Re: PMLN’s manifesto
PML-N
LAHORE: The cover of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s manifesto for the forthcoming election depicts a clean, green, economically strong and technologically advanced country.
It projects a Pakistan where bullet trains operate, cars run on signal-free multi-storey thoroughfares surrounded by skyscrapers, windmills produce electricity, satellites revolve in space, engineers work on virtual screens, the national flag flutters on large industrial complexes, religion and tradition blend with modernity supported by education — all under the revived civilian leadership of Mian Nawaz Sharif who is shown sitting in a relaxed mood in a JF Thunder fighter with an air force officer by his side.
Five years ago, as the PML-N leaders returned to rediscover the country they had been exiled from, they set simple, uncomplicated objectives. At the time the economy was in a much better shape than it is now, in spite of escalating global oil markets and the beginning of the economic slowdown and financial crisis in the United States and Europe. Power shutdowns were already a norm but gas shortages had only just surfaced, and overall, the energy sector was comparatively manageable.
The people were clamouring for greater political freedoms, their demands spiked by the uniformed ruler who had invited the public wrath with his wholesale sacking of the superior judiciary. Terrorism was routinely blamed on the military establishment’s decision to side with the American-led invasion of Afghanistan.
A fair election, Musharraf’s ouster and judges’ restoration were viewed as the prerequisites to allowing the country to move on. It was these ideals which the PML-N’s election manifesto then primarily reflected, focussing on restoration of the judiciary and, as a party that had been ousted by Musharraf in 1999, elimination of the army’s role in politics. The economy, jobs, education, etc were all mentioned but more as secondary objectives.
Five years on, the PML-N, which has re-entrenched itself in the country’s politics, must set itself new goals. The people are reeling under rising costs of living, rolling blackouts and gas shortages. The urban middle class that thrived under Gen Musharraf is feeling the bitter pinch of growing economic pressures, deteriorating quality of life, and worsening supply of public services like education, healthcare, drinking water and transport.
No party can hope to woo the voters without suggesting a solution to their immediate problems. Hence, the economic revival, energy security and jobs have received top priority from the authors of the new PML-N manifesto, which opens with a ‘personal’ message from its leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif. He acknowledges the “enormity of multiple challenges” and shares his party’s achievements during its two truncated terms in office in the 1990s as also his vision for changing Pakistan into a “self-respecting, prosperous and sovereign nation”.
The economic revival programme is followed by the party’s agenda to ensure food security for the poor, launch a social protection programme (the manifesto clearly implies that the PML-N intends to scrap the popular Benazir Income Support Programme (or at least change its name), bring better education and healthcare to the people, empower women, youth and minorities and encourage democratic governance by holding local elections and reforming civil service and police.
It promises to implement certain actions to improve inter-provincial harmony and remove deprivations in the smaller provinces, especially in Balochistan, ensure speedy and inexpensive justice and eradicate corruption. Civil-military relationship and Pakistan’s role in the region and in the world at large are discussed in a chapter on foreign policy and national security with a pledge to establish a federal cabinet committee on defence and national security chaired by the prime minister to “maintain democratic oversight of all aspects of foreign, defence and national security policies”. Militancy and terrorism have found place in the last chapter, which elaborates on the causes of its spread and vows to bring tribal areas — the source of militancy and terrorism — into the country’s political mainstream and make investment to ameliorate the lot of the people.
Nawaz Sharif is an astute politician. He rarely lets his words commit to anything. The manifesto is consistent with this reputation of his. Barring the PML-N’s strategy on the economic revival, the manifesto also gives little idea about the policies his government will pursue if voted to power.
Mostly, the authors of the document have chosen to speak in general terms to avoid committing anything. The chapter on militancy and terrorism, for example, doesn’t provide any clear direction, let alone a plan, to deal with the menace: whether it will prefer dialogue or use force or employ both the tools while dealing with the terrorist groups.
It is natural to view the PML-N moves in relation to the emerging challenge in its stronghold from Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) of Imran Khan. PTI has in the last one year vowed to implement more or less similar policies on economy, energy shortages, industry and trade, education and healthcare and plans to release its manifesto on March 23 in Lahore. Actually, PTI has already spoken in more concrete terms on these issues than the PML-N manifesto which has taken a full two years in making.
The document appears to have essentially been written from the perspective of a party that has remained in opposition and is going into the new election with a clean slate. What its authors have totally ignored is the fact that many voters will judge the party’s election promises in the context of its government’s performance in Punjab, the country’s largest province, which it has ruled during the last five years. If the PPP-led coalition in the centre and elsewhere is going to be subjected to public scrutiny for its ineptitude before the election, the PML-N government, too, will have to answer for its performance, or lack of it, in Punjab.
