Who Will Form the Next Government in Pakistan After Elections 2013?

[RiazHaq]

Time to update my last set of elections 2013 predictions which were made in August 2012, well before the Taliban started to selectively attack PPP, ANP, and MQM.

Since then, ANP's chances have significantly diminished but PPP and MQM still remain strong in their respective strongholds. In recent months, Nawaz Sharif's PML (N) has also recovered significant ground vis-a-vis Imran Khan's Tehrik-e-Insaf.

The PPP-MQM-ANP bloc can still prevail and form the next govt because the right-wing (PML N, JI, JUI, and I include PTI in that as well) in Pakistan is deeply divided with each party fielding candidates against others and splitting the traditional conservative vote.

Youth and women vote still remains a wild card which could tip the balance in favor of Imran Khan's Tehrik-e-Insaf if there is significantly higher voter turn-out this time relative to the 44% in 2008 elections.

As Pakistanis begin to vote in General Elections 2013, here's my assessment of how the results will turn out:

PML (N) may end up with the largest number of seats but it probably will not be able to put together a coalition.

This will likely open up an opportunity for the PPP to form the next govt. So there's very little chance of better governance in the next 5 years.

Imran Khan (PTI) will most likely sit in the opposition with 30-40 seats....a substantial number to be able to influence laws and policies.

If the result goes as I predict with PTI getting 30-40 seats (substantial in my view), then I fear that Imran Khan's folks will cry foul. But it'll be a test of IK's leadership to cool tempers and work to improve the system and hope that the next election could make PTI a big winner.

Who will win Pakistan Elections 2013? Who will lose? Who will form the next government at the center and the provinces? How will violence affect the outcome? Who is using the mass media for campaigning? Please watch Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discuss these and other questions with Sabahat Ashraf, Ali Hasan Cemendtaur and Riaz Haq

Haq's Musings: Who Will Win Pak Elections 2013 and Lead Next Government?

 

[Icewolf]

How about we find out in a few hours buddy.

 

[Backbencher]

............she tells me , its gonna be Zardari once again .

 

[RiazHaq]

Here's Vimeo video for Pakistan where Youtube is blocked:

 

[RiazHaq]

I congratulate PML (N) on its victory and I welcome the emergence of PTI as a third force in Pakistani politics. It has come from nowhere to become the second largest party in National Assembly and the new governing party in KP. It has the potential to transform the future of Pakistan if PTI does well in governing KP and forces change at the center to bring in much needed reforms. It's a big test of PTI and and a great hope for Pakistan.

 

[RiazHaq]

I congratulate brave Pakistanis who defied Taliban's threats of violence to come out ad vote with 60% turn-out, much higher than the 44% in 2008. If the governance of PPP and ANP had been better, the results would not be so negative for them. This should serve as a warning to PML(N) to perform or else...

 

[RiazHaq]

Former Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf's party on Sunday managed to win a seat each in the National and provincial constituency despite announcing a boycott of the 2013 general elections.

Musharraf's All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) won one seat each for National Assembly and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's provincial assembly from Chitral's NA-32 and PK-90 constituency.

The APML had announced a boycott of the general elections 2013 after the rejection of Musharraf's nomination papers from all provinces and the imposition of a lifetime ban.

Pervez Musharraf's party wins two seats despite election boycott | NDTV.com

 

[RiazHaq]

Here's a Bloomberg story on Sharif victory raising investors' hopes:

Pakistan’s stocks climbed the most in two months to a record as unofficial election results showed a party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif winning the most seats in parliament.
The benchmark KSE 100 Index gained 1.8 percent, the most since March 12, to 20,272.28 as of 2:10 p.m. Karachi time, taking its rally this year to 20 percent. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League will probably lead a government that will support the nation’s business community, said Farrukh Hussain, who oversees about $110 million as chief investment officer at BMA Asset Management Co.
Sharif, who served two terms as Pakistan’s prime minister in the 1990s, will face the challenge of bolstering an economy hampered by a power crisis and quelling a Taliban-led insurgency that has killed 151 people leading up to the elections. The KSE 100 rallied 8.5 percent in February 1997 when Sharif won his second term. The gauge could rise between 3 percent and 5 percent this week, and 15 percent by the end of the year, BMA Asset’s Hussain said.
“With a Nawaz Sharif-led government, we can see a lot of support for the economy,” Hussain said by phone from Karachi yesterday. “Investors would feel much more comfortable with the incoming government.” BMA Asset’s Pakistan Opportunities Fund has beaten 98 percent of its peers this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Sharif’s party had won 127 seats in the lower house of parliament, according to a tally by state-run Pakistan Television. President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, which headed the previous administration, took 31 seats, a third of its previous total.
Slowing Growth
The results set the stage for the longer-term stability of the country’s sovereign rating of B minus, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said in a statement from Singapore today. That’s six levels below investment grade.
Sharif, whose family owns steel and sugar mills, ended state monopolies in shipping, airlines and telecommunications when in office. Pakistan’s $210 billion economy grew an average 3.8 percent each year during Sharif’s terms as prime minister, according to data on the World Bank’s website. Under Zardari’s five-year administration, growth slowed to an average 3 percent, less than half the annual pace of the previous five years.
The KSE 100 Index (KSE100) surged this year as higher commodity prices and consumer spending boosted earnings of the gauge’s companies by 43 percent in the past 12 months, the most among 17 Asian equity indexes, data compiled by Bloomberg showed as of May 9. That profit growth lured $202 million of stock purchases from overseas investors this year, the most since the same period in 2010, the data show.
Attractive Valuations
The stock rally has driven the gauge to trade at 8 times estimated earnings, the most expensive level in almost two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The last time the gauge traded at this level -- in June 2011 -- the measure slumped more than 10 percent in two months. The current valuation is still 44 percent below the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index’s 14.2 multiple.
“Valuations are still attractive,” Muhammad Imran, who oversees about $203 million as chief investment officer at ABL Asset Management Co. in Karachi. “People will take this election positively. Foreign inflows have been driving the market and this will continue.”
Seven stocks advanced in the KSE 100 today for each one that declines. MCB Bank Ltd., the country’s largest by market value, gained 4.9 percent to 261.60 rupees, poised for the highest close since May 2008. Pakistan State Oil Co. jumped 5 percent to 221.86 rupees....

Pakistan Stocks Rise to Record as Sharif Approaches Win - Bloomberg

 

[RiazHaq]

Elections are never 100% fair anywhere-much less in Pakistan. There were serious questions about JFK's win in Chicago Illinois (1960) and George W. Bush's win in Florida (2000) but in each case the opponents chose to back down in the larger interest of the country.

I think the pre-poll rigging that prevented ANP, PPP and MQM from freely campaigning in three provinces is much more significant than the rigging claims in a small number of polling stations, less than 10% as reported by international observers from EU. But, in spite of this, ANP and PPP have gracefully accepted their defeat.

I hope the rigging claims in Pakistan are peacefully resolved by re-polling in affected polling stations where there is solid evidence of irregularity.

It's not in Pakistan's or any of the political parties' best interest to plunge the country into yet another crisis. I hope sanity prevails here. Leaders like IK need to play a role here to calm the situation.

Haq's Musings: Who Will Win Pak Elections 2013 and Lead Next Government?

 

[RiazHaq]

Haq's Musings: Who Will Win Pak Elections 2013 and Lead Next Government?

 

[RiazHaq]

Here's an FT report on Nawaz Sharif's plans to revive economy:

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s new prime minister, will appoint private sector managers to run state companies in efforts to revive an economy starved of investment, say leaders of his party.
Mr Sharif, who has been prime minister twice before, launched a similar policy in 1997 when he appointed commercial bankers to run three large public sector banks. All three became profitable and two, Habib Bank and United Bank, were privatised.

The plan faces a backlash from trade unions. Mr Sharif’s aides compared the process to the privatisations in the UK by Margaret Thatcher after she became prime minister in 1979.
Sartaj Aziz, former finance and foreign minister and a leader of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, told the Financial Times: “The formula is simple. You appoint good people, you allow them to appoint their people and you empower them. The government helps wherever it can.”

Officials said Ishaq Dar, a confidant of Mr Sharif, would take up his former post of finance minister in the new government.
Final results have yet to be declared but business leaders have welcomed a vote that will probably allow Mr Sharif, a wealthy Punjabi steel magnate, to have an absolute majority in parliament without the need for coalition partners.
Investors in Pakistan said they were tired of grappling with power cuts of up to 20 hours a day, widespread corruption in public life and an inefficient public sector. Mr Sharif has identified rescuing the economy as his number one priority.
A central bank official said public sector companies in power, rail transport and aviation run up huge losses each year amounting to more than 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product. “These are clearly white elephants,” he said.
Mian Muhammad Mansha, the Lahore-based owner of a Pakistani conglomerate who is reputed to be the country’s richest man, approvingly quoted a reference to Thatcher as a “modern Joan of Arc” and said Pakistan needed structural reforms similar to hers.
“First you need to get all these public sector companies out of government control,” he said. “This will release so much money that they are losing and it will make politics clean.”

The 1997 bank plan saw Mr Sharif’s government dismiss some 20,000 employees who were all given large redundancy payments. The current reform plan may meet resistance not only from unions but from politicians who are used to arranging contracts for their businesses from public sector companies.

“Mr Sharif will have to keep his own politicians under control if he wants his plan to succeed. In the past, many have thrived on patronage,” said Suhail Jehangir Malik, an economist. “Public sector companies are a huge drain on our national economy. Reforming them must be a primary objective for the new government.”
The plan is likely to win support from international donors, including the International Monetary Fund, which is expecting to begin negotiations shortly on a new $9bn loan to stave off a balance of payments crisis. Pakistan’s foreign reserves are equivalent to the value of two months of imports.
“The problem with Pakistan is both macroeconomic weakness and long-term structural issues,” said one person involved in preliminary talks with the interim government in power over the election period. “Given the severity of the economic problems, we do need to have a government that is going to undertake quite serious economic reforms.”
Under a so-called extended fund facility of up to four years, Pakistan would be expected to cut its budget deficit by increasing tax revenues, directing subsidies more accurately towards the poor and introducing policies to encourage foreign direct investment.

Nawaz Sharif takes steps to revive Pakistan’s economy - FT.com

 

[RiazHaq]

Here's an interesting piece in The Economist on decline of feudal power in Pakistan:

A wrestler’s son overthrows the landed gentry
May 18th 2013 | LAHORE

Jamshed Dasti takes success on the chin
Pakistan’s waning feudalism

A wrestler’s son overthrows the landed gentry
JAMSHED DASTI is tired but triumphant. “This is a revolution,” he says. “These feudals never before considered poor people to be even human.” Speaking on May 13th from Muzaffargarh, in south Punjab, he had much to crow about. The son of an illiterate wrestler had just inflicted a humiliating political defeat on the patriarch of a hitherto unassailable clan of landed gentry.
Ghulam Rabbani Khar is head of a family that owns 600 hectares (1,500 acres) in cotton country and is powerful in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). His daughter, Hina Rabbani Khar, was foreign minister in the last government. She did not stand for election, but her father was thrashed, with less than half Mr Dasti’s 100,000-plus votes.
Mr Dasti, in his 30s, quotes Marxist poetry and rides a donkey cart. He ran as an independent, and Mr Khar was not his only obstacle. In April a court imposed a three-year jail sentence for claiming a fake degree; the sentence was later scrapped. He has faced dozens of criminal cases, speaks no English and is variously described as a “thug” or Pakistan’s answer to Robin Hood.
His victory, he claims, is proof of an “awakening consciousness” against feudal bosses. They used to instruct villagers how to vote. Now voters are more mobile and sometimes better educated. Electronic media, even in rural corners, have helped change attitudes.
In Punjab the PPP is destroyed. Elsewhere the gentry hang on; in Sindh, landed families got out the votes for the PPP. But politics is being reshaped. Ijaz Gilani, a pollster in Islamabad, says populist figures like Mr Dasti fill “vacuums” formed as labour-intensive plantations decline, cotton farming modernises and old families lose clout.
Villagers need someone to help them deal with police, teachers and other bits of the state. The local press makes much of Mr Dasti’s readiness, even at night, to jump on his cart to help troubled constituents. He made his name during floods in 2010. He set up a free ambulance service and a bus that, at times, he drives himself. Deference, he says, is out.

Pakistan