Daily Times

The PMLN this week took its place as the second party to launch its manifesto. On balance, it is strong — forward-looking and development-oriented. But like all manifestos released, the challenge lies in implementation.

The messages penned by the two Sharif brothers are intended to appeal to a voter base that reeling with despondency and anger at the build-up of recent developments. Party supremo Nawaz, a thrice-elected Prime Minister, talks of his personal struggle to retain the sanctity of the vote. Including, most importantly, in the face of what he terms the “political conspiracies” that his government fell victim to during its most recent tenure. Shehbaz, for his part, points to how his unfortunate struggle with cancer never once interrupted his vision for nation building.

This is perhaps to be expected given the not inconsiderable political woes confronting the House of Sharif. That being said, the party clearly feels that its non-consecutive record over the last 30 years speaks for itself.

And, it is true, the manifesto does talk the talk for the most part. Unsurprisingly, CPEC features heavily; especially when it comes to the PMLN’s economic record. Indeed, the goal is for Pakistan to take its place among the world’s 25 largest economies by ostensibly increasing GDP growth to more than 7 percent. As an added bonus, there are bullet points summarising the record for 2013-18 sitting alongside promises for the next term. This makes for easy reading but is somewhat lacking in terms of how these objectives are to be achieved. Indeed, no mechanism has been outlined for hiking up, say, the tax to GDP ratio from 13 percent to 16 percent; or what this means in real terms. Similarly, there are no definitions of fiscal jargon for the layman. Just as there is no real mention of budget allocations to finance such proposals.

It is the same story when it comes to promoting CPEC as a game changer; especially on generating employment. To be fair, however, the pledge for the next five years is to create a total of some 100,000-200,000 jobs. By way of providing technical and vocational training. Interestingly, there are no corresponding figures for the 2013-18 period. And while the Economic Corridor was not inaugurated until the very end of 2016, the citizenry deserves to be informed of the starting point. After all, the latter is reminded of how a subset of 23 projects was implemented; totalling an impressive $27 billion. Thus it would have been useful to put on record the number of employment opportunities this created.

Where the PMLN really surprises is in its changed vision for minorities. This is particularly bold for a party traditionally seen as right-wing and at that has become increasingly embattled by a resurgent and violent religious right. Thus the move towards removing from the term “minorities” from the vernacular and replacing it with the citizen-inclusive “non-Muslim Pakistani” is to be welcomed. Though this naturally raises questions as to what this might mean for the Ahmadi community. That being said, the PMLN did pleasantly surprise when it enacted legislation such as the Hindu Marriage Bill as well as working on something similar for Christians. This is not to mention amending the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) to curb non-Muslim forced marriages.

When all is said and done, the PMLN manifesto could have been more comprehensive with a few more details on implementation. But by pushing ahead with it despite the ongoing political fallout — the message is clear. This party is down but not out. It now remains to be seen whether the electorate agrees.  *

Published in Daily Times, July 7^th 2018.