Once again, democracy takes its
revenge in our country. Earlier, in February 2008, it had struck in Pakistan
after a stormy civil and judicial strife ousted a dictator and ended the
ignominy of his eight-year rule. But instead of bringing to power a government
of the people, by the people and for the people as democracy should have done,
we found a foreign-brokered NRO-based regime installed in Pakistan that had
neither the will nor ability to steer the country from the legacy of those eight
years of dictatorship into genuine democracy. It was democracy’s misdirected
fire.
During five years of the NRO-based civilian rule, neither democracy took root in
our country nor did people experience any socio-economic upturn. Instead, they
found themselves stuck at the crossroads of another critical juncture suffering
the worst-ever governance crisis of their history. The country drifted deeper
into an abysmal political chaos and economic uncertainty. The common man’s life
could not be more miserable with spiralling food and energy shortages, unabated
violence and countrywide lawlessness. It was the worst form of kleptocracy in
which the government existed only to aggrandise the personal wealth and
political power of the privileged few.
No wonder, democracy now strikes back with real vengeance; this time, throwing
out the entire ruling political hierarchy. The post-Bhutto Pakistan Peoples
Party stands almost routed from the political scene. Besides giving an emphatic
victory and a popular mandate to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as
Pakistan’s largest political party, the May 11 election has placed in our
political cradle an infantile newcomer in the form of the Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as a potential future player in the country’s politics.
Despite the usual post-election bickerings over alleged polling irregularities,
democracy decisively restores the PML-N to the political pre-eminence that it
enjoyed until it was overthrown by former president General (retd) Pervez
Musharraf in October 1999.
This is going to be a fateful transition in the country’s history. The PML-N
with the experience of two previous unfinished terms, a seasoned and mature
leadership and an elaborate party manifesto is now poised to take on the
challenges of its renewed mandate. It has been called upon to lead the nation
during one of the most difficult and crucial phases of its independent
statehood. The task ahead is not going to be easy. The vast array of problems
inherent in the crisis engulfing the country are a daunting legacy of domestic
and external challenges for any newly-elected government to overcome.
We surely need a strong economic team with a merit-based, professionalised
public sector cadre and small but efficient performance-led federal and
provincial cabinets for effective handling of the economic and energy crises and
dreary law and order situation. Our rulers must realise that our problems are at
home. Their solutions are also at home, not in Riyadh, Dubai, London or
Washington. Homegrown solutions inter alia include, tightening of belts to
reduce governmental spending and borrowings, controlling inflation,
rationalising of GDP targets, restoring macroeconomic balance, banning
non-essential imports and luxuries to reduce the trade gap.
Self-reliance, simplicity and austerity must be the cardinal principles of our
national life in all spheres. Loans are not capital; they are a liability.
Foreign aid and loans must be dispensed with by harnessing domestic material and
human resources. This would require maximising our agricultural and industrial
output, revival of the moribund textile industry and optimum exploitation of our
untapped natural wealth. Corruption must be rooted out from all segments of
society and at all levels of government and its institutions through an
independent and transparent accountability process. The VIP culture involving
lavish perks and privileges and provision of luxury cars to all public
office-holders, elected or unelected, civilian or military, must be abolished.
The PML-N is known for its economic innovations and social vision and must now
resume its special focus on improved infrastructure with motorways, modern roads
and railway lines connecting the entire country and establishment of industrial
zones along the major motorways. Public welfare related mega projects, which
pass on the benefits of development to common people should be implemented with
top priority to mass transit subway (metro) projects for Karachi, Lahore and
between Rawalpindi and Islamabad, and to country-wide provision of clean
drinking water, better health and educational facilities, provision of
electricity and improvement of rural infrastructure.
The PML-N also has an elaborate short, medium and long-term manifesto plan to
redress the energy crisis by increasing our generation capacity in phases and
ensuring efficient use of electricity through effective management and
conservation policy. Emergency measures will have to be taken to alleviate the
excruciating hardship of the people being caused by frequent and long power
outages. This indeed is a governance issue and needs to be addressed by
restructuring of our over-centralised energy sector through decentralisation of
power generation and supply system in the country.
Also needed is the promotion of an environment of peace and tolerance, while
curbing extremism and militancy. On the external front, we need an independent
foreign policy based on the Quaid-e-Azam’s vision: peace with all, enmity with
none, premised on universally established principles of inter-state relations,
focused on protecting vital national and security interests. In the ultimate
analysis, however, our problems are not external. Our problems are domestic. All
the external problems that we continue to suffer have nothing to do with our
foreign policy. They are extensions of our domestic failures, which have
seriously constricted our foreign policy options.
Our foremost challenge at this critical juncture is not what we are required to
do for others’ interests; it is what we ought to do to serve our own national
interests. We need to convert our geopolitical location into an asset rather
than liability and regain our lost sovereign independence, freedom of action and
national dignity. This will indeed be the litmus test of our new leadership.