Re: Future govt will have to clean up Musharafs mess... Odds stacked against them.
selected quotes from the article...
there is grave concern about whether the major political parties have enough innovative ideas and the human resource required to tackle the coming challenges.
There is little difference between the election manifestoes of the PPP and the PML-Q as far as economic policy and the well-being of the people are concerned.
Perhaps an even more interesting factor is that of the economic teams of both these prospective parties. The PML-Q does not have any prominent economist who could run its economic policy, and in case the party again comes to power, it may have to continue to bank on borrowed technocrats.
The situation is no different for the PPP, where populism dominates the posture. A repetition of a programme, eg as the Social Action Programme, may not be welcome in the current circumstances. People such as Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Shanazir Wazir Ali may offer the policy depth required in the agriculture and social sector respectively. However, it is hard to identify at the moment an overall economic leader who could translate these sectoral inputs into a broader economic policy.
The exception may be Naveed Qamar, whose experience lies only in privatisation. Interestingly enough, the political parties that do have a pool of economic managers have no chance of coming to power in the Jan 8 elections. The PML-N, for example, has at its disposal the services of veteran Sartaj Aziz, an experienced Ishaq Dar and a fresh Ahsan Iqbal, all of whom have practical experience in public policy.
The Jamaat-i-Islami has the veteran Professor Khurshid Ahmed and development economist Dr Zubair.
Perhaps this is when people start to believe in conspiracy theories.
so not really much in terms of future choices. This explains the lack of any real plans by any major political parties.
slogans, manifestos waghiara laikin kaafi acchay likh laitay hain.