cohabitation with the Kabul government.
The
equation with India is far more important than any future government will
realize—mainly because of the “strategic” veto exercised by Pakistan Army.
Pakistan-India trade has gone on despite this veto. In 2001-2002, this was just
over $200 million; by 2007-2008, it had soared to $2.2 billion. According to a
U.S. think tank, “Though the 2008 Mumbai attacks caused a brief decline, trade
volume eventually picked up, climbing to $2.6 billion in 2010-2011. And between
April and December of 2012—a period that saw the launch of a new integrated
checkpoint at Atari-Wagah and a milestone visa agreement—Pakistan’s exports to
India increased by two thirds.”
Withdrawal
Symptoms
The
looming civil war in Afghanistan after the U.S.-NATO withdrawal in 2014 will
unfold during the tenure of the next government. Most Pakistanis think that
after the Americans leave, it will be a free-for-all in Afghanistan the same
way as it happened after the exit of the Soviets. Some observers think not.
Pakistan
may not survive the ‘fundraising’ campaign by its nonstate actors through
kidnappings and bank robberies.
Anatol
Lieven, author of Pakistan: a Hard Country, says: “According to a treaty signed
by the United States and the Karzai administration, U.S. military bases,
aircraft, special forces, and advisers will remain in Afghanistan at least
until the treaty expires in 2024. These U.S. forces will be tasked with
targeting remaining elements of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist
groups operating from Afghanistan and Pakistan; but equally importantly, they
will be there to prop up the existing Afghan state against overthrow by the
Taliban. The advisers will continue to train the Afghan security forces. So
whatever happens in Afghanistan after next year, the United States military
will be in the middle of it—unless of course it is forced to evacuate in a
hurry.”
If
Lieven is proved right and Afghanistan is not abandoned, then Pakistan’s
post-2013 government is in a fix. It will have to acquiesce in a civil war
fought by Pakistan’s nonstate actors to the final destruction of Pakistan’s
internal peace. Pakistan will fight the 300,000-strong Afghan National Army and
bear up under a lot of drones that may strike further inland than the tribal
areas. The most likely post-withdrawal scenario is that there will be civil war
in Afghanistan. A parallel war will take place between the Afghan National Army
and nonstate actors from Pakistan. One palpable indicator of this war is the
current massive exodus of Afghan businessmen from the country.
The
Taliban will have 25,000 men, counting on the basis of the maximum muster
managed so far. The uneven battlefield will be equalized by inserting
additional fighters from Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban will raid across the
Durand Line, but the manpower they mobilize will have to be supplemented.
Pakistan
expects the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami, and
ragtag warlords of the federally-administered tribal areas and Malakand to
battle the Afghan Army already. But manpower will still be needed to even the
scales and speed up defections. The Taliban will be helped by the Punjabi
Taliban, of which the Asian Tigers are already aligned with the Haqqanis. The
Defense of Pakistan Council headed by the powerful Jamat-ud-Dawah will oblige
with more Punjabi manpower. Its leader, Hafiz Saeed, often claims he alone can
muster 100,000 men. He might send them to Afghanistan to fight India there
instead of infiltrating them into Kashmir.
Pakistan
is home to the unofficial armies that will enter Afghanistan but it hardly
controls them. Therefore, the blowback from Afghanistan this time will be
transformational for Pakistan. It may not survive the “fundraising” campaign by
its nonstate actors through kidnappings and bank robberies in its major cities.
This trend among the allegedly state-supported jihadi outfits has been in
evidence.
What
the next government will be most hard put to face is the growing alienation of
Pakistanis with democracy and a compensating support of the Army. A recent
survey commissioned by the British Council found that the Pakistani mind, as
represented by 18 to 29 year olds, preferred the Army and Islam to the
currently functioning democratic institutions. They all want change: not a change
strengthening democracy and its institutions, but a revolution that brings
about an Islamic order already pledged by Al Qaeda’s current chief, Ayman
al-Zawahiri, in his book about Pakistan, The Morning and the Lamp. If the youth
of Pakistan expresses its allegiance to the thinking of the terrorists and to
the force that is fighting them, then we are in for a period of inchoate policy
certain to booby-trap an already punch-drunk economy.
No
Way, ANA
The
next government will find it difficult to regain the autonomy of action
normally expected of an elected government with a majority in Parliament. The
opposition will force it to negotiate tamely with two powerful institutional
leaders—Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani—at the
cost of a considerably watered-down power to act, at least until the end of
2013 when both men are expected to retire.
Pakistan’s
youth seem to want a revolution that brings about an Islamic order already
pledged by Al Qaeda.
General
Kayani cannot be expected to be an individualist. He frequently expresses what
can be taken to be the point of view of his top brass. The mind of the Pakistan
Army was partially revealed recently by Vali Nasr, a professor and former U.S.
State Department official, in Foreign Policy, narrating what he dubbed the
White House’s shabby treatment of his late boss, Richard Holbrooke, after the
latter was appointed as special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
According
to Nasr, Kayani gave U.S. President Barack Obama a paper which said in a
nutshell: “You are not going to win the war, and you are not going to transform
Afghanistan. This place has devoured empires before you; it will defy you as
well. Stop your grandiose plans, and let’s get practical, sit down, and discuss
how you will leave, and what is an end-state we can both live with.”
Pakistan
under Kayani’s foreign policy tutelage is seen today as willing to “reduce its
reliance on hardcore Islamist Pakhtuns and open up with the northern factions,”
but this will likely not happen given the deeply embedded hatred of Pakistan in
northern Afghanistan; and Pakistan, despite attempts in the past, has not been
able to overcome its antipathy toward the Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara communities
because of their tendency to look to India to balance the domination of the
Pakhtun.
Kayani’s
view of the Afghan Army was also unvarnished in the extreme as Nasr explained
how ANA will expand to 400,000-strong when the Americans leave Afghanistan in
2014: “Don’t do it. You will fail. Then you will leave and that half-trained
Army will break into militias that will be a problem for Pakistan. I don’t
believe that the Congress is going to pay $9 billion a year for this
400,000-man force.”
Most
people in the world would lean to the view of Kayani, rejecting the more
sanguine assessment by author Lieven. But supporting the general’s point of
view would carry dire consequences for Pakistan. He is not in favor of getting
the Army to fight the terrorists in Pakistan—all Al Qaeda affiliates who were
once Pakistan’s means of fighting the asymmetrical war with India. And
everybody in Pakistan knows that the police will not be able to take the field
against these well-trained guerrillas, especially after the general’s tough
foreign policy has barricaded the country against any U.S.-European
counterterrorism assistance.
The
Inevitable
Prediction:
the next government will do nothing about the country’s overpopulation since
this would be taking on the ideology of the country and those who, including
the Taliban, stand behind it.
A
joint study by two think tanks, America’s Stimson Center and Pakistan’s
Sustainable Development Policy Institute, released in February looked at the
demographic profile of India and Pakistan in relation to the per capita water
availability from Indus Basin rivers. It warned: “An evaluation calculates that
total annual availability of renewable water on the Indian portion of the Indus
Basin will slip from 2,109 cubic meters per capita in 2000 to 1,732 cubic
meters in 2050. On the Pakistani portion of the basin, yearly per capita water
availability is expected to slide from 1,332 cubic meters to 545 cubic meters.”
Since the issue requires immediate efforts with long-gestation results, the
next government will focus more on increasing conflict than palliating it by
cooperating with India on population increase and environmental degradation.
Prediction:
In 2008, on the eve of the elections, the consensus among the political parties
was that education was the country’s No. 1 problem. No one paid attention to
the crisis of declining or defective literacy after being elected in the
provinces. Far from removing the intellectually challenging ideological defects
that render education toxic, the next government will laboriously ignore the
sector and leave the problem for coming governments to wrestle with.
The
crisis in the Islamic world today is that of education in the wake of the
dominance of religion over secular nationalism of the past century. Pakistani
leaders find themselves intellectually ill-equipped to understand the nature of
knowledge and its harnessing to ethical behavior. This leeching of the
collective mind will continue across many elections and their baleful fallout.
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