Two recent cartoons in the press sum up the prevailing gloom and doom in the PML-N camp. One shows a group of PPP cricketers thumping each other with joy while the scoreboard reads: “Nawaz b Benazir 0, Gohar lbw Gilani 0, Sajjad c Nasrullah b Bugti 0, Shahbaz c Ramay b Wattoo 0.” The other captures the PML-N’s reaction to this debacle: it shows Mian Nawaz Sharif perched upside down from the branch of a tree, viewing the spectacle through a pair of binoculars. This cartoon is titled: “PPP a picture of failure — PML-N”.
A lengthy press statement by Mr Mushahid Hussain, the PML-N’s information secretary, should be read in this context. Mr Hussain has made a number of ridiculous allegations to try and “prove” that in its first month in office the Benazir Bhutto government “has lacked ideas, initiatives and policies”. Mr Sartaj Aziz, the PML-N’s secretary-general, has tried to raise the stakes by comparing the PPP’s “performance” with the “achievements” of the Nawaz Sharif regime in its first 30 days in office in 1990. Accordingly, a government spokesman has been obliged to refute these allegations “point by point”.
Unfortunately, the PML-N’s disinformation campaign has now begun to harm national security. Mr Sharif’s indiscreet utterances on the nuclear issue are a measure of his desperate plight. He has “accused” Ms Bhutto of being a “traitor” for “capping” the nuclear programme and trying to “roll it back”. This, despite well known facts to the contrary. After Ms Bhutto was sacked in August 1990, President Bush sent a stiffly-worded letter to President Ghulam Ishaq on September 18th saying that he had “reason to believe that the status of Pakistan’s nuclear programme has changed”. Mr Robert Oakley, the then US ambassador to Pakistan, said that US aid to Pakistan had been terminated because Pakistan had “crossed the red light in April 1990”. On 18th October 1990 President Ishaq wrote to President Bush saying that “it would be my endeavour that this programme does not advance beyond its present stage”. More significantly, President Ishaq assured the US President that it would be his “earnest hope that this political decision by the present government [Mr Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was then caretaker prime minister] would be maintained by future governments”. In the event, the nuclear programme remained frozen and the Americans were also allowed by Mian Nawaz Sharif to inspect Pakistan’s Anza-2 missile development programme. No wonder, despite their bitter parting of ways later, Mr Sharif has never criticised Mr Ghulam Ishaq over the country’s nuclear policy. He could hardly have done so, having been a witting co-partner in its implementation.
Is Mr Nawaz Sharif, then, simply being bloody-minded? Up to a point, of course, it is his democratic right as opposition leader to criticise the new regime. It might even be conceded that in a democratic system sometimes it is necessary simply to oppose for the sake of opposition. But there should be a fullstop somewhere. Surely, politicians ought to approach sensitive national security issues with a degree of responsibility.
The nuclear question, in particular, doesn’t lend itself to an acerbic debate merely for the sake of scoring cheap propaganda points. If Ms Bhutto had wanted to derive mileage from this, she could have done so when the programme was frozen under Mr Sharif’s government. But she didn’t oppose for the sake of opposition. Indeed, her silence spoke volumes about her patriotism. Unfortunately, this lesson has remained lost on Mr Sharif.
Of course, Ms Bhutto doesn’t need any certification from the opposition leader. She just received a resounding vote of confidence from the very business community which Mr Sharif claims as his constituency. The Karachi Stock Exchange Price Index, which stood at about 1450 points last month, peaked to over 1700 points the day after Mr Farooq Leghari decisively clinched the presidency.
The prime minister’s recent initiatives are transparently sincere. Her cabinet is small, her ministers are clean and competent. She has resisted the temptation to be nepotistic. She accepts the plurality of political interests in the country and her alliances are proof of her democratic intentions. She wants to promulgate laws against drug traffickers and is pressurising loan defaulters to cough up. Various task-forces are grappling with plans to combat inflation, upgrade the social sector, and launch development-oriented projects. Reforms to improve the status of women and prisoners are on the anvil.
More significantly, Ms Bhutto seems determined to end Pakistan’s isolation in the international community (thanks to Mr Sharif) and restore the aid pipeline to the army. The question of the nuclear reprocessing plant from France is again on her agenda. She is scheduled to visit Iran, Turkey and China next month to canvass support for Kashmir.
So far so good, we say. The prime minister is moving on the right track and with the right speed. In contrast, Mr Sharif appears increasingly desperate and forlorn. At the beginning of 1993, he was prime minister with a two-thirds parliamentary majority. By the end of the year, he will be lucky to survive as opposition leader with only a rump of the Muslim League in tow. If anything, he should be scrutinising his own dismal performance rather than going on about Ms Bhutto’s.