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PAKISTAN: Putting Development Back on the Agenda

Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Apr 2 2008 (IPS) - Pakistan’s new prime minister has announced what many term a ‘revolutionary’ agenda: continue the ‘war on terror’ but on Pakistan’s terms, lift the long standing ban on student and trade unions, raise minimum wages, revoke ‘black’ media laws, provide relief for farmers and observe austerity.

Yousuf Raza Gillani revealed his ambitious initial 100 day plan for his government after obtaining an unprecedented unanimous vote of confidence in the National Assembly. The plan has breathed fresh air into this nuclear-armed South Asian nation where military-dominated politics has long been marked by acrimony, bitterness and vengefulness.

A new in-house advertisement on the popular television channel Geo TV captures the mood: clips of various politicians bantering, smiling and laughing. The slogan, ‘Jeo, muskura kar’ (‘Live life with a smile’).

The country that gave the world its first Muslim woman prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, now boasts the world’s first Muslim woman Speaker of the Assembly. Dr Fehmida Mirza, 51, thrice elected from her hometown Badin in Bhutto’s native Sindh province, sometimes looks startlingly like her slain leader and friend. So Gillani could be forgiven, in his inaugural speech, for twice inadvertently referring to her as ‘Madam Prime Minister” instead of “Madam Speaker”.

Gillani’s acceptance speech after being elected prime minister contained the call for a United Nations investigation into the assassination of Bhutto, his party leader.

Secondly, he ordered with immediate effect the release of the Supreme Court and High Court judges deposed and kept under house arrest since Musharraf’s Nov. 3, 2007 emergency rule. The two major winning parties have agreed to find a way restore them to office within 30 days.

Clearly, the ‘one-man show’ of former military general President Pervez Musharraf, who still enjoys Washington’s support, is over. The incoming government has declared that all decisions will now be made by Parliament.

Musharraf appears to have accepted the winds of change philosophically, stressing that he is willing to work with anybody and everybody – implicitly accepting even those whom he used to say would never be allowed back into politics in Pakistan.

He was recently quoted as saying that the new order marks a welcome move towards democracy and that he has no objection to decisions being made in parliament. He said he had earlier been pushed into taking charge because members of the previous government kept referring matters to him.

This language of appeasement may not take Musharraf very far given the mood in Parliament. On Mar. 24, when Gillani was elected prime minister with a thumping majority, many eyes welled up as he reached out to wordlessly clasp the hand of 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto who led the victorious Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Earlier slogans of “Zinda hai BB zinda hai” (Benazir lives) were replaced by the “thunderous echo” as one press reporter put it, of “Go Musharraf go” slogans. Some even raised this slogan at President House later that day as Musharraf administered oath of office to Gillani, startling Musharraf as well as the soft-spoken new prime minister.

Many newly inducted ministers have served time in Musharraf’s prisons without charge or on charges that were never proved. Several wore black armbands as they took oath on Mar. 31, in protest against the man administering the oath, whose presidency they consider illegal.

Gillani himself was jailed for over five years, after being convicted in 2001 on charges of illegally providing government jobs to PPP loyalists. Terming the charges as politically motivated, he steadfastly refused to cut a deal with Musharraf and switch sides in return for his freedom, inspiring widespread admiration.

This is the first time that a prime minister in Pakistan has been elected from the largely underdeveloped semi-desert rural area known as the Seraiki belt, famous for its Sufi culture and folklore, straddling two provinces, southern Punjab and northern Sindh.

Gillani’s first speech after having obtained the Parliament’s vote of confidence on Mar. 29 came as a surprise even for those who had been engaged in making policies for the PPP. “He included points that we have been working on for the past two years with the party,” well-known economist Kaiser Bengali told IPS. “But I hadn’t seen the draft, so I had no idea he was going to include them.”

Bengali found it “refreshing” that for the first time in eight years, a prime minister of Pakistan was referring to crucial issues like poverty, housing, employment, and “not in technocratic terms”. “Suddenly we have a prime minister who is touching – no, who is touched by – the lives of the people.”

Measures announced by Gillani include minimum wages of PKR 6,000 (100 US dollars) a month, employment and housing schemes for the poor, relief to the farmers, an austerity drive starting with his own office, and energy saving and environmentally friendly policies.

Some commentators have remarked that Gillani may find himself wishing for a magic wand in order to fulfil the promises he has made. Bengali, who has been working with a small group of economists on many of these issues, asserts that the goals are “do-able, because these promises were not made in a vacuum. All the budgets for these plans (like housing, minimum wages and employment) have been worked out, all the costing is available.”

This holds true not just for the issues Bengali has worked on like housing and employment, he points out, but also matters like energy. Gillani’s announcement that the government will explore the potential of small dams marks a shift in policy. Bengali notes that several feasibilities have been made over the year, including from the World Bank and other agencies. “It’s now time to take them out of the closet.”

Gillani said his government sought a political solution to the problem of ‘terrorism’ and violence in Pakistan’s border areas. Towards this end, he announced that the draconian British era Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) that applies to the Federally and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (FATA and PATA) and has kept these areas outside the pale of Pakistan’s constitution would be revoked. In addition, a special economic package for these areas will be introduced to encourage development and generate employment.

Even government allies like the secular Awami National Party (ANP), the winning party in the North West Frontier Province neighbouring FATA and PATA, and the conservative, religious Jamiat-Ulema Islam (Fazal) initially criticised the move as too hasty.

However, others defend the speech as a policy statement. “Obviously the FCR can’t be struck down with the stroke of a pen,” observed Bengali. “There are a lot of institutions around it. The actual modalities need to be worked out, but the direction has been set.”

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a press statement called Gillani’s moves “an encouraging declaration of purpose and policy… The HRCP recognises that the government is faced with serious economic challenges which require its utmost priority, but these challenges cannot be met unless the rights of the people are fully guaranteed.”

Many ordinary Pakistanis, plagued by high inflation rates, are for the moment at least enjoying the feel of democracy in the air.