Daily Times

My fifth grade Urdu textbook contained an essay on good kings. The opening sentence said that the king was just, order and tranquillity prevailed in the country, and the people prospered. None of these things is happening in today’s Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani, with some tutoring from General Kayani, have accepted the fact that their government in Islamabad is despised by a large majority in this country, and that it must mend its ways and improve its image if the PPP is to have any chance of doing even moderately well in the next elections. Its term can run for two more years, but the extremely low esteem in which it is held may trigger a mass movement to oust it. Some of the forces in the political arena are ready to launch and lead such a movement. Mr Nawaz Sharif, the more notable among them, says he is waiting to see if it will take measures to eradicate corruption and otherwise clean up the mess it has made. If he does not see signs of its movement in the right direction, he may take the option of going to the people and urge them to throw it out. One of Mr Sharif’s demands addressed to Mr Gilani is that he downsize his cabinet and reduce his administration’s size and exorbitant expenditures, which are sustained by massive domestic and foreign borrowing.

Responding to these widespread denunciations, Mr Gilani has declared his intention to reduce his cabinet and improve its performance. The 18th Amendment to the constitution says that a cabinet may include as many as 11 percent of the total membership of parliament, which would come to about 42. That is the maximum. In fact, there may be as few as 10 ministers. In a recent move the prime minister dissolved his cabinet and came up with a new one, which consists of 22 persons, but more may be added later. Some of those in the previous cabinet who were widely believed to be corrupt have been sent away, and so have been a few who had done nothing noteworthy in their respective ministries. There are a few new faces in the cabinet but it should be noted that most of the ministers who have been retained were also known to be corrupt. It follows that the prime minister’s operational style remains unchanged.

This cleansing operation may have been tough for Mr Gilani to undertake in that he is said to be a “nice guy” and soft-hearted. It may be assumed that ministers came knocking on his door to say that others, and not they, were the ones who deserved to be removed. The trickiest part of this operation was that the prime minister himself did not meet the test of political rectitude. The walkways of corruption led to his house. He tolerated it and protected those of his friends and associates who engaged in it. It was, therefore, unrealistic to expect that he would take any meaningful measures to eradicate corruption. It is to be assumed also that it was President Zardari, more than the prime minister, who identified the ministers who were to be discharged and those who were to be retained. He made his choices on the basis of his own personal likes and dislikes. Some of the ministers in the former cabinet who had done good work were sent away. They included Mr Shah Mehmood Qureshi, our foreign minister, who was internationally known and respected for his integrity and capability. He had served Pakistan in an eminently satisfactory manner. Some newsmen have revealed that Mr Zardari offered him the ministry of water and power, which he understandably declined. Why the president would not let him stay on as foreign minister is not known. It is possible that he did not want a shining star in the government over which he presided.

Good governance also calls for an appropriate choice of goals. This is a political function while their implementation is the task for the bureaucracy. In a recent public statement Prime Minister Gilani declared that since March 2008 his government had achieved more than 700 out of 1,000 objectives, and that the remaining 300 were in various stages of being achieved. If that is indeed the case, this accomplishment has remained hidden from public view. It is possible also that his claim was a poetic exaggeration. The more general impression is that his has been a do-nothing government. Determination of goals requires insight and vision on the part of those who manage state and society. It may be assumed that they know the current state of affairs and its trouble spots but are not interested in removing them. Alternatively, they may not know what to do. This, however, is not an insurmountable problem: a variety of experts are available to give the prime minister advice and prescriptions. Nothing can be done if he is not looking for them.

A minister is likely to be taken as a role model. His operational style will be emulated. He will inspire the civil servants working for him if they feel that he is dedicated to the goals and missions of the department he heads. Most of the rulers in Pakistan were satisfied with the status quo and their principal objective was to safeguard their own power and privileges. Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto initially wanted to be change-makers but the reforms they wanted to institute did not materialise because they were not well conceived. There was also the fact that they were botched up in the process of implementation.

The choice of goals having been made, their realisation has to be left to the bureaucracy. Maintenance of the status quo is not normally a very exacting job, but change-making is. The officials concerned have to be devoted to the government of the day and receptive to its objectives. They have to work hard at the job assigned to them. Working hard is not a notable component of this country’s political and bureaucratic cultures.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics