Najam Sethi's Editorials

Najam Sethi’s Editorials (Volume 7) From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif, 2013 - Continue By Najam Sethi Volume: 7: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back - Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif, 2013 - Continue Old and new scripts May 24-30, 2013 - Vol. XXV, No. 15 The people of Pakistan have posed an existential challenge to the five political parties - the PPP, PMLN, MQM, PTI and ANP - that define and dominate the country's political system. How these parties rise or fall will determine not just their own future but also that of Pakistan. The PPP has been reduced from being a populist anti-establishment national party to a pro-establishment regional party. The challenge before it in the next five years is to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and reinvent itself as a mainstream contender for power under a dynamic new leadership. This is no mean task, given the paucity of leaders and ideas in the party. After leaving the Presidency in September, Mr Asif Zardari is expected to make way for Bilawal Bhutto. But the lad won't be ready to don the mantle of the sole spokesman for many years. Worse, because of continuing neglect and sore disappointment, the ideological PPP voter, rich or poor, has drifted into the camp of the PMLN and PTI in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Wooing it back won't be easy. The PMLN has been upgraded from being a pro-establishment conservative Punjab party into a populist, even anti-establishment, national ruling party with alliance partners in every province. The unprecedented challenge before it in the next five years is to reinvent Pakistan via a paradigm change in economy and national security. This will require wisdom and vision, both of which are in short supply in the rank and file of the party. Unfortunately, evidence of appropriate new recruits to instill new ideas is thin on the ground. It is a moot question, therefore, how the old guard will cope with the harsh new realities. The PMLN will also have to learn how to work productively with the military instead of trying to undermine it or being undermined by it. In order to do this it will have to fashion new institutional mechanisms for dialogue on policy and implementation in unchartered waters. The MQM faces the prospect of internal division on account of a loss of confidence in the ability of Altaf Hussain to lead the party from precarious exile in London and political displacement on account of the rise of the PTI in the upper middle class areas of Karachi. Indeed, its participation in a provincial government in Sindh on its own terms as in the past is by no means certain while it will certainly not be part of the ruling alliance in Islamabad. If its militant writ was earlier challenged by the influx of ethnic Pakhtuns and Afghans into Karachi over the last decade, its electoral footprint has been trampled over by the passionate youth of the PTI. The challenge before it is to elect a new leadership that abandons the path of violence and blackmail and dedicates itself to true and accountable service of the people. 2 Volume: 7: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back - Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif, 2013 - Continue The PTI's electoral revival too is fraught with an unprecedented challenge. By being asked to form the government in KP, It has been thrust into the heat and dust of battle on the day following the general election. An alliance with the arch- conservative religious Jamaat-e-Islami will alienate many among its upwardly mobile supporters. Attempts to negotiate a peace deal with the unyielding Taliban will put it squarely in the jaws of the security establishment. Political failure in a front line province whose well being has been the bedrock of Imran Khan's anti- imperialist rhetoric and mantra of change could become a graveyard for the PTI. The ANP has been the worst victim of the people's wrath. It has been decimated, partly because of violent targeting by the Taliban and partly because of its dismal performance in government. Its avowedly secular nationalism has evaporated in the face of political opportunism. Unable to fight the Taliban to the bitter end and unwilling to embrace the military fully, it ended up suing for a dubious peace and losing its core constituency. The ANP's tragedy is directly linked to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and FATA. Unable to subscribe to the religious definition of anti-imperialist nationalism of the Pakhtun Taliban the ANP has veritably lost its Pakhtun raison d'etre. The rise and fall of political parties in Pakistan runs parallel to the rise and rise of the judiciary and media. Significantly, more than the parties, these two new political forces are poised to play a critical role in determining the future role of the military and the fate of democracy in Pakistan. Amongst the two, the judiciary is likely to be in the forefront of advocating or thwarting paradigm change, while the media could become an unwitting hand maiden to it. All this is to say that the future is still uncertain despite the clear signal of the masses in thumbing down a coalition government in Islamabad. Old players have lost the script while the new arrivals have yet to draft a suitable one. Business, not pleasure May 31 - June 06, 2013 - Vol. XXV, No. 16 General Ashfaq Kayani's low-key call on Nawaz Sharif last week has generated much speculation because both sides are tight-lipped about what transpired. But it doesn't require rocket science to understand General Kayani's motive in breaking the ice with a man who has not hidden his animosity for the military since it dethroned, humiliated, imprisoned and exiled him in 1999. The signaling was apt enough by both sides. General Kayani arrived discreetly in an unmarked car in nondescript shalwar kameez. No battle fatigues, no cap, no swagger stick. The feigned humility was palpable. His host was equally disposed 3 Volume: 7: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back - Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif, 2013 - Continue to signaling his firm stance - the meeting took place in Model Town, which is the office of the PMLN, and not in Raiwind, which is Nawaz Sharif's home. This was business, not pleasure. General Kayani's views on core national security issues preceded him - the existential threat is internal from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar- e-Jhangvi. Both must be put down. Equally, Nawaz Sharif has pledged to pursue the path of a negotiated peace with the TTP and had an electoral understanding with leaders of the LeJ. They couldn't be further apart on both issues. It was on General Kayani's watch that the peace process with India launched by Nawaz Sharif in 1999 and extended by General Musharraf in 2004 was derailed by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayba jihadis in Mumbai in 2008. That one intervention set back the peace process by five years, just as another military folly in Kargil in 1999 had set it back five years earlier. General Kayani is also on record as saying that peaceful co-existence with India will follow the settlement of all outstanding disputes within a given time frame. This is at sharp odds with Nawaz Sharif's view that peaceful co-existence should be accepted by both sides as a prelude to conflict resolution of outstanding issues one by one over an undefined time frame. Indeed, General Kayani's tactical and strategic military doctrines vis a vis India are fashioned in response to India's conventional and nuclear capacity and not intentions or overtures of peace. By contrast, Nawaz Sharif has publicly lamented the fact that Pakistan' nuclear status is at the expense of bread and butter issues. We have atom bombs but no electricity " he declared recently implying that the much-vaunted military might of Pakistan could not atone for its poverty insecurity and helplessness. Indeed he all but said that the former was at the expense of the latter an unacceptable situation. Mr Sharif has also drawn some hard lines in the sand regarding the fate of both General Kayani and General Musharraf. He has publicly said he is opposed to giving tenure-extensions to service chiefs and announced his intention to make the senior most general of the Pakistan army the next army chief when General Kayani retires in November 2013. In effect with barely six months to go this statement makes the forthcoming transition in GHQ both smooth and predictable. Mr Sharif has also been loath to clarify his position about the fate of General Musharraf. While the PMLN has officially said it wants General Musharraf tried under Article 6 for treason Mr Sharif has implied that he intends to defer to the law and constitution on this matter. This ambiguity is carefully contrived for leveraging with the military as an institution and not just with General Kayani who would like to negotiate safe passage for his former boss in order to forestall any precedent of holding army chiefs accountable for acts of omission and commission. 4 Volume: 7: From Blunderland to Plunderland and Back - Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif, 2013 - Continue There is another matter of contention. Mr Sharif would like a full report of inquiry into the Kargil conflict who initiated it and why and who should be held accountable and culpable for the defeat and humiliation which Mr Sharif and his government had to endure personally and politically. But General Kayani would rather let sleeping dogs lie.

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