Daily Times Editorial June 2, 2015

‘Rigging’ again The ‘rigging’ bogey we don’t seem to be able to put to rest. Ironically, the very people who helped put this bogey centre-stage in the first place seem now to have been hoist by their own petard. It was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) that held the country in thrall for months with its sweeping denunciations of alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections. Today, the party finds itself in the unaccustomed and uncomfortable position of being on the receiving end of accusations of massive rigging in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Local Government (LG) elections. The PTI’s rival parties in KP, the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Jamiat-i-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) have trotted out this accusation of massive rigging by the PTI government. These two parties have refused to accept the results of these LG elections. ANP’s chief Asfandyar Wali has been particularly severe in his criticism of the PTI for its role in what he alleges is a rigged LG election. He even ascribes the slow pace at which the counting of votes and the announcement of the results is proceeding as betraying the mala fide intent of the PTI. Asfandyar pointed out that when the PTI flung around its accusations of rigging (particularly in Punjab) in the 2013 general elections, it held the caretaker governments and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) responsible. But in KP, the PTI has shifted the entire blame onto the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), even to the extent of pointing fingers at the ECP for its failure to prevent violence on polling day that resulted in deaths and injuries, having, according to Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, surrendered control of the police and law enforcement agencies to the ECP. Asfandyar also revealed that the PTI’s coalition partner in the KP government, the Jamaat-i-Islami, had conceded that there had been rigging. PTI chief Imran Khan has responded to the flurry of rigging allegations with a pledge to probe all reports of rigging and/or malpractices. Imran Khan called on the Chief Election Commissioner to form tribunals, initiate inquiries and pass verdicts within a month, a target that seems impossible given the track record of the ECP in addressing such issues. Another unfortunate aspect of these LG polls in KP has been the violence attending the voting day, as well as continuing clashes between rivals to date. The passions let loose by the recourse to the electorate to choose its grassroots representatives do not seem to have died down and have led to further deaths even after the election day hustle and bustle is over. It is a sad comment on the ability of the ECP to manage security and law and order, the cop out on this score by the PTI chief minister notwithstanding. Pakistan’s democracy still has some way to go before people learn to control their tempers and rely only on the right to defeat rivals through the peaceful exercise of the electorate’s franchise and not through the elimination of those arrayed against them. The violence on polling day resulted in the death of a PTI worker in Nowshera while a victory procession was passing before former ANP information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain’s house. There are several reported versions of how the death came about, ranging from an ANP-PTI workers’ clash to the aerial firing by the triumphant PTI workers being responsible. Whether it was the result of a clash or an unfortunate and tragic accident, what is inexplicable is that an FIR was registered by the dead man’s father naming Mian Iftikhar as responsible for ordering his guards to open fire on the procession and on the basis of that, the latter was arrested, brought in handcuffs to court, and remanded to police custody. Mian Iftikhar may be many things, but he is not a man of violence or someone about to take flight in the face of adversity. It may be recalled that even when his son was killed by terrorists, he continued to perform his duties as information minister without fear. Hardly the sort of man requiring the restraint of handcuffs that are normally used in cases where the accused is suspected of being prone to running away. Apart from underlining once again how our crime registration system is open to abuse and too quick to arrest someone on mere hearsay, it is a disrespect to a man deserving far better treatment.

Daily Times Editorial June 1, 2015

KP LG elections Local Government (LG) polls were held after a gap of a decade in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Saturday. The scale of the exercise can be imagined from the fact that 13.1 million people voted to elect 41,762 village, neighbourhood, tehsil (sub-district) and district council representatives. An unprecedented 84,420 candidates were in the running for the general seats and 7,681 women candidates for 6,678 women’s seats. Many of these women candidates were returned unopposed. Women’s participation was higher than in the last general elections, reflecting their interest in electing their representatives at the grassroots level. There were reports of women not being allowed to vote yet again in parts of Lower and Upper Dir and in some other areas of the province. No polls could be held in Kohistan as the bifurcation of the district is under challenge in the Peshawar High Court. Each voter had to cast at least six, if not seven votes in areas having reserved seats for religious minorities. That proved too confusing for some of the electorate, particularly women, many of whom returned without casting their vote as the arrangements at many polling stations were found less than satisfactory. Complaints were heard aplenty on the day and after regarding mismanagement, poor security, and clashes between rivals. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI’s) Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak was quick off the mark in shifting the entire blame for the mismanagement and violence on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), claiming that the provincial government had handed over security arrangements and the police force to the ECP. Reports said 11 people were killed and over 48 injured during polling, 30 of the injured being contributed by Peshawar alone. A majority of the polling stations saw voting marred by electricity blackouts (in the stifling heat), lack of trained polling staff in sufficient numbers, voters’ lack of awareness of the polling procedure (complicated by the number of votes to be cast by each voter), lax security and the time-consuming process of casting votes. None of this, according to KP Minister for LG Inayatullah Khan meant the legitimacy of the elections could be questioned. This statement makes an interesting contrast with the way the PTI castigated similar anomalies and mismanagement in the 2013 general elections, which the PTI declared ‘rigged’ and launched a ‘container revolution’ against that held the whole country and democratic system hostage for months before petering out. In fact the anomalies, weaknesses and mismanagement in the KP LG elections gave ammunition to the PTI’s political rivals, including former president and co-Chairperson of the PPP Asif Ali Zardari to poke fun at how the LG polls in KP under Imran Khan’s PTI government had ‘demonstrated rigging’. Sarcasm at PTI’s expense and the complaints here and there of ‘rigging’ aside, the ECP seems satisfied by the conduct of the whole exercise. However, before the ECP gets carried away patting itself on the back, it would be better served if it summed up and learnt some lessons from the KP LG elections, particularly since two remaining LG elections in Punjab and Sindh are looming. Clearly, based on the KP experience, the ECP needs to focus on better coordination with the incumbent provincial governments on security and preventing violence amongst rivals and their supporters; train its polling staff better to help and facilitate voters in what is a more complicated exercise even than voting in general elections; ensure a reasonable degree of management and facilitation of voters against the elements and unnecessary delays that tax their patience, and prove that it is serious in helming an improved system of elections at all levels to rid the country of the unending game of rigging accusations that bring the whole democratic edifice’s legitimacy into question after virtually every election. As to the results of the KP LG elections, at the time of writing these lines, counting of votes was in progress. Preliminary unofficial results however from 183 district councils out of a total 978 showed the PTI leading with 53 seats, ANP 31, JUI-F 21, PPP seven, PML-N 17, JI 22. Only when the official results are fully in will it be possible to judge whether these trends reflect the overall results or not. Having said that, KP and the country deserve congratulations for adding one more brick to the grassroots foundations of the democratic edifice.

Daily Times Editorial May 30, 2015

Consensus at last There is no gainsaying the fact that the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is vital for the development of Pakistan. Unfortunately, a great deal of misgivings and reservations had been voiced by various political parties after the CPEC was announced during the visit of the Chinese president. The main bone of objection was the growing perception that of the three alignments along which the corridor would be built, the western, central and eastern, the last may be developed first. This, the critics objected, would privilege Punjab, already the country’s most developed province, and deprive the underdeveloped provinces and areas of the country, particularly along the western alignment, of the golden chance of pulling themselves out of the stagnant development hole in which they had languished since independence. The stakes were so high that the controversy threatened to stymie the Chinese investment of $ 46 billion for the entire project even before it had got off the ground. It is a matter of great satisfaction therefore that the All Parties Conference (APC) called by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday arrived at the badly needed consensus after he announced during his address at the APC that the western alignment of the corridor would be the first to be built, linking Kashgar in China with Gwadar on Balochistan's coast. This route will pass through some of the most underdeveloped regions of the country, all lying essentially west of the Indus River. The benefits need no advocacy. The route is not just road and rail connectivity north-south, it also envisages the setting up of energy projects and industrial zones, thus bringing the advantages of modern economic activity to these least developed parts of the country and likely to prove a transformatory phenomenon for the people along its path. It remains to be seen just how these regions will change from a tribal/subsistence agriculture region into a powerhouse of modern industry and commerce, linked through the corridor with the outside world. The impact within and externally can only be imagined and there is cause to celebrate the extraordinary lift it will provide to the lives of Pakistan’s western provinces/regions. While the ownership/consensus approval of the CPEC and its initial western alignment by all the parties represented in the APC brings a sigh of relief to Pakistanis as well as our Chinese friends who are poised to begin work on the corridor, the government has wisely decided to constitute a parliamentary committee and a working group with representation of all the provinces to address any remaining reservations regarding the entire project and decide the location and nature of industrial zones, etc. Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal must be lauded for his untiring efforts in the past few weeks to meet the criticisms and reservations head on and expend a great deal of time and persuasion on bringing the party heads on board, including background one-to-one meetings with party heads before the APC, which prepared the ground for the consensus that finally emerged. Some incorrigibly suspicious minds are still cogitating the idea whether the PML-N is undertaking the CPEC for political advantage in the next elections. Factually, the contention makes little if any sense. For a start, the CPEC will not be completed till 2030 (if then). It is therefore a long-term project that will transcend not just this government’s remaining tenure but perhaps many more. By the time the next elections roll round in 2018, the CPEC in all its complexity will probably be a work-in-progress, and that too one in the initial phases. Second, the attitude of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in appreciating the role of all parties in arriving at the consensus in terms that congratulated all of them and was generous with credit to all political forces is admirable and in conformity with the real nature of the mega project. It is a national endeavour, and therefore should be ‘rescued’ from any attempt to paint it in partisan political colours. The game changing CPEC will transform not only Pakistan toward modernity, including its least developed western regions, it will prove transformatory for the region and, by extension, the world. Carping criticism therefore runs contrary to the lofty aims of this national project.

Daily Times Editorial May 26, 2015

Sons of the fathers Former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani talked to his kidnapped son Ali Haider Gilani on the phone on Sunday from Multan for the first time since his abduction two years ago. The contact was the first direct interaction, previous contacts having been indirect, which also ceased one year ago. Ali Haider Gilani, according to his father, seemed in good spirits and hopeful of his release soon. He spoke to some family members and Shah Mahmood Qureshi too, who was accompanying the elder Gilani. The contact was initiated through a message that gave a number in Afghanistan where the young man is believed to be held by his Taliban kidnappers. It may be recalled that Ali Haider Gilani was abducted from Multan on May 9, 2013, two days before the elections for which he was campaigning, in a hail of gunfire by his kidnappers riding motorcycles that led to the deaths of his secretary and a bodyguard and injuries to four others. Finding kidnapees has never been easy once they fall into the clutches of these evil men, and this proved to be the case with Ali Haider Gilani too. Reports speak of the kidnappers’ demands, including Rs two billion ransom (subsequently reduced to Rs 500 million) and the release of some detained terrorists. Speaking to media, Yousaf Raza Gilani said he had been trying to get his son released all this time and when the demand for the release of some militants was conveyed to him indirectly, he had expressed his helplessness to meet such a demand but had appealed to the kidnappers to take a reasonable amount of ransom money for the release of his son. However, that too failed to transpire. Now Ali Haider Gilani, who suffers from asthma and had a liver transplant in 2011, says he is being better treated and in a safer place than where he was previously being held, which was subjected to many drone attacks. On May 7 this year, Yousaf Raza Gilani had accompanied former president Asif Ali Zardari to Afghanistan and there pleaded with President Ashraf Ghani to help him recover his son as sources indicated he was being held in Afghanistan. Reports say it is because of the Afghan president and authorities’ efforts, which piled pressure on the kidnappers, that they have initiated contact to strike a ransom deal. Yousaf Raza Gilani was due to meet high authorities in Islamabad yesterday to follow up on the telephonic contact and intensify efforts to resolve the impasse. While any parent would sympathise with Yousaf Raza Gilani’s plight, there is also the matter of the kidnapped son of slain late governor of Punjab and founder-publisher of this paper Salmaan Taseer to bring to a closure. Shahbaz Taseer was abducted from Lahore in August 2011 and despite speculative reports about his health and whereabouts over the years since, no movement towards his recovery is in evidence. Yousaf Raza Gilani emphasised that he had also spoken about Shahbaz Taseer’s release, but the longer running kidnapping of Shahbaz has yet to offer the kind of even tenuously hopeful signs that Ali Haider Gilani’s case appears to now present. Salmaan Taseer may no longer be with us, but the agony of his family continues unabated. Rumours about Shahbaz’s location cannot be verified, but if logically the pressure brought to bear on the Taliban because of Operation Zarb-e-Azb has forced them to relocate across the border in Afghanistan, the tantalising possibility exists that Shahbaz Taseer too may have been moved out of Pakistan. While the authorities make efforts to free Ali Haider Gilani, they are morally bound not to forget the sufferings of Shahbaz Taseer and his family and to make equal if not greater efforts to trace him out and have him released. For a parent, even the slightest hurt to a child is beyond tolerance. Imagine then the pain of parents and families waiting for their progeny for years on end with no end to the nightmare in sight. In the name of humanity and the sufferings of the families, all people of good sense appeal to the kidnappers to let their prisoners go and allow them to be reunited with their loved ones.

Daily Times Editorial May 25, 2015

Interest rate cut The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has slashed the discount rate by an unexpected 100 basis points to seven percent, the lowest interest rate in 42 years. The new rate will continue for two months, with the SBP carrying out its review of monetary policy bi-monthly. The relatively radical cut is clearly intended as a stimulus to economic growth in the presence of slowing inflation. GDP growth has improved marginally to 4.2 percent from 4.0 percent last year. The SBP has been incrementally slashing interest rates since November 2014 from 10 percent to seven percent now, with cuts of a 100 basis points in January and 50 basis points in March this year. The incremental approach was informed by watchful anxiety about inflation. The SBP seems more confident now, based on the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index is at 4.8 percent for the first 10 months of FY15, reflecting the average of the steep fall from 8.2 percent in June 2014 to 2.1 percent in April 2015. Adding to the SBP's confidence is the positive direction the macro-economic situation is moving in, halving of the Current Account deficit to $ 1.4 billion during July-April FY15 compared to the corresponding period last year due to contraction in imports led by sharp decline in oil prices and strong growth in remittances, overshadowing lower surplus in capital and financial account and weak foreign private investment. The SBP also announced a narrowing of the interest rate corridor from 250 to 200 basis points, which means a floor rate of five percent, keeping the 'SBP target rate' 50 basis points below the ceiling rate, and ensuring the overnight rate remains close to the target rate, which would now be called the 'Policy Rate'. The SBP obviously hopes to boost economic growth, promote large scale manufacturing, and use the opportunity afforded by economic improvement to implement reforms that would ensure sustainable growth. Although the SBP bolsters its claims of economic improvement by reference to Pakistan's upgraded international credit ratings and investors' confidence, by its own admission private foreign investment remains shy. Despite its incremental easing of the tight monetary policy over the last seven months, the SBP cannot deny the failure of bank borrowing to rise. In fact it fell sharply from Rs 292 billion last year to Rs 161 billion this fiscal year. Part of the explanation for this fall may lie in the discouraging factors of terrorism, law and order, and the availability and prices of gas and electricity, as pointed out by the SBP itself. The SBP can find satisfaction in the build up of the net foreign exchange reserves with it from $ 9.1 billion on June 30, 2014 to $ 12.5 billion on May 15, 2015, but for the ordinary citizen, all the 'good' news from the economic front means little. For one, slashing the interest rate may or may not prove an adequate stimulus to economic growth, based on global experience during the ongoing recession. At the same time, it will reduce the return on savings, including bank deposits, to one percent or even less above the inflation rate. The only saving grace may be the undeniable reality that avenues for safe investment with adequate returns remain few and far between, with the notable exception of the evergreen real estate sector. The economy's macro indicators may indeed be showing signs of improvement, but this has yet to translate into employment and other benefits for the ordinary citizen.

Daily Times Editorial May 24, 2015

Saudi chickens In an unfortunate and tragic development, an Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber struck a Shia mosque in al-Qadeeh village in eastern Saudi Arabia, a predominantly Shia region. The blast targeted more than 150 worshippers offering their Friday prayers. The death toll was 21, injured over 90. Few escaped the carnage unscathed. One of the deadliest attacks in Saudi Arabia, it is also the first claimed by IS on Saudi soil. Sectarian tensions had already frayed as a result of the almost two month long Saudi-led bombing campaign in neighbouring Yemen against the rebel Houthis and their allies. This incident is likely to make that even worse. IS said in a statement that one of its suicide bombers, Abu Ammar al-Najdi, carried out the attack with an explosives-laden belt that killed or wounded 250 people. It vowed not to rest until all Shias, whom it considers heretics, are expelled from the Arabian Peninsula. In November last year, IS leader and self-styled caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had called for attacks on the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, which has declared IS a terrorist organisation, joined international airstrikes against it, and mobilised the clergy to denounce it. Last week al-Baghdadi issued another speech laden with derogatory comments about both the Saudi leadership and the Shia minority. Shias were targeted in November last year when gunmen fired at a religious celebration in al-Ahsa, again in the preponderantly Shia eastern part of Saudi Arabia. Last month, Saudi Arabia was on high alert for possible attacks on oil installations, shopping malls, etc. Condemnation of the latest IS atrocity was heard from Hezbollah of Lebanon and Iran, but both placed the responsibility for the attack squarely on the Saudi leadership and its policies. Pakistan’s prime minister, president and foreign office also condemned it, as did UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon. Meanwhile, undeterred by such condemnatory statements, IS also bombed a mosque in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and consolidated its hold on the Iraq-Syria border. After the capture by IS of Ramidi and a border crossing in Iraq and the historic city of Palmyra in Syria, IS virtually controls the entire Iraq-Syria border except for the north, where the Kurds have managed to hold out against it and even repel its advances. IS continues to kidnap and execute people in the areas it controls in both countries. These areas, plus the offensive launched in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib by the Al-Nusra Front mean that the regime in Damascus now controls only 22 percent of Syria’s territory. However, given the seesaw trajectory of the struggle against Bashar al-Assad’s government, it may be premature to go along with the wishful thinking of his enemies predicting his imminent downfall. Unfortunately, the US is still floundering in its self-created anti-Assad bog and unable to see the wood for the trees. US President Barack Obama called the IS advances in Ramidi, which arguably threaten Baghdad itself, as a temporary setback. This would be laughable if the situation were not so dire. Unable to wean itself off its anti-Assad obsession, Washington is till putting all its eggs in the so-called ‘moderate’ Islamist opposition’s basket, without realising that this stance is helping no one except IS. The latter is taking full advantage of the fighting between objectively potential allies against it to push ahead with its territorial gains and consolidation of its antediluvian rule in the territories it controls, spanning two states. If Washington and its regional allies such as Saudi Arabia do not wake up and smell the coffee, they may soon find the situation irreversible and a self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate cleverly using the fractures in the forces actually arrayed against it to romp home to victory. And as the mosque bombing shows, Saudi Arabia too needs to wake up the to the threat the presence of IS in its neighbourhood and on its soil poses to the rule of the Saud dynasty. With the greatest respect and sensitivity to the Saudis for the latest tragedy, all these developments could be considered the Saudi chickens of funding and supporting Islamist proxies in the neighbourhood for decades finally coming home to roost. Time for Riyadh and Washington to change course and fight the real rising enemy: IS.

Daily Times Editorial May 23, 2015

Central Asian tour Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif embarked on a tour of Central Asian countries in a belated effort to make up for all the lost time, opportunity, etc, that had presented itself after the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991. In that sense, welcome as this belated attention is, the tour seems more an afterthought rather than one aforethought, with the necessary preparation before hand to make the PM’s time and effort worth it in terms of results. So far at least, the visit to Turkmenistan yielded little apart from homilies about friendship, cooperation and acceleration of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project that has lain in cold storage for many years. And not solely because of the slow pace of doing things at our (and arguably their) end. Rather, there are inherent difficulties in the path of getting the project off and running. Turkmenistan has the world’s largest gas reserves but is not able to take full advantage of this bounty of nature so far because of infrastructural blockages to getting this gas out of the country and to the world. Attempts in the past to avoid the troubled soil of Afghanistan and use the Iranian route have fallen foul of the sanctions in place against Iran over its nuclear programme (just as our Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline is frozen at the Iranian side of the common border). Traversing Afghanistan in the midst of the war going on in that country poses formidable obstacles and offers no guarantee of safety of the pipeline even if it is somehow built through what is essentially a war zone. Although the joint communiqué from Ashkabad was long on rhetoric in this regard, giving these wishes concrete existence in reality never was and is still doubtful until and unless Afghanistan settles down. If a tour of Turkmenistan seems a waste of time, the visit to Kyrgyzstan that followed makes even less sense. Apart from clichés about political relations being excellent and enhanced cooperation in curbing extremism, drug trafficking, energy, connectivity, trade, the economy, people-to-people contact and tourism, there seemed hardly anything that could even remotely be described as having set the house on fire. Kyrgyzstan has underlined its desire to be linked with the economic corridor being planned for Pakistan with Chinese investment, given its advantage of accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (the alternative developed by Russia and the Central Asian states to the by now fraught relations with the European Union over Ukraine) and therefore the opportunity to act as a bridge between North and South in what would become a breathtaking revolution in the contemporary world’s affairs. However, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Take for example CASA-1000, the electricity export project being touted for long now. Kyrgyzstan’s neighbour Tajikistan is said to possess enormous potential in hydel power, surplus to its needs and therefore available for transmission to South Asia. However, this project too has been in the doldrums for so long that only a miracle could revive hopes in it seeing the light of day any time soon. It too suffers from the same drawback as TAPI, i.e. the need to traverse troubled Afghan territory to get anywhere in South Asia. In the absence of movement on these two critical energy projects, PM Nawaz Sharif had to fall back on our modest help to Kyrgyzstan in training their diplomats and offering training in the banking, postal and other fields. Good, but again, not about to make anyone sit up on the edge of their seats. While any tour by a Pakistani PM, belated or not, is welcome as it signals the seeming ‘lapse’ in attention to Central Asia may be about to be overcome, one cannot but help reflect on what could have been. Had Pakistan not been so deeply involved in and committed to its adventures in Afghanistan, it may have had the spare mind and time to focus on what was tipped at the time as the great opportunity presented to neighbouring countries vis-à-vis the landlocked Central Asian states after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Instead, while our Afghan policy of long standing has finally yielded up its chickens that have come home to roost in the shape of terrorism, the opportunity lost in terms of offering Central Asia a route out to the world through Pakistan must count as one of the monumental follies of our sorry track record in the region and beyond.