Daily Times

The other day, Germany-based Bertlesmann Foundation, released its transformation index, which measured the political, socio-economic, managerial and foreoin policy performance of 129 countries around the world. I acted as country expert for Pakistan. The BTI Report 2016 puts Pakistan at 100 out of 129 in terms of political transformation, 103 out of 129 in the economic transformation category and 112 (129) in terms of the management index. Pakistan’s overall status index was 106 out of 129. In the BTI Report 2014, Pakistan stood at 112 out of 129 countries. However, Pakistan’s performance is continuously abysmal. It is marginally above North Korea, Ghana and Afghanistan etc. Interestingly, India is termed as a “defective democracy” where rule of law is misused by civilians as well as the military.

The following analysis is based on the findings of the BTI Report 2016, which covers the period from February 1, 2013 to January 31, 2015. I have, however, extended data and analysis from February 2015 to February 2016 in order to draw a holistic and compressive portrait of the state, society and economy of Pakistan. The aim is to investigate and explain the socio-economic, political, managerial and institutional standing of the Pakistani state to determine whether Pakistan has become a consolidated state or has failed or is failing as a state. To begin with, during the period under analysis, Pakistan’s state monopoly on the use of force was seriously contested by various terrorist organisations, armed sectarian outfits, nationalist insurgents, armed drug traffickers and money extortionists. In 2013 alone, 5,379 people, including 676 security forces’ personnel, lost their lives in terrorist attacks. In March 2014, the Nawaz Sharif government initiated peace talks with the Taliban but it failed to achieve the desired results. The Pakistan military later launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb (June 2014) in North Waziristan. Nevertheless, 5,496 people, including 132 school children, died in terror attacks in 2014. January 2015 witnessed the deaths of 300 people, including 55 Shias, who were killed in a suicide attack on January 30. In 2015, more than 3,000 people lost their lives in terror attacks. In the first two months of 2016, around 1,000 civilians and security personnel lost their lives to (suicide) terrorism. Until the Pakistan state, especially its army, assumes all militant organisations as a threat to national and regional peace and stability, the menace of religious extremism and terrorism is likely to haunt this county of 200 million people, the majority of which lives below the poverty line. Similarly, socio-economic barriers still persist with the effect that more than 25 million children are out of school and half of the country’s population lives below the poverty line ($ 1.50 a day).

On the policy output level, Pakistan faced obstacles owing to ambitious policy goals, lack of political commitment, bureaucratic hurdles and governance issues. The latter is ineffective because of the lack of coordination among civil servants and political representatives. The proper implementation of policy requires financial, technical and human resources. However, the present government has shown a lacklustre attitude towards implementing its economic agenda. Nevertheless, in some areas such as Pakistan Railways and policies regarding privatisation, — for example, of Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) — the government has shown its strength in implementing policies.

Again, in the energy sector, the Sharif government has failed to fulfill its promise of permanently eliminating circular debt. Moreover, Pakistan lacks an effective mechanism to cope with a plethora of intra-state conflicts and rivalries. For example, the issues of water distribution between the provinces, Kalabagh Dam and the distribution of financial assets between the Centre and the provinces has been an intriguing exercise with the effect that the National Finance Award (NFC) has not been negotiated under the current government. This might amount to over-centralisation of powers and resources by the federation at the cost of the units, i.e. the provincial and newly placed local governments.

Pakistan’s foreign policy under the present government has underperformed. Though the PM visited the outside world around 70 times — with an extra burden of some Rs 650 million on the national exchequer — Pakistan was only able to negotiate $ 46 billion in terms of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a couple of billion dollars from Saudi Arabia and revised agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). More importantly, towards India and Afghanistan, Pakistan still has not modified its strategic policy, which is still governed by the military whose top brass has also developed a taste to visit regional and extra-regional powers such as China and the US.

Besides, from 2013 to the present, no concrete effort was made by the representatives of the people to democratise Pakistan in letter and spirit. Both at the federal and provincial level, the rulers personalised power and demanded uncritical acceptance of the decisions made by them. They used the state apparatus and resources in a partisan way without accountability. In addition, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) sit-ins in Islamabad showed little respect for democratic institutions when the former urged the ‘umpire’ (the military) to directly intervene in Pakistan’s politics. The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Raheel Sharif, did play an arbiter role between the government and the opposition. In addition, lack of commitment to democratic institutions on the part of the Prime Minister (PM) can be seen in his almost absence from the National Assembly (NA) and Senate debates. Ironically, however, the PM resorted to parliament for political support vis-à-vis the PTI and PAT. But this may be regarded as an exception rather than the norm. In other words, Pakistan’s civil-military relations are institutionally and structurally fractured whereby the latter has consolidated its position socio-economically, politically, diplomatically and strategically.

What can be concluded in view of the foregoing is that the overall performance of the Sharif government is very low when compared to its goals mentioned in the PML-N’s party manifesto. Much is to be done in order to steer the country out of the multiple mess it is in. The country’s leadership needs to broaden its strategic vision by enhancing local, regional and global cooperation. Moreover, it needs to overhaul existing ineffective policies and eliminate the prevalent orthodox mindset to halt Pakistan’s descent towards a failed state.

The author is a DAAD fellow and the head of department of social sciences at Iqra University, Islamabad. He has authored Military Agency, Politics and the State in Pakistan. He tweets @ejazbahhty