After
Elections Pakistan's
Make Or Break Decision
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON-- Apathy was the only voice left to Pakistan's
voters in Monday's general election. By staying away from
the polls in record numbers they turned their back on the
choices they were given, two alternative anciens regimes,
both discredited, both corrupt, both unwilling or too
beholden to military and feudal interests to turn Pakistan's
many consecutive years of satisfactory economic growth even
modestly in the direction of the have-nots, the overwhelming
majority of this potentially bountiful country.
This is always the country that might have been--might
have been Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia or, these
days, the Philippines, if its corruption wasn't so endemic,
its successive administrations so incompetent, its feudal
structure so deeply entrenched and, above all, its military
spending so high.
Benazir Bhutto, the now totally rejected two time prime
minister, should realize that the demons she rails against
are within not without. They are certainly not President
Farooq Leghari who suspended her rule, convinced that she
and her husband had their fingers so deep in the pot of
financial gain that the corruption of preceding regimes
paled into insignificance. She has lived, and is perhaps
doomed to live out, a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions,
with her husband accused of being behind the murder of her
own brother, in the Bhutto family's internal political
vendetta.
The new prime minister Nawaz Sharif, although not
burdened by family feuds and such deep-rooted feudal
political connections, nevertheless is also weighed down by
allegations of serious corruption from his earlier term as
prime minister. His redeeming feature which, despite the
electorate's apparent low expectations, might give him a
second chance is that he doesn't suffer Miss Bhutto's fatal
flaws of petulance and arrogance. Moreover, these days he
surrounds himself with some high-calibre advisors, not least
the much respected Sartaj Aziz, the secretary-general of his
political party, the Muslim League. We will know if this
government will function well when we see how much
responsibility the modest, but extraordinarily knowledgable,
figure of Dr. Aziz is given. He understands what the
problems are and he has the ability to help push through new
policies.
Pakistan is a country with, until quite recently, a long
history of respectable rates of growth. It has had
relatively few recessionary set- backs. Yet its performance
in improving the welfare of the people is outstandingly bad.
Pakistan's life expectancy is a mere 50 years compared with
71 years in Sri Lanka, its less well-endowed neighbour at
the other end of the sub-continent. Sri Lanka has had
universal primary education for both boys and girls for
decades while Pakistan remains far removed from this
essential goal; its female literacy rate is one of the
lowest in the world. Pakistan won't go forward unless, like
its high-growth Asian neighbours, it puts this to right.
Military expenditure is Pakistan's albatross, consuming
26% of all government expenditure. India and Pakistan are
locked in an historic stand-off with the two countries
spending a colossal $20 billion on defense each year, a
figure increasing rapidly in recent years just as it is
falling in most of the rest of the world.
Despite widespread, systemic poverty in both countries--a
greater concentration of very poor people than anywhere else
in the world--they are spending between them twice as much
on arms as Saudi Arabia which is 25 times richer and which
has both Israel and Iraq to think about.
The running quarrel that undermines the economic and
social potential of the two countries is Kashmir, India's
only Muslim-majority state that probably should have become
part of Pakistan when the British partitioned the
sub-continent in 1947. It has led not only to two bitter
wars but in Pakistan's case to giving the military high
command a disproportionate and unhealthy degree of political
influence. It has also led to a dangerous nuclear
confrontation that is widely regarded by nuclear
proliferation experts as the one most likely to ignite.
If Mr. Sharif is shrewd he will use his new mandate and
handsome majority to take some bold and inspired
initiatives. He cannot afford to confront the military
directly but he can outsmart them. He should adopt the idea
of the former minister of finance, Mahbub ul Haq, and
propose a UN trusteeship over both Indian-held and
Pakistani-held Kashmir with a withdrawal of the armed forces
of both sides to near the border belt. If this were coupled
with opening the border between the two parts of Kashmir it
would give the Kashmiris themselves a chance for self-
government while removing the military provocation that is
leading to constant flare-ups and retarding day-to-day
economic activity.
"For the past 50 years," Dr. Haq wrote last year in a
Pakistani newspaper article, "India and Pakistan have stared
across the border at each other with naked hostility. The
situation looks increasingly hopeless but it is always
darkest before dawn."
This week Pakistan's much derided political class is at a
pivotal turning point. Mr. Sharif, if he chooses, can put
the past behind him and break the chains that for too long
have encumbered the country. Or he can do again what has
been done before, fritter and corrupt away the reputation
and potential of a country that could be one of the stars of
Asia.
February 5,
1997, LONDON
Copyright © 1997 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
|