Photo Credit: Flickr user U.S. Department of State
In July and August, the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, announced two high-profile reform initiatives to improve governance: an electronic governance program and a wide-ranging reform of the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The E-governance initiative envisages the computerization of government services from voting to the viewing of land records, thereby increasing the ease and frequency of people’s interaction with the state and promoting transparency and reliability. The reform of the FATA is a far more ambitious project as those regions have previously had a centralized regime with political activity banned, a system reminiscent of British rule in the Indian subcontinent. Zardari plans to bring the population of the territory into the mainstream political system by allowing them to join and vote for parties and ending particularly hard-edged tribal measures such as detention without trial and communal punishment.
These are indeed significant strides, but it is debatable whether Zardari, with limited experience in public service and political capital stemming mainly from his status as the widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, will be able to successfully implement such ambitious changes. Expectations were low at the onset of his presidency. Even though Zardari publicly expressed his commitment to gradual democratization during and after his presidential campaign, he is widely believed to have forsaken the Charter of Democracy, which was the outcome of a May 2006 meeting between Bhutto and her long-time political rival, Nawaz Sharif. In that meeting, they established common ground against the Pervez Musharraf-led military junta, including rescinding the power of the president and ending the executive appointment of judges. Zardari has officially signed on to this agreement, but has taken no steps to implement it. One of the primary issues is Article 58(2)(b): allowing for the dissolution of the National Assembly and sacking of the prime minister by the president. Zardari has deemed the internal security situation too serious for this and other powers of the president to be stripped and fears that restoring the judiciary would undermine his rule. Another hallmark of the military’s rule that has stayed fully implemented are the oaths of loyalty extracted from judges, a controversial step initiated by Musharraf in 2007. Furthermore, Zardari’s mindset brings him into frequent conflict with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, who is unenthusiastic about Zardari’s policies and appointment of friends with no political experience into important positions.
In addition to adopting this undedicated approach to democratic reform, Zardari has implemented several policies with distinctly authoritarian features. For example, he recently passed the Cyber Crimes Act, under which jokes that insult the political leadership electronically can be traced and the people responsible prosecuted. Furthermore, Zardari’s decision to authorize the use of force against protestors demonstrating in favor of the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to his post earlier this year also raised eyebrows.
If there is one area where Zardari’s influence is more positive, it is his view of Pakistan’s security situation. Zardari is not immersed in the military’s security culture, which has centered on India as Pakistan’s primary adversary to such a degree that tolerance and even cooperation with militant groups has been notoriously common. Zardari, whether out of conviction or in response to international admonitions, has shown greater signs than did Musharraf of understanding that the primary threat to the government may in fact come from within and internal militants must be confronted. However, it has yet to be seen whether his viewpoint will be translated into effective action; while the Pakistani security forces have made some strides in reclaiming the Swat valley from militants and putting pressure on radical forces in South Waziristan, the prospects of improving governance enough to make these gains sustainable remains uncertain at best.
To make matters worse for the population, the economy has come close to complete collapse since 2008, with the agricultural sector – which provides employment for 44% of the workforce – taking especially severe hits in the last two decades due to economic modernization as well as crop failure in 2007-2008. Combined with the political instability that has ravaged the country this decade, both GDP and the nation’s exports have fallen significantly. Though this is not entirely Zardari’s fault, there has been a marked absence of plans for agricultural reform or the building of infrastructure, and many segments of the population, two-thirds of whom live in rural areas, are slowly falling back upon remittances sent by family working abroad to live. According to Minister of Finance Shaukat Tarin, this lack of planning is largely the result of bureaucratic mismanagement. More specifically, Shaukat argues that “there’s no performance management…no merit, a lot of nepotism.”
This economic decline has only been exacerbated by rampant corruption. Two examples in particular of companies being stripped of their assets are the crashes of Pakistan Steel and Pakistan International Airlines, both great domestic successes whose resources were whittled away. The downfall of these two companies was largely brought about by the corrupt practices of the government cronies who made up their upper management. For firms with looser government ties, corruption, and more particularly graft, is an equally destructive problem. A recent World Bank report found that “Corruption…is largely associated with the business-government interface…it is common for firms in Pakistan to pay informal payments to government officials to get things done.” The report noted that 57% of Pakistani firms consider corruption to be a severe constraint. Unfortunately, Zardari has not made a dedicated effort to tackle this destructive governance scourge since taking office. Under Zardari’s tenure, investigation into corruption allegations, especially those stemming from Musharraf’s reign, has been negligible. Alarmingly, both foreign assistance and internal funding for social welfare programs have also been lost to corruption. A recent Foreign Policy article reported that U.S. aid has enriched officials in the Pakistani army and intelligence service, whose influence in the country has enabled them to form their own powerful patronage networks, rather than contributing to the building of a stronger civilian government with greater control over these institutions. Unsurprisingly, Transparency International ranked Pakistan a dismal 134 out of 180 countries in its 2008 Corruption Perception Index.
As the above shows, Zardari has yet to take the steps necessary to achieve qualitative government improvements. As such, while the passage of new governance reforms is in itself encouraging, the chances that the E-governance initiative and the FATA reforms will be fully carried out, let alone bring about real change, is questionable. Zardari’s dubious degree of dedication, along with his understandable preoccupation with the country’s worsening security situation, suggests that these initiatives may well join others on the long list of Pakistan’s stalled reform efforts.
