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Pakistan elections: Implications for domestic and foreign
policy
Sumita Kumar
May 13, 2013
A clear mandate for the PML(N) will help the next government in
Pakistan to manoeuvre the
various minefields that await with greater surety. The PML(N)
leadership may decide to call
on the independents for support, rather than the PPPP and the
PTI, which may help it avoid
the compromises that a coalition government entails. To an
extent the anti-incumbency factor
may have worked against the PPPP, yet there will remain a doubt
as to whether the PPPP
would have performed better had it been allowed a level playing
field during the election
campaigning. On the other hand, the TTP has achieved its goal,
given that selective targeting
by it has obviously disabled the PPPP, the MQM and the ANP, from
realising their full
potential, with the ANP having been routed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
(KP). The PTI has made
strong inroads in KP and is expected to head the provincial
government.
The terror spread by the TTP in the run up to the elections in
its attempts to deny secular
parties space to function, and to disrupt the poll process,
indicate the need for urgent action
against such groups. The PML-N is against the use of force and
prefers long-term measures
in the economic, social, administrative and political spheres to
tackle the roots of the
problem. Political negotiations have not worked in the past.
Nawaz Sharif, since the
beginning of his political career, espoused conservative Islamic
ideals. During his first term
as PM, he introduced the Shariah Ordinance and during his second
term as Prime Minister
he tried to bring about an amendment to the Constitution (15th
Amendment) which would
entail supremacy of the Quran and Sunnah. His unstated alliance
with religious militant
elements will perhaps make him prefer an accommodative approach.
With the PTI heading
the provincial government in KP, and also being supportive of
dialogue and winning the
hearts and minds approach, a non-military approach may be
favoured, but this will come into
conflict with the armys preferred approach. The links of the
religious right leaning PML-N andthe PTIwith radical elements may
not allow them enough flexibility. It will be important to
bring
the law and order situation under control so that other critical
governance issues can be
addressed.
Notwithstanding a stressful relationship with the military in
the last fifteen years, as an elected
prime minister of the country, Nawaz Sharif has no option but to
work with the army and vice
versa. The army will not be inclined to wrest power from the
political leadership, given its loss
of credibility internationally and the humungous problems faced
by the country, of which it
would not like to have the onus.
Nawaz Sharif has been a proponent of privatisation and economic
liberalisation and took
steps to improve the countrys infrastructure during his tenure
as PM. Now he is going to have
to focus on improving the structural problems within the
economy. The economy has been in a
state of crisis for the last few years with declining GDP
growth, and a high budgetary deficit
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7/28/2019 Pakistan Elections_ Implications for Domestic and
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which has led to decreased spending on infrastructure and
healthcare. Huge subsidies doledout to public sector undertakings
have led to a growing deficit, and the need to fund the
budgetary deficit through external financing has created
problems. In the sectoral breakup of
GDP over the last few decades, significant contribution has
shifted from agriculture to the
services sector, with the share of manufacturing remaining
relatively constant. The
manufacturing sector has been affected by international factors
as well as domestic problems
pertaining to shortage of skilled workers, poor physical
infrastructure, official corruption,
political instability, continuing terrorist attacks, acute
energy shortages and a narrowproduction base. Lack of
infrastructure in multiple sectors has hampered investment.
Pakistans tax to GDP ratio is less than 10% and future attempts
to improve this ratio will not
be easy, given the political sensitivity of such issues. Yet,
given the dependence on the IMF
for averting a balance of payments crisis, the Nawaz Sharif
government is going to have to
carry out wide ranging reforms.
Another important problem to be tackled by the Nawaz Sharif
government is the energy crisis.
Natural gas is the dominant source of its energy supply and,
domestic supply being
inadequate, there is dependence on imports. Pakistan imports
about 80 per cent of its oil,
and rising international prices have led to a shift towards gas
consumption, leading toshortages. Development in the hydropower
sector has lagged far behind its potential. Even
though the country has significant reserves of coal, commercial
exploitation is beset with
technical problems. The government faces a multitude of problems
that make it difficult to
optimise the use of its indigenous energy resources. At the
administrative level, these relate
to inadequate transmission and distribution networks, power
theft, the need for regulatory
tariffs to keep up with operational costs and problems of
circular debt in the electricity sector.
Operational problems include a lack of refining capacity for
crude oil, a faulty price setting
mechanism, and lack of investment to build refinery
infrastructure. In the power sector, the
country continues to suffer from a large demand-supply gap, with
power cuts lasting up to
twenty hours a day, and industrial production being affected in
a major way. The newgovernment is expected to make moves to create
a single Ministry dealing with energy and
natural resources, and to reform the electric power regulatory
authority, the distribution
companies, and the generating companies, and to eliminate
circular debt.
Nawaz Sharif having reached out his hand for improving relations
with India, he will possibly
ensure that trade relations acquire fresh impetus, though things
may get complicated with the
religious right opposing such moves. He should be in a position
to explain the advantages of
such a relationship to Pakistan, given the need to boost a
sagging economy. Yet, one should
not expect a lot of change in policies related to terrorism
targeted at India or its aversion to
Indias presence in Afghanistan. In the run up to the NATO
withdrawal from Afghanistan, thePML(N) government would try to
facilitate talks between the Taliban and the Karzai
government. The sentiment in Pakistan, that it was fighting a
war according to US dictates
within its territory, has fuelled anti-American sentiment in the
country. Tension in relations
between US and Pakistan is not likely to disappear, yet a
complete breakdown is perhaps
not on the cards, given Pakistans strategic importance for the
US and Pakistans
dependence on US for economic support.
Nawaz Sharif will not have an easy task of governing the
country. There are enormous
domestic problems like Islamist militancy, Baloch nationalism,
slow economic growth, energy
shortages, youth unemployment, crisis in education, sectarian
conflicts, etc. There are strongvested interests which will stand
in the way of any efforts to resolve these problems. Similarly,
in the field of foreign policy, the domestic opinion in Pakistan
has fixed certain limits beyond
which relations cannot be improved with countries like US and
India, and outside which fresh
thinking cannot be applied with regard to Afghanistan. If Nawaz
Sharif has to make a
