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Winning battles, don’t lose the war

Ms Benazir has won her first major trial of strength within the National Assembly. Life as the PM of Pakistan has been a series of battles starting from the mixed mandate given by the electorate last November, fittingly she has been triumphant throughout. This is no time to exult but to consolidate, she may yet lose the war. Very correctly she has spoken of stock-taking, to review strengths and overcome weaknesses, take such corrective measures as may be necessary. Those who sincerely wish her well, the motivation behind the wishes for her success the well-being of Pakistan, will watch the process of self-analysis with great trepidation as this promises to be a journey through an economic and political minefield. If on the other hand, her rhetoric is meant as a lip-service palliative we are in for a tragedy, for her and for Pakistan.

Whenever anyone embarks on an exercise of self-critique, many unpalatable things surface, necessarily ugly issues have to be faced and remedies found. There is a cancer running amok in the Federal Government and the survival of the vote of no-confidence was simply remedial chemotherapy, the PM must move swiftly to exorcise the major problems.

Instead of being simply exultant in victory, the PM chose the path of grace by speaking of reconciliation, she is the PM of all Pakistan, her penchant must be to build bridges of understanding instead of widening the chasm. One thanks God that it was not the PM but her mother, necessarily embittered, who spoke of the opposition as the “enemy” in a PPP Parliamentary post-mortem. The PM has spoken of reaching out to those moderate elements of the opposition who can afford her government a working coalition, people in her own cabinet like the effervescent Khwaja Tariq Rahim have been useful in the past in keeping a dialogue going with diverse elements (even drawing Khar back into the PPP embrace), the PM must now make positive moves to translate negotiations into a hard reality.
Her own MNAs have pointed out how her Cabinet ministers have been estranged from them over the last 11 months. While putting loyalists in sensitive Cabinet positions is a commendable practice, they must have the ability to achieve something. Her first priority must be to reshuffle her Cabinet and make it performance-oriented. Whereas her main consideration is economic, putting Ehsanul Haq Peracha in Finance and Faisal Saleh Hayat in Commerce has meant unmitigated disasters. Neither have the capacity to have deep understanding of the subjects they have been entrusted with and have thus become prisoners of bureaucratic machinations. Having no control over their minions they parrot out long meaningless speeches ghost-written for them at various financial and commercial gatherings. Ms Bhutto, if your priority is economic as it should be, then get your A team into the economic arena of government! If loyalists have to be rewarded, then Faisal Saleh Hayat has enough on his plate with Local Government and Rural Development while Ehsanul Haq Peracha can be shifted to where his talents can be better utilised. These are many forward looking technocrats in the Economic Consultative Committee from among the PPP whom the PM can entrust with the onerous task of ameliorating the abominable economic lot of the masses. Mukhtar Awan has done nothing but talk about success, much labour about nothing, the malpractices in his Ministry have multiplied. While it may be politically expedient to retain him in the Cabinet, particularly in the face of politically questionable charges of homicide, some other less fulfilling job may kindly be found for him. When the eloquent Aitzaz Ahsan was made the Minister for Interior, one had visions of a Robert Kennedy-esque performance, unfortunately it seems his hands have been tied by the many other advisory forces acting on his domain. Essentially he is no hit-man and unless the priorities are changing (which may be too much to hope in a third world country) one can safely use his lawyerly attributes in either the Ministries of Foreign Affairs or Justice, sending the efficient but essentially non-innovative Mandarin, the Sahibzada, into honourable retirement as an elder sage. As far as Jahangir Badar is concerned, one has to see his performance to believe it, one commiserates with the PM. He may be a great party loyalist, his skills are better utilised in organizing the street power that is one of the essentials of politics in Pakistan. The PM can probably safely elevate Shahnaz Wazir Ali to stop the controversy raised over Mr G M Shah.

The Sindh situation must get the PM’s next urgent attention. There are two potential problems in Sindh compounded by many other external forces. The first problem is the sheer lawlessness in the interior of Sindh bordering on anarchy cleverly being given a political colour by Jeay Sindh activists. Essentially her partymen have been on the defensive because of the PPP-MQM Accord. Divesture of the agreement will not solve her problems in the rural areas but on the other hand potentially loses her control in the critical urban areas like Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Mirpurkhas. For the sake of this country the PPP and MQM must find common ground, the MQM cannot afford to be isolated in Sindh. At the same time the PM will do well by reining in those elements who are threatening Mohajirs (including Punjabis) in the interior of Sindh with retribution for the breaking up of the Accord. One is 100% sure that the PM must be antagonistic towards this blackmail of sorts, she should be acutely also aware that even moderate forces in the country are NOT going to allow a Turkey Shoot on defenceless and isolated people without dire retribution in kind, with repercussions all the way back to Islamabad. She needs to put a strong and decisive core of her own partymen incharge in this Province. With all due respects to Governor Fakhruddin Ebrahim one did not think much of seeing him enjoying the Sharjah Champions Trophy with his whole family in tow while Kharadar was burning. There are some norms that one cannot exceed, whereas the trip may have been planned sometime ago, good taste and reason dictated that it should have been cancelled. A Governor must be appointed in the Gen Azam-mould. The hapless Chief Minister, Mr Qaim Ali Shah, is probably headed for the Federal Cabinet. As the rumours go, either Jam Sadiq Ali or Makhdoom Amin Fahim may become the CM, both would be eminently acceptable, the latter may even be more effective given the fact that his links with extremists within the party start from his own immediate family and they are more likely to be thus kept in line. As regards the law and order situation, the situation can only be handled by something akin to a local martial law. A Sindh Force has been created but again vacillation has set in. The solution may be to have some army battalions with air-mobility potential under the IG Police. Since the police itself has been made ineffective because of many reasons, not the least being absolute lack of adequate manpower and equipment compounded by threats to their families in the interior of Sindh by dacoits, it will probably be in the fitness of things to have a serving Major General of the Pakistan Army as the Inspector General of Police, Sindh for a limited period. These are extraordinary circumstances demanding extraordinary solutions, the imposition of a form of martial law in disguise but under the control of the democratic civilian government may be one form of co-existence. The Sindh Police has many good officers, the situation is beyond them and fast turning into anarchy.

Some embittered advisors among her close coterie have to go, keeping them on tantamounts to playing Russian Roulette. While the Punjab situation needed to be tackled to force the imperator of Federal Government, going head on was tactless and counter-productive. Rao Rashid has outlived his usefulness and events have overtaken Khalid Khan Kharal’s potential. The PM is not served well by those advisors who have their own personal axes to grind, losing the overall respective favourable to their own PM while they go off at a tangent on personal vendettas. Loyalists they may be, they have almost self-destructed the PPP’s image in the Punjab. As far as Nawaz Sharif is concerned he should read about Hector and Achilles, he is going to be politically around as long as Ms Benazir is PM, the conglomerate of parties thereafter will drop him like a hot potato, that is not even a prophecy, it is a statement of fact. It is in the cards that the PPP may play the Khar-card due to political expediency but it may rebound on her. Necessarily she must have a proper Chief of Staff in the PM’s Secretariat, with no prima donnas among them. Staff work must be silent and effective to keep the wheels of government moving, while her own personal staff cannot take on the functions of her political cabinet they must prepare position papers for the PM as well as ensure that her instructions are being carried out by the politicos and bureaucrats in a coordinated manner. The PM’s Secretariat must be a proper mix of bureaucrats and political appointees, again she must ensure that the politicos are in charge, bureaucrats have a bad habit of becoming Czars of areas that they have not the foggiest notion about, this is more regressive than productive, particularly in the economic field.

In her speech, the PM showed that the barbs about corruption had needled her. Very correctly she challenged anyone to take the matter to court, but given the nature of the Client-Patron relationship in third world countries does she really believe that people have smoking guns lying around? Without commenting on the correctness or otherwise of the charges levelled against her father-in-law and husband, the fact remains that too many rumours are flying around. There is a line that people have to tread when in power, particularly when near and dear ones are in business with the ability to make a fast buck out of the relationship. Mr Nawaz Sharif also has a talented brother, Shahbaz Sharif, about whose goings-on much is bandied about but it would be well-nigh impossible to take his misplaced arrogance to court for malfeasance or misdemeanour. The PM has to put her own house in order, if the rumours of corruption in high places are really untrue, we are lucky but if she really believes that all being said is incorrect then this nation is in deep trouble, that can only mean that her charisma, her great credibility and her ability is only matched with her naivete.

Some of her domestic problems stem from her penchant for lasting solutions vis-a-vis problems with India. One would have thought that the Indian obduracy over Siachen would have disabused her of long-term Indian intentions. As regards Wular Dam is concerned, very correctly she has stated that the problem was not handled properly in the previous regime. Wherever the blame lies and the PM’s version is more acceptable, the problem of Wular Dam remains. Potentially it can turn the vast plains of Punjab (and Sindh downstream) into desert and cannot be acceptable to the people of Pakistan, in short it is worth going to war with India over. The PM has to address these issues over all other preferences, one would like to have peace with India but this region is fed up of Indian imposed solutions. With the Wular Dam, the Indians have a loaded gun pressed down our throat, what is there to be diplomatic about? The PM has stated that the Wular Dam contravenes the Indus Basin Treaty and one of the first things she must do is to hunt out the bureaucrats who in the previous (and this regime) were going to put us in a position of accepting fait accompli, no doubt some of them were on Indian dole. Similarly, the Afghan problem seems to go on and on, one wishes it would simply go away. Luckily for her, PPP Superstar Aftab Sherpao is in the Frontier Province, maybe her Federal Cabinet could learn how he has managed to make the government in Frontier Province effective, even when essentially the PPP is in minority. That is political pragmatism above par, lessons to be learnt here and acted upon. The winter is now approaching, with its advent the Kabul Regime becomes vulnerable, she must support the Afghan Mujahideen in their quest to achieve on the negotiating table the result of the successes anticipated in the impending cold season.

The Pakistan nation has been through a severe trauma over the past couple of weeks. While it was unthinkable that the PM would lose the vote of no-confidence since that would have opened a Pandora’s Box inimical to the interests of Pakistan, the PM must get back to home cleaning, even fumigation perhaps. Her first priority must be economic, we are a country with great resources, blessed with an able, charismatic PM having great international credibility. She must now really free the economy from bureaucratic embrace. We must find the “One Window” of investment that we so assiduously speak about and the bureaucracy’s fine hand regularly torpedoes. Unless foreign investment is encouraged in word and deed nothing is going to move economically. The PM has her work cut out for her, as the flair of her speech within the National Assembly on the day of the vote of no-confidence has shown, she has the inherent ability to fight her way out of confined places. The party is over, let’s get on with the business of government.

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