Business Recorder Column June 25, 2019

Flux and uncertainty

Rashed Rahman

The polity is still in the grip of flux and uncertainty despite almost a year since the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government took office. First and foremost of course is its dismal handling of the economy, which clearly seems headed south, with more pain to be inflicted if and when the federal budget is passed. The PTI government, widely believed to have been imposed through a flawed or rigged election (take your pick), seems to be still enjoying the support of the establishment that is believed to be the author of the scheme to bring Imran Khan to power. In return, the government has decided to benefit from the advice and views of COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa by making him a member of the newly formed National Development Council, although what this Council will contribute to the deliberations, decision making and policies of the government seems still up in the air.

Meanwhile, after a slow and somewhat tortuous process, the opposition has finally decided on June 26, 2019 as the date for its All Parties Conference, much to the delight of convener Maulana Fazlur Rehman. However, this may only prove the beginning of a lengthy process of discussions amongst the opposition parties. The reasons are as follows. The opposition parties’ stakes converge in their common interest in seeing the back of the PTI government. However, that is perhaps where the harmony begins and ends.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman is champing at the bit since the 2018 elections (in which he lost his seat) to mount a long march on and shutdown of Islamabad. Both the PPP and PML-N have leaders behind bars but do not seem certain of their strategy. PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur have been arrested in the fake bank accounts case, and an application has been moved by the ruling PTI to the Election Commission of Pakistan to disqualify her. PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced and is ensconced in jail, with persistent reports regarding his poor health and risks to life. If God forbid something were to happen to him in jail, one shudders to contemplate the fallout. After all, as his daughter Maryam Nawaz reminded us the other day in her press conference, Pakistan is not Egypt (despite some similarities in their political history) and Nawaz Sharif is not (the late) Morsi. There are also all sorts of speculations (some perhaps motivated) of a ‘split’ between the policies of Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother and president of the PML-N Shahbaz Sharif.

Whether the opposition is a house divided will only become known after the All Parties Conference. The threat of more arrests of PPP and PML-N leaders, if it transpires, is likely to spur on the opposition to further close ranks. Despite that, it is still not clear whether the combined opposition wants to go for broke (oust the government) or just exert pressure. If the widespread perception (reinforced every day by the PTI’s fulminations) that the latter tactic is intended to ease some of the targeting of the two main parties’ leadership is correct, this is unlikely to incentivise the masses to come out in agitation mode despite their cries of suffering on account of inflation, unemployment, rise in utility tariffs (with more to come in the budget), etc.

What the opposition lacks is a credible programme that offers the people some hope of relief or succour from the tsunami of privations and misery unleashed by the PTI government in its relatively short time in office. Though the lava of mass unrest is bubbling, it may not be triggered to explode onto the surface until and unless the people feel they are risking life and limb for something worthwhile for them, not just a ‘rescue’ act for the beleaguered opposition leadership. This obstacle nevertheless does not rule out spontaneous explosions of mass resistance here and there. If this were to occur in the absence of clear leadership of the movement by the opposition parties, it would likely be anarchic and perhaps even violent. Were the government to attempt to suppress such manifestations by force, they could inadvertently trigger a bigger tsunami of protest with the possibility that the opposition mainstream and the relatively anarchic mass protests may find common cause despite the arguments presented above.

The opposition has a great deal to thank the PTI government for. Its actions and policies have paved the way for the off again on again daggers drawn PPP and PML-N to once again go into ‘cooperation’ overdrive. The pattern of political convergence and divergence between the two is part of the woof and warp of our history. It was precisely to stop the game of the establishment playing off one against the other in the 1990s that persuaded the late Benazir Bhutto (and later Nawaz Sharif) to sign the Charter of Democracy in exile in London in 2006. The fact that her successor, Asif Zardari, and Nawaz Sharif soon returned to the old familiar ways of doing each other down has ended in a ‘termination’ of the two-party ‘system’. It has been replaced by a third party, widely considered a creature of the establishment.

Another reason why some hesitation can be detected in the pronouncements and stance of the opposition parties is the uncertainty of what may follow an ouster of the PTI government. Going by the past, this has usually ended in a praetorian dispensation. Whether such a gambit would succeed in today’s world, and whether it is even part of war gaming is unknown. As some commentators have repeatedly said, in the absence of a Plan B, sticking with Plan A despite the difficulties seems the best course.

The dominance of state institutions inherited from colonialism at the time of independence over the political forces has now reached its apogee. Unless the opposition comes up with a workable plan to roll back the establishment’s real grip on power, they (and we as a result) will continue to be condemned to little more than supplicants at the high table for a seat.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial June 25, 2019

Dangerous escalation

Things are on the verge of spiralling out of control in the rapidly escalating confrontation between the US and Iran. The alarm bells were already ringing when Washington blamed Iran for the recent spate of attacks on oil tankers and other ships in and around the Gulf. Now the shooting down of a US drone by Iran on June 20, 2019, claimed by Tehran to be in its airspace but denied by Washington that claims it was in international airspace, have brought matters to the brink of the outbreak of hostilities. US President Donald Trump has claimed he cancelled three strikes against Iranian targets as retaliation for the drone shoot down just 10 minutes before being unleashed because, as he put it, the US did not want war and asked for negotiations with Iran on a host of issues. Any talk of negotiations while the crippling sanctions imposed by the US after Trump unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear restraint agreement signed by his predecessor Barack Obama, the European Union and international organisations such as the UN and IEAE with Iran, and which Tehran scrupulously adhered to, are still hurting Iran, particularly its oil exports, has been categorically rejected more than once by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini. Reports speak of the Iranians receiving a warning from Trump through Oman that the strikes were imminent, followed by the ‘no war’ and talks message. But in a startling counter-report, it is claimed that Trump offered Iran three strikes on ‘empty’ spaces that would avoid casualties and damage but provide Washington with a face saving claim of retaliation and in the process prevent any further escalation of the confrontation. Whether this is correct or not, it may reflect Trump’s well known position on withdrawing from the wars the US was currently bogged down in and avoid military involvement in any further conflicts, as evidenced by his frequent statements on the issue and his campaign promises. But the problem is that the US President, and even more his administration, particularly well-known hawks such as John Bolton, National Security Advisor, and Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, continue to send out contradictory messages regarding the policy towards Iran. Even now, despite Trump’s stated reluctance to escalate the standoff over Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes and its alleged support for proxies throughout the Middle East, he has not categorically ruled out the military option. After the shipping attacks, Trump moved an aircraft carrier and two contingents, one after the other, of 1,500 and then 1,000 US troops to the Gulf region. Now, despite all this sabre rattling in practice while adopting a seemingly reasonable and peace oriented tone in public, Trump has called for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the crisis. That inadvertently provides a reminder that neither the UN, nor Europe, nor indeed the world can be seen anywhere in efforts to mediate the dangerous escalation taking place under their noses. Iran too has sent messages to the UN Security Council and Secretary General Antonio Guterres to take note of the situation.

One immediate fallout of the drone downing is the decision by leading airlines to avoid the Gulf region out of fears for the safety of civil aviation. This inevitably means longer flight times, delays, and problems for travellers. Iran’s position on the issue is clear. If it is not allowed to export its oil in the face of incremental tightening of the sanctions screws, it threatens to shut down all oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz. That implies a cut off of some 20 percent of the world’s oil, with catastrophic consequences for the world economy. In the light of this threat that is still on the table, the present confrontation has already exerted upward pressure on international oil prices, a trend likely to continue and grow worse if the hostile atmosphere is not defused. The sobering fact is that Trump has discussed the situation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, whose country is considered one of the main regional players in the Middle East theatre. The elephant in the room remains Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is credited with being behind the original decision by Trump to withdraw from the carefully crafted nuclear restraint agreement. Between regional warmongers and the hawks inside his own administration, Trump has to tread carefully not to be railroaded into a war he says he does not want. And the world has to shed its complacent silence on the crisis if another catastrophe in the region is to be prevented.

Business Recorder Editorial June 22, 2019

The FATF challenge still persists

The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) meeting in Orlando on June 16-21 was to take a decision on whether to remove Pakistan from its grey list or downgrade it to its black list on the basis of the assessment report of the Asia Pacific Group (APG). Pakistan had presented its case to the APG in Guangzhou, China, in a meeting on May 15-16, 2019. Reportedly, the APG had said Pakistan’s agreed action plan against eight banned terrorist organisations – Jamaat ud Dawa, Falah-i-Insaaniat, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Haqqani Network, the Afghan Taliban, Daesh and al Qaeda – is still falling short of compliance. Of the 27 agreed action plans with specific deadlines, 18 are so far still unsatisfactory. APG (and therefore FATF) demands that Pakistan do more in this regard by September 2019 to avoid any adverse outcome in the scheduled FATF meeting in October 2019. However, before we get to that stage, given the APG report, Pakistan needs a vigorous diplomatic offensive to garner at least three of the votes of the 36 countries who are voting members of FATF in order to avoid being relegated to the black list, whose consequences for our economic health may prove crippling. The imminent danger of being put on the black list has fortuitously been averted as Turkey, Malaysia and Chine have announced their support to Pakistan’s case. To move out of the grey list, which is an uncomfortable perch but better than being on the black list, Pakistan needs 15 of the 36 votes. When Pakistan was put on the grey list in 2018, only Turkey stood by Pakistan, and even our close friend China for its own considerations did not come out unequivocally on Pakistan’s behalf. Despite recent encouraging noises from the UK and the European Union, the fact is that the Indo-US grouping has greater influence in FATF, and non-aligned members prefer to abstain. India, despite Pakistan’s objections, continues to be part of FATF’s presiding platform in Pakistan’s case. Pakistan’s genuine concern is that India will press the FATF to relegate Pakistan to the black list, despite the (ongoing) steps Pakistan has taken and intends to take to meet the standards and criteria of acting against money laundering and terrorist financing (and the possible links between the two). On the fairness and objective criteria, Pakistan’s actions in terms of tightening up monitoring of such activities so far point to its sincere efforts to halt what is by now a deeply entrenched set of practices in our banking and financial systems.

Of course the diplomatic offensive suggested above faces difficulties because of the global geopolitical landscape today. The defining issue in that scenario is the rivalry between the US and China, the former global hegemon striving to retain its pre-eminent position and the latter challenging it at least on the economic front. This is a familiar historical pattern when a rising power is perceived to be chipping away in incremental fashion at the hitherto virtually unchallenged hegemony of an existing global power. China’s One Belt One Road initiative, of which our CPEC is a part, is aimed at enhancing connectivity regionally and globally to provide a spurt to trade and the economies of all countries touched by such projects. Gwadar port is a particular irritant for the US since it provides in Washington’s perception a Chinese toehold at the mouth of the Gulf, through which some 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies flow and which has been the scene of rising tensions between the US and its regional Arab allies on the one hand and Iran on the other. It may be recalled that India has developed the Chahbahar port in Iran as a possible rival to Gwadar and an alternative route to landlocked Afghanistan’s dependence on Pakistan for access to the sea. Washington is still embroiled in the Afghan war although its military strength on the ground is much reduced. Whether the US exits Afghanistan through a peace deal with the Taliban or not, the concern is that Islamabad will come under increased pressure from a Washington annoyed by Pakistan’s perceived role in its defeat in Afghanistan. Our IMF package too may depend on Washington’s goodwill, given the US’s insistence that American tax dollars not be lent to Pakistan to be used to repay Chinese loans. If Washington’s strategic plan to align with India against China (and, by extrapolation, Pakistan) is a reality, Pakistan must redouble its diplomatic efforts by spelling out the steps it has taken, and intends to take, to comply with the FATF’s requirements and thereby avoid being, in the first instance, relegated to the black list, and beyond that, diligently continue implementation of its steps against money laundering and terrorist financing to reach the desired goal of being removed from even the grey list.

Business Recorder Editorial June 19, 2019

Multiple fronts

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government has shown a rare talent for opening up multiple fronts instead of concentrating efforts and minds on priority areas. Arguably the single most important of these is the annual budget. In a situation where the economic management of the government since it came to power last year has been, to put it politely, controversial, it behoved the treasury benches on June 14, 2019 to ensure, as is the norm, that the proceedings of the budget session of the National Assembly went smoothly. Instead, in an inexplicable display, it was the treasury benches that disrupted the session by constantly interrupting the Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif whenever he rose to speak on the budget on the invitation of the Speaker. This behaviour has sparked off all kinds of speculation and conspiracy theories, chief amongst them being the outlandish notion that the treasury benches were under instructions from Prime Minister Imran Khan to disrupt the proceedings to divert attention from the ‘unpopular’ parts of the budget. But that is not the end of the government’s difficulties in getting a difficult budget passed in difficult times. Three coalition partners of the government, the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), are reportedly dragging their feet in helping the government pass the budget. Of these, the last two are in a different category from the first. They may simply be using the opportunity afforded by the government needing their support in the budget session to extract concessions for themselves, not necessarily abandoning the coalition altogether. The BNP-M, however, is a different kettle of fish. For years now, its chief, Akhtar Mengal, has been attempting to draw attention to and redressal of Balochistan’s grievances, which BNP-M has summarised in the six points that formed the basis of its joining the governing coalition. These are: recovery of missing persons, implementation of the National Action Plan, implementation of the six percent quota for Balochistan in the federal government, immediate repatriation of Afghan refugees and the construction of dams in the province to resolve the acute water crisis. These are more or less the same six points Akhtar Mengal had presented in a petition before the Supreme Court some years ago. That petition did not bear fruit, and the agreement with the PTI remains unimplemented. The BNP-P therefore appears to be veering towards leaving the coalition and joining the ranks of the opposition. This development has encouraged the opposition PPP to meet the BNP-M leadership to persuade it in this direction, followed in rapid succession (and perhaps alarm) by a PTI delegation led by Defence Minister Parvez Khattak. The outcome of these deliberations is not yet known, but the implications are clear. If the BNP-M with four seats in the National Assembly departs, the government may well be up against it to get the budget passed, enjoying as it does a bare five seat majority. That could open up a whole new can of worms, including the possibility of the government falling.

The PTI needs to focus on what is important in terms of priority. Getting the budget passed is at the top of the list. To achieve this goal, the government needs to reassure its coalition allies, particularly the BNP-M, that their concerns will be addressed and on that basis asking for their support to the budget. Similarly, it needs to go back to the drawing board to reconcile some of the contradictory aims it seems to be pursuing. Given its precarious majority, the government needs to reach out to and ask for the cooperation of the opposition. But this cannot at present be reconciled with their pillorying of that same opposition on a daily basis. The arrests of Asif Zardari and Fayal Talpur of the PPP and Hamza Shahbaz of the PML-N, with more arrests of opposition leaders threatened, is hardly conducive to cooperation across the aisles.

Business Recorder Column June 18, 2019

Joint strategy?

Rashed Rahman

Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari met Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz at Jati Umra on June 16, 2019 on the latter’s invitation. The two had earlier met in Islamabad at Bilawal’s Iftar dinner. The two young leaders discussed virtually the whole gamut of issues confronting the opposition and the country. Not surprisingly, their main focus remained the performance in office of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government, especially its economic failures and what Bilawal dubbed a ‘PTIMF budget’ that was tantamount to ‘economic suicide’. The bottom line for both leaders was that the PTI government’s ‘time is up’ and the two parties should evolve a joint strategy for the struggle against the ‘selected’ government both inside and outside parliament. They also agreed to block the government’s budget and prevent it being passed.

For this purpose, it was decided to hold consultations with all political parties, including the government’s coalition partners who were unhappy with the incumbents. Chief amongst these is the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), which has come out openly with the threat to leave the coalition since the government has made no move towards implementing the six points agreed when BNP-M joined the coalition. These six points revolve around Balochistan’s demands to end enforced disappearances, account for those missing, repatriate the Afghan refugees from the province and ensure outsiders coming to Gwadar will not have voting rights in the province, along with a host of grievances on the rights of the province in the federation and its people as citizens of the state. The PPP has already met BNP-M chief Akhtar Mengal the other day. The outcome was Mengal’s demand that an agreement on his six points be signed. This was followed almost immediately by a wooing session from the PTI led by Defence Minister Parvez Khattak. Not much has emerged so far about that confab.

It should be recalled that the opposition is planning an All Parties Conference (APC) to be convened by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Bilawal and Maryam agreed that the final decision whether to launch a movement against the government would only be taken after they had gone back to their own parties for consultations and in the light of whatever consensus may emerge from the APC. Bilawal spoke to the media later at Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan’s house, where Aitzaz reportedly cautioned him to proceed with care in his efforts to forge an understanding with the PML-N lest the latter use the pressure thus exerted on the government to strike a ‘deal’ with the establishment. Aitzaz’s harsh views about the PML-N, even above and beyond the utterings of his own party leaders, are a matter of record. Nevertheless, there may be a grain of truth in what he says since it is an open secret that there exist internal differences within the PML-N.

Whereas incarcerated Nawaz Sharif is for an unbending resistance to the government that appears hell-bent on targeting the two main opposition parties’ leadership, Shahbaz Sharif favours a ‘softly, softly’ approach that leaves room for a compromise with the establishment. With Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur and Hamza Shahbaz behind bars and indications other leaders from both parties may follow in what is turning out to be a ‘season of the long knives’, the room for compromise is shrinking fast. And with the process of passing of the baton of leadership to a younger generation visible, it is possible to contemplate a meeting of minds (tactical at least) that could pit both parties (and others) against the incumbent government on the barricades.

What lends credence to this possibility is the tone, tenor and content of the Bilawal-Maryam discussion. The references against superior judges came into that purview, with the consensus being that this government was following in the footsteps of the Musharraf regime in targeting independent minded judges and that this would not be allowed to pass, even if a fresh lawyers movement was required for the purpose. The targeting of their parties was one of the easiest points to agree on between Bilawal and Maryam. Generally, they jointly castigated the rife human rights violations, media censorship and attacks on journalists, and expressed the alarm that if this government is allowed to continue in its fumbling, inept, incompetent manner, the country could end up being wrecked.

The two young leaders agreed to revisit the historic Charter of Democracy signed by the late Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in exile in London in 2006 and update it according to the evolving situation. It should be recalled that the most cogent aspect of the Charter of Democracy was the pledge not to be ‘played’ ever again against each other by the establishment, as had been the case since at least the 1990s.

Bilawal has announced a mass contact campaign from June 21, 2019 (his mother’s birthday). This reflects the PPP’s perception that the waters should be tested at the mass level before giving a call to the masses to come out against the government. There is optimism that if the opposition can unite, the judges’ references (if not dismissed by the Supreme Judicial Council) could mobilise the lawyers, and the economic hardship imposed on the people by the PTI government, which is likely to be exacerbated if this budget is passed, will persuade the masses to back an anti-government drive.

So far so good. But critics of the opposition’s efforts ask whether it is possible for it to gain the support of the people merely by critiquing the PTI’s fumbling policies or whether a transformational (even revolutionary) programme of systemic change is a sine qua non for a credible mass movement despite the ordinary citizen groaning under the inflation, unemployment and insecurity unleashed by the PTI government.

On the answer to that question may rest our fate.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com