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Deepening gloom in Pakistan

Pakistan’s nearly four-month-old government is struggling hard to dispel the impression that it is floundering, but it’s a losing battle so far. There is a crisis on almost every front — runaway prices, the rupee in free fall, food shortages, power outages, the tightening grip of the Taliban in the northwest, panic that the United States is about to invade the country, and a shadow on India-Pakistan relations following the Indian Embassy blast in Kabul. The government’s reassurances that it is seized of the situation have done nothing to allay the atmosphere of gloom, insecurity and disappointment. An email joke showing the front page of the Dawn newspaper in 2020 portrays accurately the level of disillusionment : President Ashfaq Parvez Kayani Has Removed Uniform is one headline; President Ashfaq to Visit Neighbouring Balochland, says another; Seminar on 9th Death Anniversary of Sharif Brothers and Zardari, says a third. Even cricket is cheerless, making it possible that Pakistan Loses Series to Hong Kong a dozen years from now. By then, the rupee has hit a new low of 178 to the dollar, and oil is selling at $440.

When the 100-day report cards came in, many in the Pakistan People’s Party, which leads the coalition government, were shocked at how quickly the honeymoon had ended. The most commonly used words in much of what was written or said about the new government’s performance were “drift” or “adrift.” The goodwill evident in March was nowhere to be seen. A recent survey by the U.S. International Republican Institute (IRI) shows 86 per cent of respondents saying the country is headed in the wrong direction.

PPP leaders say it is unfair to judge a new government on the basis of its performance in three months, arguing that the challenges , including the complex situation in the NWFP and the tribal areas, are not of its own making but inherited from the previous government. Eight years of military rule has destroyed institutional capacity, and the increase in the prices of food and fuel, they point out, are not unique to Pakistan but a world-wide curse due to global causes.

But party insiders are also privately saying the government’s failure — mainly due to PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari’s reluctance — to reinstate the judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf hobbled it from the very beginning. The resulting rupture with the PML(N), which pulled out of the Cabinet but continues in the coalition and acts virtually as an opposition party, has led to a paralysis of governance.

As a political party, the PPP is concerned that it has yielded much political ground to the PML(N) after Mr. Zardari’s somersault on the judges issue. The IRI survey shows that Nawaz Sharif is now the most popular leader in the country. The PPP is preoccupied with managing the contradictions of its coalition rather than with the issues facing the country.

Nowhere is the paralysis more apparent than in the government’s confused approach to the Taliban-Al Qaeda threat, commentators have pointed out. Caught between the U.S. demand for “decisive action” against the militants, the fear of being sucked under a domestic political and militant backlash if it goes all out against them, the military’s apparent desire to cut its losses and withdraw from the tribal areas, and its own promises, as well as demands by other political parties, to negotiate peace with the militants who are challenging its writ on a daily basis, the government is seen as — at best — muddling through.

“The reality is that the nation is not clear on where it stands with the U.S. on the war on terror, and it is as confused about its relationship with the Taliban,” Lt. Gen. (retd) Talat Masood told The Hindu. Barely two weeks after a high-profile meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, determined that terrorism and extremism posed the gravest threat to Pakistan, a massive rally of religious leaders and students, marking the first anniversary of the Lal Masjid operation, was permitted in the capital. The rally honoured those killed inside the mosque in the raid by Pakistan Army commandos as “martyrs.”

Jihadist propaganda material was openly being sold at the venue, and large numbers of cadres of banned groups such as Sipah-e-Sahaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were present. It was no surprise that a suicide bomber was wandering in the midst of this crowd, and minutes after the rally ended, blew himself up on a group of policemen, killing 19 people.

A paramilitary operation in the Khyber region of local militant groups was meant to demonstrate the government’s seriousness about tackling militancy even as it negotiated peace with those “willing to lay down arms.” But few were convinced that the government finally had a coherent policy. On the one hand, the government was accused, including by the PML(N), of succumbing to American pressure to launch military action; there were other critics who argued that the Khyber operation essentially targeted non-Taliban groups, more criminal than militant, leaving the real militant threat intact.

That threat emanates from South Waziristan, headquarters of the Pakistan Taliban leader Beithullah Mehsud, once held the mastermind of the killing of Benazir Bhutto, with whom the government continues to remain in negotiations for a peace agreement.

If the operation in Khyber was meant to have a salutary effect on Mehsud and turn him into a docile negotiating partner, that has clearly not happened. The Taliban seems to have only grown more aggressive. Last week, angered by the arrest of a Mehsud aide, Taliban militants laid siege to a police station in the North West Frontier Province district of Hangu. Later, they ambushed a security convoy, killing 17 personnel of the Frontier Constabulary, a paramilitary force. The militants abducted 29 other security personnel from the district, and have threatened to kill them too unless the government frees the Mehsud aide.

Meanwhile, the NWFP government continues to negotiate with other “local” Taliban in the province, convinced that the peace agreements will work even as militants blow up girls’ schools and go about imposing their own brand of religion and morality.

The U.S. holds the government’s negotiations with the militants responsible for an increase in cross-border incursions into Afghanistan. A chorus of demands in the U.S. for unilateral military strikes in Pakistan reflects Washington’s frustration at Islamabad’s seeming unwillingness or inability to deal effectively with militancy. Pakistanis fear that if such a thing happens, the ensuing anti-American backlash would only help the Taliban.

As the North-West ticks away like a time bomb, the government hardly gives the impression of being in charge. The joke doing the rounds is that the tax-payer is paying for three Prime Ministers but not getting even one in return — Mr. Gillani has made it only too obvious that he takes orders from his party leader; Mr. Zardari, the unelected but “real” Prime Minister, has been away from the country for nearly a month; and Mr. Sharif, the “shadow” Prime Minister.

Earlier this month, the country was treated to the spectacle of Mr. Zardari summoning key members of the government including Mr. Gillani for a party meeting in Dubai, where he maintains a home. Mr. Gillani had to hotfoot it to Dubai from a conference in Kuala Lampur. The conclave was reportedly called to discuss the future of PPP’s coalition with the PML(N), and to redistribute Cabinet portfolios. But it only heightened the feeling that no one was running the country, prompting Mushahid Hussain, a leader of the vanquished Pakistan Muslim league (Q), to bestow the title of “government-in-exile” on the present set-up.

Diplomats who interact with top functionaries speak privately of a “weak government” and doubt its capacity for effective action on terrorism or on any other front, for that matter. Its “error” in calculating the new price of CNG was telling. It resulted in millions of people paying Rs. 7 a kg more than they should have. By the time the computation mistake was corrected a day later, CNG stations had made millions of extra rupees, with no word from the government on what happens to that money.

For their part, Indian officials worry whether a government caught so deep in multiple crises can focus enough on the peace process, and address Indian concerns that elements in Pakistan are working to reactivate the jihad against it.

The one major achievement that the government claims so far is ironically seen as a stunning confession of its own weakness – an agreement by the U.N. Secretary-General to consider the Pakistan government’s request for an international investigation into the assassination of Benazir.

The demand, observers say, amounts to a government admission of no confidence in itself, its investigating agencies, the police, prosecution and the judiciary. As it is, the government has all but abandoned the police investigation that named Beithullah Mehsud as the mastermind. Earlier this week, the five suspects who were arrested were produced in an anti-terror court in Rawalpindi, but the case was once again adjourned.

Predictions are that the PML(N) may soon break away fully from the ruling coalition. Such is the disillusionment in the country that there is already talk of the “democratic experiment” failing altogether if the ruling coalition does not get its act together urgently. Even a reported financial bail-out by the Saudi government by deferring oil payments worth $6 billion has not injected any optimism.

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