The diminution in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s stature began at the pinnacle of his much-vaunted “heavy mandate”. He proudly announced that the crunch in foreign exchange reserves would be bailed out by his rich supporters at home and abroad. But the collection didn’t even add up to the bill for delegations sent abroad to drum up the money. There was very little diversion even from the $ 8 billion lying in fixed deposits in Pakistan. Mr Sharif’’ rich friends failed to deliver. Was it any wonder when the PM’’ own contribution was peanuts for such an obviously wealthy man?
Mr Sharif’s next tried to collect agricultural tax to which his supposedly non-feudal party was committed. At the peak of their leader’s campaign, feudals within the PML made sure the collection was laid off for a year. Retail tax went the same way. This the PM was sure his strong constituency amongst shopkeepers would deliver after he had slashed it down to almost half. That too was postponed till the next budget.
The PM then turned to the matter of investments. Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz embraced the Laffer Curve and slashed income tax rates and import duties across the board. This supposedly to encourage people to pay taxes and to have enough capital left over to invest. But the investment bonanza did not materialise. Mr Sharif followed up with a concessional package to loan defaulters to revive some 6000 closed industrial units. Of Rs 130 billion in had debts, only Rs 1.5 billion was returned by defaulters. It transpires that Nawaz Sharif’s constituency of businessmen and traders loved him but didn’t trust him. How could they, when the PM’s own family is threatened with charges of default on loans it had had written off or deferred? When a visiting western diplomat asked businessmen in Lahore last week why “businessmen are slitting Nawaz Sharif’s throat”, he was told that people pay their taxes to those who pay their taxes.
Faced with an economic squeeze, Mr Sharif resolved to downsize the federal government by 100,000 by end November. In the event, because he didn’t have the Rs 32 billion to fork over in golden handshakes, he has backtracked ignominiously. Instead, his “heavily mandated” MNAs have called on the government to give compulsory employment as promised in their election manifesto. There goes the $ 250 million which the World Bank had promised to pitch into this effort.
Mr Sharif’s other big challenge was sectarian terrorism. It affected the daily life of citizens but more importantly, it cut into the vitals of the PM’s drive to revive the economy. Mr Sharif got his law minister to write up a dubious piece of legislation to curb terrorism, rushed it through parliament, set up special courts, only to realise that he had alienated the judiciary. Mr Sharif also discovered that parts of the law were too rough to yield justice. Meanwhile, terrorism got worse, and the elements meant to take fright from the new law, began to mow down Iranians and Americans. The cavalier way in which Mr Sharif extradicted Aimal Kansi, by breaking the law in Pakistan, has rebounded viciously. The retaliatory killings of four Americans raises the spectre of Pakistani terrorism across the globe and puts paid to prospects of foreign investment. Sectarianism too has degenerated into sub-sectarianism. Today Deobandis and Barelvis of the same sect butcher each other with abandon.
The next big shrinkage came when, challenged by the fundamentalists, Mr Sharif capitulated and imposed a cultural censor on PTV. As an aside to this clampdown, the PM also laid siege to Pakistan’s only other television channel via an old fixed of his, Brig Imtiaz. This assault on the modern media has alienated moderate citizens and the PM’s friends abroad. All this, without appeasing the mullahs. As if to highlight Mr Sharif’s retreat, assemblies in Lahore and Peshawar passed stiff resolutions asking the federal government to veer further to the right. In a country where there is more Islamic legislation than in Iran, the last thing remaining intact is the banking system. After the PM’s task force led by PML member Raja Zafrulhaq proposes the banning of bank interest, Pakistan’s already low national savings rate will nosedive.
Mr Sharif took on the judiciary in his drive to accumulate more power. He went the whole hog after his kitchen cabinet had built him up as the saviour of parliament. Then came the showdown, the retreat and finally the complete detumescene. The PM is now faced with cases in the Supreme Court that could lead to his disqualification.
We are watching the prime minister’s routine act of beginning smaller and smaller till he runs the risk of being replaced. The religious parties, including Mr Sharif’s erstwhile favourite cleric Maulana Abdus Sattar Niazi, are issuing deadlines for the establishment of “khilafat”., Mr Sharif’s band of the faithful is divided into “arain” and “jat” huddles in his bailiwick of Punjab as Shahbaz Sharif runs from pillar to post trying to convince them that his brother is not shrinking. If we had hopes earlier this year of seeing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif grow in office, the flaws in his personality and his intellectual limitations have undermined all the odds.