Predicting Pakistan’s elections

What should a leader do?

Predicting the future is never easy. All major corporations and nations devote substantial efforts towards devising processes and technologies that assist in managing information and knowledge, and to help understand the future. The more accurately one can grasp the emerging world; the better one can plan and choose the course.

A related debate has to with if deductive or inductive reasoning better for this task. Furthermore, whether the right or left-brain people more suited at seeing patterns and trends and provide the clues about what is coming. One of the key shortcoming in this regard is that human operates from what is known. While new discoveries give further credence to the fact that there is a lot we do not know. Even the best-developed models can be thrown off by a single anomaly, as the proponents of chaos theory would claim.

A lot also depends on the assumptions and frame of reference being used to grasp a given reality. Now a day’s, media plays an important role in framing peoples’ perceptions about what that may be. Despite the limitations, the worse mistake is not to have predicted wrongly, but to have not even made indigenous attempts to understand the future. In absence of this effort, one is prone in believing what others may conceive.

For more than a decade now, the politics of Pakistan has been disproportionately impacted by the war on terror. In addition to widespread corruption and poor governance, this has caused economic stagnation and the energy crisis. In other words, the internal and external problems of the country have become linked. The nation cannot walk away from the war on terror, and the more it stays involved; its economic and security situation worsens further.

For example, two prominent thoughts have emerged about where Pakistan is heading in the US. One of them presents a pessimistic and damning view that the nation is gradually spinning out of control, extremism is spreading, and the point of no return is approaching quickly. The scholars with this view are often older and have been dealing with affairs of Pakistan for an extended period of time. One senses exasperation in their demeanor. It appears to be an after effect of having dealt with the complex Afghanistan situation and the difficult Pakistan-India relations, and to make sense of it in the context of war on terror.

A little bit optimistic version usually comes from the relatively younger intellectual community of the think tanks. The hopefulness is premised on the economic prospects the region, manifesting in the form regional trade and energy dealings. Generally, there is an emphasis on promoting the civilian government as opposed to depending on the military.

On the other hand, it is equally critical to understand the trends impacting the surrounding region where nationalism, conservatism and security concerns are resurgent. The developing global competition between China and the US, the impact of BRICS, and the traditional tussles between the Arabs, Persian and the Turks, are all equally important considerations.

The consequences of climatic changes, especially the frequent flooding and predicted acute shortage of water will have no less impact on the region as population continues to explode.

The key question is how much are Pakistan’s leaders, of all shapes and forms, preparing the nation for these trends and challenges. With in this inquiry, lies another major dilemma that the leaders of both developed and developing world are facing. Is the job of a leader to educate their voters about the most serious issues and provide them with a new vision, direction, and solution to what is not working? Or, do they just simply represent popular voices in the short term to win votes, while leading the citizens towards oblivion in the long run.

The political dynamics of Pakistan, and many other places for that matter, are stuck in a vicious cycle. The past and present political mistakes result in a reactionary cycle. And, the reactionary politics may not be what is required to deal with the emerging world. For example, nationalistic, conservative and religious forces are on the rise in Pakistan as well as in the Middle East. This may have to do with war on terror, change in the global balance of power and associated economic influence. Although it is important to understand the deeper reasons producing this change, more critical is to understand where this dynamics may lead to if left unchecked.

Consider the example of Egypt. After years of Mubarak rule, a Muslim Brotherhood-led government came into power. While the uprising there was spearheaded by younger liberal elements, they were not organized enough to benefit from what transpired as a result of their efforts. Now, faced with economic constraints, the Morsi government is being forced to take some of the same steps Mubarak was blamed for, and in the end may also cause its decay. American economic assistance to Egypt is linked with continuing the peace treaty with Israel. The big question in these circumstances is what will follow if Morsi fails, and will the pendulum shift to liberal forces, or even more radical elements.

As is happening in the region, the conservative, nationalist and moderate religious elements are likely to win in Pakistan’s elections. However, they may require the help of liberals to form the government. Such a divisive polity is unlikely to be highly decisive and the governance will obviously suffer once more. In the long run, continued failure to deliver will result in more support for hard-line elements and against dealing with the west. This is not very difficult to forecast.

Predicting the results of Pakistan’s elections is not that hard. How to avert the expected paralysis is where most of the focus is needed.

To do this will require a visionary, pragmatic, and persuasive leadership that does not have to spend majority of its time on its own survival.

The writer is chief analyst at PoliTact, a Washington based futurist advisory firm (www.PoliTact.com and http:twitter.com/politact) and can be reached at [email protected]