We know the answers, but will they matter?

The elections are over. Some parties have lost and some have won. However, there were many irregularities: significant institutions failed to ensure an election the people deserved. The margin of the PML-N’s victory is in doubt. But not its victory. The PTI was robbed of critical seats. But not of victory. Protests and probes involving the possibility of recounts and re-polling are legitimate and necessary. Nevertheless, they should not hold the political process to ransom.

The PTI stood for change. The PML-N promises change. It will form the government at the centre and/or will participate in the three provincial governments. The PTI forms government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the most difficult province after Balochistan. It will also be the most prominent voice of opposition at the centre.

The PML-N and the PTI will have to cooperate and consult with each other on many issues in order to discharge their respective mandates. The PTI has been drawn into a parliamentary and status quo political process which can at best facilitate top-down change. Real change, however, is always bottom-up and movement based.

The history of Pakistan suggests that every elected civilian government tends to lose much of its political legitimacy within a year. This is because the status quo, within which it operates, hinders essential structural change. Will the PML-N be an exception this time? If so, it will be entitled to the continued support of even those who did not vote for it. If not, the PTI will have a golden opportunity to become the most credible alternative, if it is able to retain and build on its own credibility in the KP, provide credible opposition at the centre, and re-emerge as a movement for structural change.

The scene is set for a possible transformation from a soft and systemically dysfunctional state to an institutionalised, rule of law based, developing and participatory state. This will require more than good governance. It will require the vigilance of an active and informed civil society. Can the civil society rise to the occasion? Is our newly-elected leadership sufficiently interested in such a prospect? Will it be deterred by the fact that very difficult choices will need to be made since there will be strong institutional and political opposition to structural changes?

Will the newly-elected leadership run the political risks of progressively overcoming the resistance of a whole array of powerful institutions and vested interests? How will it evaluate the political cost-benefit ratio of such an effort? Outside the context of a national political movement, any assessment is likely to be discouraging.

A road map for a national transformation agenda will be required. Even though it can only be indicative, it will need to be detailed, timelined and subject to ongoing review so that progress can be chartered, measured and assessed by the general public. The driving power for such an agenda will need to come from the commitment of the political leadership. Its feasibility will come from the systematic utilisation of relevant experience and independent expertise. Its sustainability will come from the people’s engagement and support leading to their ownership of the process.

Since the accompanying narrative for such a transformational exercise must resonate with the political sensibility of a Muslim polity it should not shy away from the use of concepts and terminology drawn from Islamic political tradition.

They must, however, always allow and guarantee both political space and the whole range of political and human rights protection for the whole range of ‘minorities.’ They must make the constitution of Pakistan come alive. Without such political understanding, what value can be attached to the reiteration of ‘sincere’ political pledges?

So what are the challenges and the questions we shall need to find answers to over the next five years? Will the PML-N government be able to assert civilian supremacy and control over the national security policy and policies towards the US, Afghanistan and India? Or will unelected power constituencies continue to determine the essential orientation and limits of these policies? Will foreign policy be rooted in the national security policy? Or will it be the external dimension of a national transformation policy rooted in the maximisation of the quantity and quality (distribution) of economic growth?

Will our US, Afghan, Indian (including Kashmir) and security policies complicate a timelined transformation agenda? Or will they be tailored to serve it? Actual answers to these questions will reveal whether Pakistan essentially remains an elite security state prone to the usual crisis after crisis, or moves rapidly towards a welfare development state that breaks out of the enveloping mould of a failing state.

There will be other critical challenges. Will the ongoing secret war in Balochistan be terminated? Will a judicial, political, economic and reconciliation process of reversing the deep alienation of large segments of the Baloch get underway? This alienation is a cancer in the body politics of Pakistan. It will prove fatal if not treated and cured. It cannot be excised through black operations carried out through recruited thugs and killers. While this is easily understood, will we have a political leadership that is able and courageous enough to do, not just say, the right thing? The answers will be apparent within the following weeks.

Will the fiscal situation be addressed through a doubling of the ratio of direct tax revenue to GDP? Will ‘the three expenditures’ – administration, military and debt repayment – be curbed to an extent that allows a significant amount of development expenditure to be financed from domestic resources? Will the process be transparent and subject to parliamentary scrutiny? Will agricultural income be taxed?

Will inflationary financing (which is a direct and evil tax on the poor) be minimised? Will a mechanism be put in place that ensures that parliamentarians file their tax returns truthfully and without exception on pain of severe penalties? Will a war on corruption be launched that is quickly reflected in the ratings of Transparency International Pakistan?

There will be a host of objectors making seemingly impressive arguments against any such endeavours. References to the business and investment climate etc will be made. Will such arguments prevail as they always have in the past? Will the ‘exemption raj’ continue? Will the documentation of the economy be a priority? Will trade and debt management policies enable the rupee to stabilise at around Rs80 against the dollar before strengthening further? The first 100 days will make clear what is likely to be done or left undone on such issues over the next five years.

The growth rates of the economy, employment and population; the spread of science based ‘secular’ education; the provision of basic services and the Gini coefficient (measure of inequality of income) together determine the current number of Pakistani families slipping below the poverty line each year. This is ameliorated somewhat by the black economy; ‘biradari-based’ social support systems; a credit based but unsustainable middle class consumer boom; and a tenuous food sufficiency (which is not food security).

Nevertheless, the net rate of this slippage below the poverty line remains significant and has a negative impact on segments of the population that hover precariously around the poverty line. The size of this ‘precariat’ contributes to political instability and the prevalence of criminality, extremism and violence in society. What kind of integrated strategies will be implemented to address these critical issues?

By 2050 Pakistan will have a population of 350 million. Will the requisite growth rates, education system, productive jobs, environmental policies, and domestic and external conditions be in place to prevent the country from blowing apart before that year arrives? Will this even be a political priority? The difference between yes and no will make the difference between decent national survival and effective national demise. Is anyone who matters listening?

The writer is a former envoy to the US and India.Email: ashrafjqazi@yahoo.com