Christina Lamb, the British femme fatale before whom countless barefaced Pakistani politicians queued up to reveal their darkest secrets, says that Mian Nawaz Sharif fancies himself a Mughul king. Last week, her words seemed to ring true. Mian Sahib’s new retinue of ministers (28), ministers of state (18), advisors (3) and parliamentary secretaries (20) is the largest in Pakistan’s history. Benazir Bhutto, who was lambasted by the press for packing her cabinet, now appears to have been a victim of our misplaced concreteness.
Ms Sharif has given a job of sorts to ever second MNA in the IJI kitty. Clearly, he distrusts “unemployed politicians” in his ranks and fears their disgruntlement could become a potential source of instability for his government. That may be so. But why should we get unduly agitated merely by the unwieldy size of his spanking new cabinet? What is more relevant is the conduct of this government to date and a hard assessment of where it is headed. And in that context, we should ask whether or not such changes will help steer the democratic system in the right direction and allow the prime minister to get on with the job of good government.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much scope for credibility on this front. The much-flaunted privatisation campaign has petered out amidst charges of incompetence, blundering and nepotism in Islamabad. The private sector is simply not interested in picking up the debris of the public sector. The IMF’s back is up — our fiscal deficit is running at 7.5 per cent and there is no possibility of reducing defence expenditures or increasing spending on the social sector. Meanwhile, inflation and questionable tax reforms are threatening to sour Mr Sharif’s honeymoon with the urban middle classes and businessmen.
Our foreign policy initiatives have thus far amounted to nought. India is bristling with hostility over Kashmir; the United States is in no mood to condone our nuclear programme and restore military aid; in Afghanistan, despite Secretary-General Akram Zaki’s heroic efforts, an enduring political settlement looks far-fetched as the Saudis, the Pakistani ISI, the Jamaat-i-Islami and the American CIA feverishly set about planning a new military offensive against Kabul. And all this rush to establish a Pakistan-Iran nexus is, quite frankly, neither here nor there.
Worst of all, the IJI government’s credibility has been worn thin by the Cooperatives scandal in which the prime minister and senior members of his cabinet are seriously involved. Many more skeletons will doubtless tumble out of their cupboards in the months to come, thus ensuring an ongoing, ready-made, militant agenda for Benazir Bhutto. The fact that the Jamaat-i-Islami and the MQM, two IJI stalwarts, are at daggers drawn doesn’t help matters much either.
In view of all these intrinsic disadvantages and setbacks, a large cabinet, with so many ministers and advisors and secretaries hankering for privilege, cutting corners and pushing in different directions, is more likely to undermine issues than to provide good government.
What the prime minister needs is not more accommodation within the IJI but more warmth towards the opposition. In the past three decades, Governments in Pakistan have not fallen victim to disgruntlement or palace intrigues within the ruling party. One the contrary, the threat has always emanated from political oppositions hounded by autocrats in Islamabad to conspire with the gentlemen in khaki.
Mr Sharif may look comfortable at the moment. But this is an illusion desperately nurtured by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Although the President may not much care for many of the corruptions and bunglings in Islamabad, he is unlikely to do to Nawaz Sharif what he did to Benazir Bhutto because the alternative to Sharif is only Bhutto. By becoming obtrusively partisan, the President has ensured that co-existence with Bhutto, who commands the burgeoning forces of the opposition and is determined to recapture power, is impossible as long as he is around.
So we are back to square one. As with Zia ul Haq, an irresistible force (Benazir Bhutto) is pitted against an immovable object (the President). One of them will have to give way for the political system to move forward. On this crucial score, there is as yet no light at the end of the tunnel.
While this particular drama unfolds, Mian Nawaz Sharif’s histrionics in Islamabad may only amount to a bit of an interlude. The prime minister may succeed in signing-up all the politicians in Pakistani but there is nothing he can do to erode Bhutto’s enduring populist base. A political system which seeks to define the rules of the game by altogether excluding the Peoples party is bound to collapse sooner or later. That is what should concern us rather than all the Prime Minister’s rather transparent concerns in Islamabad.