The following two articles may give some indications as to how the policies of Nawaz Sharif Government #3 might work out:
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Pakistan: Hope in a fractured land | The Economist
Hope in a fractured land
Building a normal relationship with India should be Nawaz Sharif’s priority
May 18th 2013 |From the print edition
AMID some tough competition,
Pakistan has a reasonable claim to the title of World’s Most Dangerous Nation. It has nuclear weapons, a large contingent of fundamentalists bent on wreaking chaos beyond its borders, a simmering conflict with the big power next door and a long history of unstable governments. The atomic armoury is there to stay; but, after an election on May 11th which propelled Nawaz Sharif to power for the third time, there are good reasons to believe that the place may get stabler, calmer and more prosperous.
Given Mr Sharif’s record, such optimism may seem odd. He was a dreadful prime minister in the 1990s—vengeful and autocratic, subverting the judiciary and undermining the press. Nobody was surprised when he fell victim to a coup led by the then General Pervez Musharraf; hardly anybody regretted Mr Sharif’s departure.
But even politicians can change for the better, and while in opposition Mr Sharif has shown himself willing to put country above self. There were several moments when the Pakistan Peoples Party government, led by Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, looked as though it might be toppled by a peculiarly Pakistani phenomenon—a combination of judicial and military power, or the sudden emergence of a religious pressure group led by a Canadian-based cleric. Each time, Mr Sharif refused to help push his enemies out of power, on the grounds that they should serve their elected term.
His closeness to the religious right is a concern: his Pakistan Muslim League (N) party, which runs Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, has failed to crack down on the extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and some of its candidates are believed to have links to the group. Critics suggest his closeness to the fundamentalists explains why more secular parties were attacked during the campaign and the PML-N was not. Yet links to militant groups could prove useful in reining them in.
That Mr Sharif is a successful businessman is probably good news. Militants aside, his party has done a pretty good job of running Punjab, and he understands Pakistan’s desperate need for electricity and roads. So long as his interest in money does not encourage him to pilfer the nation’s wealth, his competence should help it prosper. The markets evidently think so: share prices leapt when he won.
Mr Sharif’s victory was not the only election result worth celebrating. So was the defeat of many of the landowners and clan leaders who have dominated politics in the country since its creation in 1947. As Pakistan’s urban middle class grows, so voters are swayed less by tribal loyalty and more by a government’s policies and performance. That is how governance improves. But the most encouraging result of all is the enthusiasm with which Pakistanis have endorsed democracy. The Taliban said that voting was unIslamic. A 60% turnout said what the voters thought of that.
For the first time in Pakistan’s history, one fairly elected civilian government has served a full term and, in the course of a fair election been replaced by another. Pakistani democracy has never looked stronger.
Troubles with the neighbours
None of this will count for much if Mr Sharif messes up relations with the neighbours. Pakistan is both vulnerable to the conflicts on its borders and guilty of stirring them up. In Afghanistan it has played a dangerous double game, helping the Taliban while taking American money to allow drone strikes against militants in its tribal areas. This has poisoned relations between the two countries: of 20 countries Pew Research recently ranked according to their enthusiasm for America, Pakistan came joint bottom, with Jordan.
Mr Sharif must play a straighter game in future, helping America in its withdrawal and supporting rather than undermining the government it leaves behind.
But it is how things go with India that will do most to shape Pakistan’s future. That toxic relationship is behind most of Pakistan’s problems: the army’s dominance, the soldiers’ habit of ousting civilian governments, the imbalance between military and civilian spending, the terrorist groups spawned to attack India that have come back to bite Pakistan.
Mr Sharif’s election bodes well here, too. He knows that opening the sluices to trade with India would boost Pakistan’s pathetic growth rate. Last time round, he took a conciliatory line towards India. This week, even before his victory was confirmed, he had a long phone call with Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, and told his countrymen that he and Mr Singh would visit each other. Yet
the lobbies with an interest in fostering conflict with India are strong. When Mr Sharif is deciding how to allocate his political capital, plenty should go towards normalising relations with Pakistan’s great neighbour. If he succeeds in doing that, much good will flow from it.
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Pakistan
Hope over experience
Nawaz Sharif’s third turn as prime minister could be his luckiest
May 18th 2013 | LAHORE |From the print edition
SPELLING out plans from his gilded home in Raiwind in the province of Punjab on May 13th, Nawaz Sharif allowed smugness to creep in. His main opponent in the general election that had taken place two days earlier, Imran Khan, a former cricketer, should, Mr Sharif said, concede defeat like a “sportsman”. Mr Sharif’s smiling daughter chirped that the results “were way beyond our expectations”.
Mr Sharif’s win was emphatic. His Pakistan Muslim League (N), or PML-N, scooped 124 of 272 seats, 20 above the most optimistic forecast. Add independents who will join, seats allocated for minorities, plus a few to be rerun, and he should be able to rule without a coalition.
Most of his support is from Punjab, home to half of Pakistan’s 180m people. There, his party also romped home to provincial re-election. Voters in Lahore, Punjab’s chief city, and in the villages, made clear why they wanted him.
Older Punjabis brush aside Mr Sharif’s earlier corruption, sympathy for Islamist extremists, and run-ins with the army. None of it matters, if only he can fix the economy and get the electricity running again.
Electoral violence was high. Around 40 people died, including 11 killed by a big bomb in Karachi. The deaths came at the hands of the Pakistani Taliban, which abhors elections, and of political parties engaged in thuggish competition for local control. Yet, given fears of something far bloodier, the toll was treated with relief.
Violence aside, it was the cleanest election in years. Thanks to a noisy media, an updated electoral roll removing “ghost” voters and enthusiasm for Mr Khan, voter turnout jumped to around 60% compared with 44% last time, in 2008. Despite a history of military rule, Pakistanis showed themselves fond of democracy.
Crucially, the army did not interfere this time.
As for
Mr Khan, despite still being on his back in hospital after a nasty fall, he has much to cheer. Set aside the unrealistic expectations of his fervent supporters, who swallowed Mr Khan’s prediction of a “tsunami”. In reality, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) did well considering that it had no previous parliamentary representation. In the wheat fields of rural Punjab, villagers grumbled that the PTI never came by. But in the cities Mr Khan’s big rallies turned support into votes, particularly among the young, educated classes. They admired his charisma and apparent honesty.
A yorker for Imran
Mr Khan won in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (former North-West Frontier Province), so his party gets to run an admittedly tricky place, dominated by the wild city of Peshawar.
Nationally, PTI ranked a credible third, with 27 seats, behind the outgoing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Bhutto family vehicle that had been in government since 2008. Most important, however, Mr Khan has helped to reshape politics. His focus on corruption and rotten government, and his call for Pakistanis to aspire to better, helped voters to be more assertive. Punjabis, in particular, showed that they care more about government performance than about such abstract if divisive issues as language, culture and religion. After five dismal years under the PPP, a mood change was sorely needed.
The PPP itself is pretty much leaderless—for his safety, the party’s young heir, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, campaigned largely out of Dubai. Once a national force, the PPP was unable even to talk up its anti-poverty efforts, and
it imploded—losing all but two of 44 seats in Punjab. It retains 31 seats in the national parliament, but it has, in effect, been reduced to a rump in its stronghold in Sindh province in the south.
Further decline looks more likely than recovery.
All eyes are now on Mr Sharif, the prime minister-in-waiting.
The PML-N is likely to be able to govern without patching together a coalition. If so, Mr Sharif’s position will be strong, unlike that of the PPP’s recent prime ministers, preoccupied mainly with clinging to office. (Their boss, the president, Asif Ali Zardari, remains for a few more months, after which the parliament and provincial assemblies will choose his replacement.)
One looming challenge is federalism. The next five years could be dominated by arguments between Punjab and the rival parties which run other provinces.
Expect rows over the sharing of limited resources like water, electricity and funds for infrastructure projects.
And then come Pakistan’s activist courts. They could make life difficult for Mr Sharif, for instance, over old corruption cases. Mr Sharif enjoyed close relations with the ambitious chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who took every opportunity to hound Mr Zardari. But Mr Chaudhry retires in December, and
other judges are already setting up clashes with the incoming government. Judges in Peshawar have ruled that American drone strikes against militants are illegal. They have ordered the government to ensure they end.
There is also the matter of Mr Sharif’s relations with the army that ousted him in 1999. His nemesis, General Pervez Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan until a dramatic fall from power in 2008, now sits under house arrest in Islamabad, the capital, after foolishly returning from his London exile with a view to contesting the election. An early test for Mr Sharif is whether Mr Musharraf will be tried for treason.
Mr Sharif claimed this week that he has no issue with the army—and that Mr Musharraf was a dangerous lone actor when organising the coup against him.
The fiction is laughable, but it signals his wish for cordial relations. People close to Mr Sharif expect him to go along with army plans to fight militants in the tribal badlands bordering Afghanistan, despite campaign talk of opposing “America’s war” there. Mr Sharif hinted as much when, on May 13th, he said he would support “our friends”, the Americans, as they prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The armed forces are probably also willing to go along with some of Mr Sharif’s new priorities. He is keen to improve relations with India, wishing to renew a detente he launched in 1999. He makes encouraging noises on topics that trouble India. Notably, he appears open to investigating the planning, in Pakistan, of terrorist attacks in 2008 in Mumbai that killed 164. Encouragingly, the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, made a friendly post-election call to Mr Sharif. An opportunity for sharply improved relations is emerging, though Indian diplomats sound as anxious as ever to miss it.
Better ties with India could help with two other big problems. One is the chronic energy shortage. Some 40% of electricity is generated by costly oil-powered stations. Indebted state power providers are close to collapse, while consumers do not pay their bills. So electricity is often cut for 18 or more hours a day, crippling business.
India is ready to lead a 500MW transmission wire over the border into Punjab. By extending its own pipeline network, it could also help supply natural gas, easing Pakistan’s reliance on oil. Such measures would be a boon for Pakistan’s decrepit economy. So would renewed efforts to unblock obstacles to bilateral trade. Pakistan’s exports to India reached $500m this year—though a record, that is a lamentable level between such big neighbours.
Beyond that, Mr Sharif might dare to think of root-and-branch ways to modernise the economy, as he did in his first, liberalising rule at the start of the 1990s. Then, freeing Pakistan’s economy inspired India’s Mr Singh (finance minister at the time) to do the same next door. Privatising several bloated state-owned firms, or at least running them better, could kick-start the economy.
Indeed, revamping steel and power companies and the national airline could, some who know him say, be on Mr Sharif’s mind. If so, he needs to move fast.
A new deal with the IMF is needed in the coming months, as official reserves dwindle and debt repayments loom. Get the economy going again, Mr Sharif says, and all of Pakistan’s other problems can be fixed more easily.
In the immortalized words of Shahbaz's Freudian slip:
Uttay Allah, thalay balla, tay Nawaz Sharif Dalla.
hahaahhaaa
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Awesome Saeenjee, please do read the two articles I just posted above.
