Throughout Pakistan’s history, both political and economic uncertainties have been a direct result of the country’s leadership’s inability to adopt a long-term approach to address systemic issues. The perpetual state of crisis has persisted due to civil-military conflicts, a complete disregard of the constitution and the rule of law, and elite centric policies that have caused tremendous damage to the country’s governance, economy, human development, social fabric, and its place in the world. The fire-fighting mode that the country has been in since its inception has made the leadership unable to think beyond the immediate and solve problems with long-term view. The short-sighted and band-aid approach is being utilized again now as both the military and political leadership’s priorities are not the people, but about who to keep out of power and who to bring in, while safeguarding their own interests.
The military’s desire to run the country as a security state serves as a constant destabilizing force; through political maneuverings, an elite-based economy and religious extremism supported by both the political and military leadership for their own interests, coupled with a heavy reliance on foreign aid, the Pakistani state is unable to deliver to its people. While Pakistan begs other countries and the IMF for economic aid, the country’s economic policies continue to favor large interest groups and mafias who blackmail the government with strikes, political unrests, and with switching political affiliations, resulting in ineffective governance in dealing with socioeconomic growth and human development. With rising urbanization, a rapidly expanding but economically struggling middle class, and increasing use of social media, the leadership is only fooling itself by believing that they can continue to use the extractive model of the past without causing widespread unrest in the country. The model must change.
While some think that the elections are the only way to get out of the current political and economic crises, they fail to recognize that democratic governments by the three largest parties during the last 15 years have failed miserably to provide any improvement in governance. While it is true that the military provided only limited space to political governments by creating obstacles in their path, the political parties are not entirely blameless either. Instead of taking steps to improve governance and reduce the influence of special interests, their focus was to get to power through the so called “electables” and instrumentalize them for vindictive politics against their opponents.
The military’s desire to run the country as a security state serves as a constant destabilizing force; through political maneuverings, an elite-based economy and religious extremism supported by both the political and military leadership for their own interests, coupled with a heavy reliance on foreign aid, the Pakistani state is unable to deliver to its people.
The recent PDM government, self-proclaimed champions of democracy, continued these elite centric policies to protect their interests. Instead of taxing agriculture, real estate, and the retail sectors, they increased the burden on the salaried class and passed on government inefficiencies to the consumers in the form of exorbitant increases in electricity tariffs. This was all done to keep their electables happy at the expense of the masses in low and middle-income groups. It is naïve to believe these political parties will do any better if they win the next elections, as they have abundantly demonstrated their incapabilities and incompetence. None of them have any detailed economic and governance reform plans, and none will be taking any steps to reduce special interest influence because of their heavy reliance on rich electables to get to power. Relying solely on a political party or a messiah - be it Imran Khan, Asim Munir, or Nawaz Sharif - to bring about the change is a recipe for failure.
With 75 years of bad governance by both political and military governments, Pakistan has become an abnormal country - politically, economically, and religiously. It is time to bring some normality and recognize that Pakistan’s problems won’t be solved by continuous political engineering or by bringing foreign investments from Arab or Chinese friends, they will be solved by moving from a dysfunctional and interest-based governance to people-centric governance with policies for sustained economic and social growth.
To improve governance, Pakistan must address the chronic issues of the military’s desire to monopolize power, lack of competency and capabilities in political parties to govern effectively, elite-based economic policies for self-interests, and poor service delivery to the masses. This won’t happen until political, military, and judicial leadership and other stakeholders work together as a team, define common governance objectives to achieve sustained economic growth, improve competence and capabilities by bringing experts at the top posts, and devolve power to the lowest administrative levels.
The leadership must work together instead of partnering with large interest groups to hold on to power. They need to start building trust in each other and share power to remove obstacles for economic growth through better governance and policies. This is the way other countries have progressed and this is the only way to bring people out of poverty and provide them opportunities for better education, healthcare, and economic well-being.
The recent PDM government, self-proclaimed champions of democracy, continued these elite centric policies to protect their interests. Instead of taxing agriculture, real estate, and the retail sectors, they increased the burden on the salaried class and passed on government inefficiencies to the consumers in the form of exorbitant increases in electricity tariffs.
But teamwork does not fall from the sky, it requires concerted effort from leadership and all stakeholders. Teams that set themselves up for success and achieve their goals build trust by admitting mistakes and weaknesses, encourage open exchange of ideas to get commitment from all members, clearly define roles and responsibilities of each member, hold each other accountable for achieving the collective goals, and discourage self-interests. No sport team can win championships if players are selfish and hog the ball. No corporation can deliver to its shareholders if its executive leadership is engaged in constant politicking and in maintaining their perks and privileges. And no country can progress economically if the leadership is focused on self-interest and power politics instead of the well-being of its own people.
Pakistan cannot progress economically and democratically unless there is a united approach to governance with civil and military leadership working in unison. The leadership must first define and agree on clear objectives necessary to accomplish the committed goal of economic progress. These objectives, or a charter of governance, should consider factors that will positively affect country’s governance including uninterrupted democratic process through free and fair elections, possibly every four years, complete disengagement of military and judiciary from politics and political engineering, a commitment to people-centric governance with economic, social, and bureaucratic reforms and controlling religious extremism, a uniform tax policy across all sectors with direct tax collection from everyone with a taxable income, zero tolerance for tax evasion, and eliminating corruption in tax collection. This needs to be coupled with a commitment to reducing the influence of interest groups in defining the policies with effective enforcement of state’s writ against economic and social blackmails by special interests, the devolution of power and empowerment of local governments with revenue share and collection to improve service delivery to the citizens, effective and enforced conflict of interest policies against government institutions engaging in business activities and elected members and their families receiving economic benefits through government contracts, subsidies, and tax exemptions for their private businesses, and transparency and accountability to build trust with people and control rampant corruption
The leadership should then constitute a National Governance Council (NGC), along the same lines as SIFC, consisting of civil and military leadership, leaders of major political parties, provincial Chief Ministers, and an independent chief economist. Working as a team, this council should define tasks, monitor progress, resolve inter-institution conflicts, and hold each other accountable for a committed goal of sustained economic growth for the next 10 to 15 years.
While this may eliminate the need for military interference and provide political stability, it won’t be sufficient for functional improvement in governance and economic growth without addressing the need for competent and capable professionals for running an effective government. The political leadership should bring a constitutional amendment, giving power to the prime minister to appoint non-elected experts as ministers with a parliamentary confirmation process. This will not only allow the prime minister to appoint best-qualified persons for key portfolios related to economic growth, but will also create a greater separation between the executive and legislative branch.
This will also improve governance by empowering parliament to have proper checks on the executive branch through regular hearings, much like the US system where the executive branch is mostly made up of technocrats, but with congressional oversight on policies and performance. The establishment, which is an important part of government in every country, can continue to play an important part in recommending individuals for key portfolios, such as defense and foreign affairs.
Empowered local governments will also improve the democratic process. These will not only act as nurseries for training future political leaders, but will also give a better option to electables for directly serving the localities of their influence.
In addition, the government should also establish an independent office of Chief Economist. This office should provide guidance to NGC and legislative branch on economic reform policies, removal of economic distortions, monitoring progress and impact of policies on socio-economic conditions of the masses. It should also provide budgetary analysis to the parliament independently, so the lawmakers can fully comprehend outlays and conduct educated debate on proposals by the executive branch.
Finally, economic well-being of the people and effective and efficient service delivery to the masses must be the most critical measures of improved governance. The political leadership must ensure, through a constitutional amendment, devolution of power from provincial to district and cities level. The local governments must have their own revenue source through property tax collection and share in sales tax collected from their localities to provide effective municipal services, education, healthcare, and law enforcement. The local governments should also be allowed to hire for top administrative positions instead of being assigned by the provincial governments.
Empowered local governments will also improve the democratic process. These will not only act as nurseries for training future political leaders, but will also give a better option to electables for directly serving the localities of their influence. With grave uncertainties on the political and economic fronts, the next months of the caretaker government should not be wasted. The political, military, and judicial leadership must engage constructively during this time to agree on a framework for governance which can be implemented soon after the formation of new assemblies, allowing time for needed constitutional amendments. The caretakers can also pitch in to this effort by initiating bureaucratic and FBR reforms with buy-in from political parties that can be quickly finalized with proper legislation once the new government takes over.
With a population approaching 250 million people and half the world’s population in its immediate vicinity, Pakistan provides great opportunities for private businesses in the services sector, the manufacturing of consumer products, and exporting goods and services. Transforming governance at all levels of government will unleash these opportunities, with cities and districts competing to attract both domestic and foreign investments.
This will not only improve human development indices over time but will also provide economic benefits to every income level. A growing middle-class and trained politicians through local governments will pave the path for a genuine democracy. All of this is possible with the correct mindset, long-term thinking, and teamwork between institutions with a singular goal of economic growth. Other countries have done this and so can Pakistan.