Addressing a public meeting in Hyderabad on February 23, the Prime Minister said that PPP undertook record development schemes worth billions of rupees all over Pakistan, which was unprecedented in the past 65-year history of Pakistan. The press coverage of this event reported what the Prime Minister said, but not how the audience reacted to his claims. The daily public protests over shortage of virtually everything and pervasive chaos, are the indicators of how the audience must have responded.
The Prime Minister is right about one thing – coalition government spending billions (in fact trillions) of rupees of taxpayers’ (and banks’) funds – not about the development part; there is precious little thereof that is visible to the naked eye. But it does explain why while the public debt accumulated until 2008 (ie in 60 years) more than doubled in the past five years because public funds were either wasted or pocketed by coalition members or by their cronies in state offices and state-owned enterprises.
If hiring more private electricity producers without gaining anything in terms of increased power generation is development then indeed this was done by the coalition government on an unprecedented scale. But should the government be proud of this conduct?
Indeed, the current gap between demand for electricity and its generation is unprecedented in Pakistan’s 65-year history, and what is unprecedented too, is the lack of concern for plugging this gap, as demonstrated by the current Prime Minister and his predecessor. Never before in Pakistan’s 65-year history were Pakistan International Airlines, Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Steel Mills, Wapda, and Pakistan State Oil (to quote only the worst examples) as heavily burdened by debt (and therefore as incapable of delivering) as they are today.
Never before did so many government functionaries (appointed by the ruling coalition government) escape from Pakistan despite being on the exit control list, and never before were so many red warrants issued for their arrest, as happened in the last four years. How the coalition government defied implementation of court verdicts too is unprecedented in Pakistan’s 65-year history as is the highly controversial use of the National Accountability Bureau to protect the cronies of the incumbent coalition government.
Indeed, the depreciation of the Rupee, consequent rise in inflation, and the impact these developments had on the ordinary Pakistanis in the past four years, is unprecedented since 1972, when the PPP first took over the administration of the state. Public protests triggered by sectarian violence, targeted killings, supply shortages, and rising prices of consumer items, are touching heights that weren’t seen before because politicking rather than good governance has been the top priority of the coalition government.
The hallmarks of the coalition government’s tenure in office are the constitutional amendments that devolved authority – empowered provincial governments without first preparing the provincial administrations to exercise their new authority with a sense of responsibility.
In effect, this transfer of authority weakened the state as a whole because its collective capacity to deliver was compromised, which eroded peoples’ confidence in the state ie Pakistan. That this is so is proved by the huge drop in real investment in the past five years.
How will this trend hurt the country’s future and its integrity doesn’t bother the government; it insists on staying in power until March 16 not to make amends for its maladministration but to retain its grip on the election machinery to win (really?) the coming elections. After losing it case over India’s construction of the Baglihar dam on the Chenab River, Pakistan also lost its case at the ICC International Court of Arbitration over the Kishanganga dam, courtesy poor case presentation. This implies lesser water in the future of its agriculture and hydro-electricity sectors.
Put all of it together, and what you live through is a prolonged reign of selfishness that is defended in the name of sovereignty of the parliament that is claimed as legal when overriding court verdicts because state officeholders have unlimited immunity.
Yet, a “sovereign” parliament could neither hold the US accountable for its raid on Abbottabad, nor for the continuing drone attacks, nor try even the known US agent Raymond Davis for the killings he committed in Pakistan in broad daylight. Because the federal or the provincial government did nothing (not even meet the protesters who refused to bury the victims of the February 16 sectarian massacre in Quetta) until February 19, the Supreme Court was forced yet again to take suo motu action.
During the hearing of that case, the Chief Justice remarked that “if the court accepts that the ISI report provided 30 to 40 percent accurate information of an imminent attack, then it is crystal clear that the government had prior warning of an imminent brutal incident in Quetta.”
CCPO Quetta denied receiving these warnings but admitted lack of resources (strength of the police force and gadgetry) to confront such challenges – a conflict reflecting on the parenting and accountability of security and enforcement and security agencies. After this performance, the sitting parliamentarians (all keen on getting elected yet again) are not prepared to comply with the character-competency checks proposed by the ECP to ensure that only those competent to legislate are allowed to contest the coming elections.
The terse response of Chaudhry Nisar Ali to the ECP letter addressed to 249 MPs, whose educational qualifications remain unverified, clearly indicates that the last priority of the coalition partners as well as the opposition parties is the election of clean and competent legislators.
Given the fact that the government intends to remain in command till the eleventh hour, the ECP is unlikely to get character-competency checks legislated for election candidates to ensure giving Pakistan a clean and competent parliament that can deliver real results. This is hardly the setting for election of a non-controversial and competent legislature in the coming elections but it won’t be unprecedented. Pakistan’s continuing tragedy is that we never effectively enforce the requisite credentials for those who adored our legislatures.
What is unprecedented though is the fact that, for the past four years we allowed a government to stay in office that has rendered Pakistan bankrupt not just financially but far more in terms of its image all over the world, as indicated by the country’s current risk and performance ratings. This is a heavy cost that we will pay for years to come. During the hearing of the suo motu case over the latest sectarian massacre in Quetta, Advocate Tariq Asad said what most Pakistanis feel. He said “if we continue to save democracy, lives wouldn’t be saved.”
A. B. Shahid, "A cost we all will pay," Business recorder. 2013-02-26.Keywords: Political issues , Political system , Political leaders , Political parties , Election commission-Pakistan , Railways-Pakistan , Steel mills-Pakistan , Inflation , Pakistan , PPP