At its lowest ebb

The morale of the people

A general state of despair has engulfed the nation. Notwithstanding spurious Gallup (Pakistan) surveys giving all time high marks to the incumbents for governance, ground realties speak otherwise. If there was a genuine way to determine the’ feel good ‘ factor of Pakistanis right now one does not have to be a rocket scientist to determine that it is at its lowest ebb.

Apart from the fact that we are a democracy with a modicum of functionality, there is hardly anything to cheer about. Natural and man-made disasters, topped up by relentless acts of terror and the state of anarchy brought by it, have sapped the morale of the common man, and as far as one can see despondency reigns.

The terrorists are on the rampage, while the state apparatus despite making such hullabaloo about combating the existential threat is clueless about a strategy to deal with it.

The mayhem at a Peshawar church killing Christian worshipers attending a Sunday mass like flies dealt another blow to the already low spirit of the nation. Adding insult to injury was the abysmal response of the state apparatus to a severe earthquake in Balochistan leaving hundreds dead and thousands homeless.

Not a leader worth his or her salt from the ruling parties at the federal level and the rest of the provinces has bothered to visit the earthquake affected area. Even the under-funded and under-performing NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) has failed to rise to the occasion to provide an adequate response. The militants targeted the helicopter carrying the head of the Agency (guess who? Another retired general) visiting the site a good two days after the disaster.

The great Khan has come up with yet another brilliant idea. He has suggested that in order the government to show its seriousness in talks with the Pakistani Taliban, it should allow the TTP to open an office on the pattern of the Afghan Taliban opening an office in Qatar. The PTI chief’s reasoning is simple: that unless they are allowed to open a liaison office how do we know whom to talk to.

The JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has called the idea ‘childish’. For once he is right. Imran should get his facts straight. His lieutenant Shah Mehmood Qureshi should tutor him about the distinction between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban.

No doubt they are the same in their ultimate agenda. But in order for the TTP to open an office – let’s say in Islamabad – Pakistan should legitimise the outlawed organisation and allow it to fly its flag higher than the Pakistani flag.

Imran has added a caveat to the talks. They should be held within the ambit of the constitution, an element missing in the APC held earlier this month, to which PTI is a signatory.

Talk, talk, talk or fight, the polity is utterly confused. With who to talk to and on what agenda no one knows. Those who by tradition and through sheer barrel of the gun set the agenda are keeping their cards close to their chest.

Meanwhile the perennially sick economy is in a fresh bout of a downward spiral. The rupee is in a continuous free fall, trading as much as low as 112 to a US dollar and then, thanks to the State Banks’ intervention, dropping to 107. The swift dollarization of the economy has its appended consequences.

It’s a double whammy for Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and his boss. On the one side is the IMF bailout with its front-loaded conditionalities. Without the loan the country would have defaulted. On the other hand the IMF package entails more taxes, less subsidies, rising of the interest rate and a realistic value of the rupee, and consequently galloping inflation.

Unfortunately the PML-N government is still loath to burden its core constituencies – the trading and big business classes. Some of the taxation imposed on the big fish in the budget has been quietly withdrawn.

The hapless fixed income person on the street is being made to suffer. During this mess the finance minister should be seen more visibly tweaking the economy rather than leaving it to ubiquitous bureaucrats who have served virtually every government in similar capacities.

But it seems that Dar has assumed the role of a de facto deputy prime minister. He is omnipresent virtually in every meeting chaired by the prime minister and on his foreign visits. And he is the one sent on fire-fighting political missions.

Best of luck to Mr Dar, but the dire straits of the economy however require physical presence of the finance minister at his Q Block headquarters in Islamabad.

Blaming the previous government for our economic malaise, no matter how true simply does not wash any more. It needs vision and tenacity to extricate the country from its present morass. And it is somehow lacking despite the PML-N being in the government for more than 100 days.

Ch Iftikhar, the Chief justice of Pakistan has lamented that martial law regimes were better than democratic governments in the sense that they held local body elections while democratic governments were loath to do so.

Who knows better than the CJP what havoc successive martial law governments heaped on the country? He himself faced Musharraf’s wrath.

Nonetheless his frustration with the present democratic dispensation’s stonewalling the constitutional requirement of holding local bodies’ elections is understandable. However, there is a cogent reason behind why dictators are so enthused to hold local bodies elections and democrats are not.

Whether it was Gen Zia up Haq, Musharraf or before them Field Marshal Ayub Khan, they used such machinations to subvert the will of the people in the name of taking “democracy to the grassroots”. By sheer bribery through development funds they created a comprador class, they thought would ultimately replace traditional politicians.

What has happened in the process that most of the parliamentarians see themselves as repository of patronage and development funds rather than legislators or lawmakers! Naturally they view local bodies as another tier of government that will encroach on the turf they consider their birthright.

The opposition laments the fact that ministers hardly attend sessions of the parliament. Why should they when the prime minister and chief ministers are mostly absent from assembly sessions?

The ‘legislators’ are quite well aware that power lies elsewhere. The parliament is treated not as an end but means to an end. Such is our flawed democracy.

The writer is Editor, Pakistan Today.