Daily Times

Here? Where might that be? Conceivably the entire state of the universe. Needless to say it would take many years of research and writing to accomplish that task. We will have to limit ourselves to the salient features of the state of affairs in Pakistan.
For a change the news from home is reassuring, even encouraging. Elections have been held and except for a few isolated cases of malpractice they have been peaceful, fair and honest. The process demonstrated that our people have become politically mature. An unprecedented number, about 55 percent, went out of their homes on May 11, the Election Day, and voted. The campaign demonstrated that our politicians had internalised a significant measure of civility in their speech and conduct. Most of them showed their rivals respect. They refrained from making malicious accusations against one another. As some might expect, the losers alleged that the winners had resorted to malpractices. While this may have been correct in some instances, the contests for the most part would seem to have been won fair and square.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is doing well. His observations are possessed of civility, grace, and a large measure of self-denial and solicitude for his comrades and rivals. He respects the PPP’s mandate to rule in Sindh. He has invited the MQM to join his government. Initially, it declined his offer and said that it would occupy the opposition benches in the National Assembly. But it soon changed its mind as had been its custom in similar situations in the past. In Balochistan, Mr Sharif encouraged the nationalists to come together and named one of them, Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, to become the chief minister even though the PML-N had a larger number of seats in the provincial assembly. He could have prevented the PTI from forming a government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but he refrained from doing so because it had emerged as the largest single party in the provincial Assembly. In both these cases he showed not only tolerance but respect for the mandate they had received.
In an address to the nation after Mr Sharif had been sworn in as prime minister, he was frank enough to declare that the problems and crises facing the country were formidable and that it was going to take a lot of belt tightening and sacrifices to deal with them. He has undertaken to practice as much austerity as possible in all of his government’s operations.
The prime minister says that in his reckoning the restoration of law and order, enlivening of the currently sluggish economy, the maintenance of peace and cooperative relations within the region, elimination or diminishing the country’s indebtedness count as his major priorities. Some observers lament that he did not unequivocally condemn the Taliban and associated groups for their anti-state machinations and terrorist activities. It is noteworthy in this connection that he has always had a certain amount of reluctance to denounce the Taliban, possibly because of their professedly extreme dedication to Islam even though they regard all versions of Islam other than their own as heresies deserving to be eliminated.
So, Mr Sharif is a good guy. He is modest enough to say that he cannot overcome the monumental problems confronting the nation all by himself. He needs help from the various relevant quarters such as parliament, the judiciary, bureaucracy, army and organs of civil society. Will they give him the help he is soliciting? He has an overriding majority in the National Assembly. If the Senate, where the PPP dominates, does not go along with him, he can take issues to a joint session of the two houses where the PML’s majority will prevail. The likelihood is that the PPP will not want to fall even lower in public esteem by using its majority in the Senate to place obstacles in the prime minister’s way and thwart his governance. The judiciary will remain neutral and independent and so will the armed forces. The organs of civil society, notably the media, will probably support him if he is going the right way. He may continue to do well by the people, let us say, for another 10 years. He may eventually choose to retire from politics. What happens then? It is possible that his policies and operational style will have made the political system mature enough so that it can keep working to the country’s advantage. Other capable and trustworthy politicians, such as Imran Khan, may appear on the scene.
The efficacy of a political system depends on the people’s ability and willingness to maintain it in good order. Can the people of Pakistan be relied upon to do so? Yes and no.
The people are generally believed to have become politically more sophisticated than they were 20 years ago. They are now better situated to elect the right kind of representatives. Ability and willingness do not necessarily go together. The prime minister’s policies will have to inform the people’s actual behaviour if they are to be meaningful. Here we run into a problem. We encounter a pervasive decline of morals in this country. We have gone quite some distance towards becoming a nation of cheats and liars. Folks have lied to one another probably since the beginning of time. The wickedness implicit in their action depends partly on the questioner’s entitlement to the information he is seeking from his respondent. It is criminal to make a false statement in a court of law where the judge and jury are entitled to the information they require. But it is no big deal if you tell a friend you are feeling well even though you are in fact suffering from a headache. The more serious problem in our society is that the majority of the people think that cheating is all right. The inclination to cheat afflicts all kinds of persons from a vendor selling apples all the way to bankers and higher public officials.
Will Mr Sharif’s goodness trickle down to the people at large? We cannot be sure that it will. If it does not, the implementation of his progressive policies will suffer reverses.

The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts and can be reached at anwarsyed@cox.net