Dr Maleeha Lodhi :
One year on, expectations that Nawaz Sharif’s decisive electoral mandate would translate into decisive governance have not been met. Instead, Pakistan’s prime minister has opted for a risk-averse approach, procrastinated on crucial security and economic issues and been reluctant to lead from the front.
This has already earned him strong public disapproval. Only 10 per cent of respondents saw Sharif as an effective chief executive, according to an opinion survey of his first year’s performance by Herald magazine. Almost three-fourths rated his record as “average”.
Yet Sharif started with advantages his predecessor never enjoyed: A clear parliamentary majority, that freed him from the paralysis of coalition politics, greater civilian authority resulting from the rebalancing of power between state institutions, and control of the country’s largest province.
The country’s precarious security and economic situation urged tough decisions and creating early momentum for institutional and economic reforms. But rather than move sure-footedly in this direction, Sharif started in a hesitant way. He did not complete his cabinet and kept major portfolios himself, as if to indicate he lacked a team. Nor were other key appointments made.
But the prime minister showed vigour in launching ‘mega’ infrastructure projects and populist ventures such as the Metro-bus and youth business loan scheme. This exposed a paradox – acting speedily on pet projects but dithering on critical policy fronts.
The prime minister made economic revival and solving the country’s crippling energy shortages his two top priorities. This required a comprehensive strategy to simultaneously deal with the fragile balance of payments and implement structural reforms to boost growth and investment.
His government made progress in economic stabilisation by managing the country’s external position and building foreign exchange reserves. But it did this through external borrowing, not transforming any economic fundamentals. This raised the question of how long stabilisation could be sustained by a Band-Aid approach. Meanwhile, signs of reviving growth and investment were discouraging.
Electricity shortages remained the major hurdle for economic recovery. The government announced an ambitious energy policy, raising tariffs and reducing untargeted subsidies. But uneven execution of this strategy left the situation in uncertainty.
It was on the security front that the government’s wavering stance was most telling. Its vacillation on addressing militancy and insistence on talks while militants waged war reflected confused thinking as well as infirmity of will.
The lack of a coherent internal security strategy and inclination to kick this can down the road allowed attacks on security personnel and key installations to continue, as the armed assault on Karachi airport so dramatically illustrated. Dithering on this issue unsettled civil-military relations when stable ties with the military should have been a high priority for Sharif.
The conclusion that emerges from all this is that Sharif’s governance in his first year has been a throwback to the past, and displayed traits that mimic those in his earlier stints in power. Five are important.
One, Sharif has shown a marked preference for personalised, unstructured governance, which avoids reference to established institutional processes of decision-making. Non-institutional governance has manifested itself in several ways, as for example launching schemes of dubious financial viability without formal consultations that would have subjected these to the test of scrutiny.
Second, decision-making has been confined to a small coterie of loyalists around the PM. In consequence, key decisions have been announced to the cabinet, not taken there, much less in consultation with the wider parliamentary membership. The case in point is how Mamnoon Hussain was chosen as the country’s president and sprung as a surprise on the party.
A third characteristic is procrastinating on taking tough decisions and look for painless ways to address the country’s vexed problems, which require expending political capital and some risk-taking.
Four, Parliament has been treated as a passive body. This reflects another aspect of non-institutional rule. By rarely attending National Assembly sessions and not showing up in the Senate all year Sharif, de-emphasised parliament’s role in governance. Not surprisingly parliament failed to pass a single law in his first year.
Five, Sharif has shown a penchant to accord priority to high profile, attention-grabbing projects of dubious financial feasibility. This has preempted resources that could be better spent on health and education.
Sharif begins his second year with habits of governance that have not produced an inspiring outcome in the past. He now needs to make a course correction that gives primacy to institutional over personalised governance and reform over gimmicky schemes.
(Dr Maleeha Lodhi is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US and UK)
