The types of parties representing a region reflect its socio-economic characteristics. Such regional analysis for the 2013 elections helps in better understanding today’s Pakistan.

Around 25pc of National Assembly seats went to nine supposedly liberal parties (PPP, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Balochistan nationalists, etc.) while 75pc-plus went to 10 parties with conservative leanings (PML-N, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, religious parties, etc.). ‘Liberal’ parties had won 50pc of these seats in 2008, suggesting huge ideological shifts in just five years.

However, Pakistanis prefer practical issues over ideology while ideological differences between larger parties have narrowed. Thus, while Pakistanis are shifting rightwards socially, this 25pc-plus drop reflects other important reasons too.

Regional analysis helps understand this puzzle. ‘Liberals’ won 80pc-plus of the combined national seats of Sindh and Balochistan. Conversely, conservatives won 90pc-plus of the combined national seats of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fata and Islamabad. This suggests a huge ideological divide geographically.

Northern (Punjab, KP etc) Pakistan is arguably more socially conservative. But differences in regional political power better explain this divide. Most ‘liberal’ parties are ethnic parties. Even the PPP now represents Sindhi grievances.

Southern (in Sindh and Balochistan) ethnic groups enjoy less power and harbour ethnic grievances. Their voting preferences are less volatile as voters remain linked strongly to the parties representing their ethnic grievances despite their managerial weaknesses. Given the absence in practical terms of inclusive national parties, voters in the south supported ‘liberals’ mainly for their ethnic politics.

Conversely, the larger northern ethnic groups are more powerful politically. Their fates are not linked to particular parties and they shop around more frequently, even across ethnic lines. They prefer managerial strength and national politics over ethnic politics.

Urban-led parties generally possess stronger managerial skills, as evident in the PPP’s recent poor management record and the PML-N’s relatively better one, at least in terms of unveiling a dizzying range of populist projects. Most ‘liberal’ parties are rural-led, while the larger conservative parties are urban-led.

The incoming PML-N and PTI governments will probably outperform the ex-PPP and ANP governments in managerial terms. Even Mohajirs — richer, urban and ex-right-wingers — could gradually embrace the PTI and PML-N.

These factors and the small proportion of national seats in the south indicate that the current ‘liberal’ parties, despite being liberal only nominally, may not regain federal power. The long-standing political anomaly of coalitions of ‘liberal’ parties from smaller provinces often winning nationally in conservative and Punjab-majority Pakistan may now disappear.

However, a new anomaly has emerged: urban-led parties won most of the national seats in a rural-majority Pakistan. Moreover, Punjab-led parties won two-thirds of the seats in 2013. So, federal power appears to be gravitating towards urban-led, Punjab- based, conservative parties.

Liberals must not despair since ideological differences among larger parties are narrow anyway. ‘Liberal’ parties have accepted obscurantist constitutional provisions and abandoned progressive economics while the PML-N and PTI have partially adopted many liberal positions overtly or covertly, eg, peace with India, helping the vulnerable, closet secularism and good governance.

Being conservative, they may also more easily disarm the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan largely unconditionally or else mobilise societal support for decisive crackdowns.
The rhetoric may be more conservative; actions will largely resemble those of nominally liberal parties.

Moreover, longer-term liberal prospects remain bright. Right-wing managerial-ism can deliver popular but questionable grandiose projects, eg bullet trains, but not the inclusive and sustainable development that liberalism can.

The majority of Pakistanis are low-income, ethnic and religious minorities’ grievances are high, women’s status is abysmal and the middle classes desire good governance.

These groups represent a potential liberal majority given strong ideas, a charismatic urban leadership, strong management and extensive grass-roots work. However, the PPP’s prospects are bleak given how badly its brand has been damaged.

So, newer, urban-based, national liberal parties must eventually emerge.

Meanwhile, the main-dish menu choice is between conservative (the PML-N) and more conservative (the PTI). Barring the PTI and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal, all other parties won the majority of their seats from one province.

Even the JUI-F largely won among Pakhtuns living in isolated areas near Afghanistan. Thus, the PTI enjoys more evenly spread support nationally than other parties — across Punjabis, Pakhtuns, Hindko-speakers and to some extent even Mohajirs. It seems to be the party-in-waiting for 2018. However, barring an unlikely disastrous PML-N managerial performance, demographics may remain unfavourable for it even then.

Occupying the narrow right-wing space between religious parties and the PML-N, and appealing largely to the small middle class based on its merit, it faces a demographic improbability. Patronage-driven parties still won the largest chunk of national seats in 2013. To win nationally, it must move to the PML-N’s left, and mobilise the disaffected groups mentioned earlier.

These elections show that Pakistan is neither the PPP’s landlord-run older Pakistan but nor is it the PTI’s CEO-run ‘naya’ Pakistan. It is the PML-N’s slowly changing Pakistan where patronage is now delivered more efficiently.

Despite the setback to the ‘liberals’, I view the election results positively. The presence of a serious third choice in the shape of the PTI has made the Bangladesh model less likely in the future.

Generals will also perforce have to show greater deference to the right-wing, northern-based and more popular politicians. Divided mandates could also generate a healthy competition between the PML-N and PTI for resolving managerial-cum-technical problems. But more serious work must await a liberal revival.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

The legal framework includes constitutional provisions and parliamentary acts specifying the elected institutions and offices; voting system; party, candidate and voter qualifications; and election body appointment and powers.

There was no controversy during these elections about the credibility of Pakistan’s federal, bicameral institutional design (except among Baloch insurgents) and little about the parliamentary system.

However, Pakistan’s ‘winner-takes-all’ voting system attracted some criticism. Such systems usually discourage smaller parties. But smaller parties thrive easily in Pakistan and larger parties actually struggle to attain majority. Thus, proportional representation, the main alternative, will further fragment Pakistani polity and increase political paralysis.

A more valid concern is that winner-takes-all systems allow candidates to win without attaining 50pc votes, a possibility enhanced by party proliferation. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had earlier proposed a ballot blank box option and re-elections in constituencies without outright winners.

Introducing this system without parliamentary approval was odd process-wise. More oddly, the blank box option actually makes outright wins more difficult while the re-election requirement can create an impasse if say 70-80 constituencies fail to elect outright winners and re-elections consume six to eight weeks.

Could parliament meet, meanwhile, with so many seats undecided? Luckily, this plan was abandoned.

Instead of having blank boxes and re-elections to identify people’s second preferences, it is better to require voters to also identify second-preference candidates during initial elections. These second preferences can immediately be counted for the top two vote-getters if no candidate wins outright, thus avoiding costly re-elections and long-drawn uncertainty.

Voter and candidate qualification requirements remain partly problematic. The degree requirement for candidates was fortunately eliminated earlier. The goal of having well-educated representatives can be attained better by offering crash courses to less-educated winners than by making so many Pakistanis ineligible.

However, the multiple, mutually contradictory, constitutional clauses regarding disqualification of wrongdoers created confusion. The most sensible of these clauses is 63(1-h), which mandates three clear disqualification principles: court conviction, serious crime (two years-plus imprisonment) and time-bound disqualification.

Other clauses eg about Pakistani ideology and righteousness, are vague and create unrealistic expectations of disqualifications based on mere accusations.

Furthermore, barring minorities from becoming president and prime minister violates constitutional provisions about equality of all citizens. Finally, barring dual citizens is controversial as there is no evidence that past dual-citizen parliamentarians proved less loyal than other parliamentarians.

Important post-2008 improvements in the legal framework significantly enhanced the independence of the election management structure, ie courts, caretakers and the ECP. This enhanced election credibility encouraged the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Baloch nationalists to participate, unlike 2008. However, this independence merely provided these institutions the potential to ensure credible elections. One must also analyse how they used this independence in the implementation processes, including constituency delimitation; voter registration and education; candidate nomination; campaign management; balloting and results tabulation; and post-election dispute management.

Here, the performance is mixed, with some good initiatives mixed with frequent inter-institutional conflicts, weak decision-making and administrative inefficiencies.

The lack of a recent census constrained constituency delimitation. Problems were accentuated by the failure of the Supreme Court and the ECP to develop early consensus on interim measures.

Census data non-availability also hampered voter registration and it’s unclear to what extent the ECP’s recent registration exercise increased registration accuracy.

Endless disagreements on expatriate voting also enhanced registration problems, even though the Supreme Court’s early and reasonable directives were easily implementable before elections.

The ECP issued a laudable directive to encourage female voting but it should have followed-up with voter education in backward areas. Finally, the needless requirement to mention religion in voter registration forms even under joint electorates forced Ahmadis into a boycott.

The candidate disqualification process became controversial due to unclear constitutional provisions. However, recognising these constitutional anomalies, the ECP should have proactively issued clear directives to returning officers to reduce confusion.

The ECP was constrained in barring candidates even with widely alleged wrongdoings by the lack of convictions in complicated corruption cases. But, it could have requested the judiciary, the Federal Board of Revenue and utility companies to establish transparent speedy tribunals to decide simpler default cases. Currently, the rejection process seemed haphazard and inconsistent.

The ECP issued codes of conduct for candidates and journalists for managing the election campaign though their enforcement seems inconsistent. However, the biggest campaign management failure is the inability to provide security to parties, especially those targeted by militants.

It is difficult to assess the degree to which this would have skewed results given that the PPP and the Awami National Party, being unpopular incumbents, were already underdogs and the PPP furthermore faces a leadership vacuum.

Even so, even slight skewing, the large-scale deaths and the ensuing uncertainty are inexcusable given the early warnings issued by militants.

Without going into the results, the main problems in these stages ie vote stuffing, chaotic balloting and counting, and widespread rejection of results, did not appear to be predominate. The biggest fear has been the escalation of violence.

In summary, the conduct of the 2013 elections receives mixed grades. The positive is the increased independence of election bodies.

The weaknesses are their failure to effectively utilise this independence and legal anomalies.

Nevertheless, although repolling has been ordered in some constituencies, these elections may still qualify as among Pakistan’s more credible elections since many earlier ones were blatantly rigged.

Election bodies’ independence, often the most elusive requirement, provides strong potential for resolving the remaining issues for future elections.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

While their victims demand prosecution, successor governments generally face internal and external pressures or even formal and informal immunity agreements reached before the dictator’s deposition. So, Chile’s Pinochet got lifetime parliamentary immunity before resigning while Yemen’s Saleh resig-ned after obtaining Saudi-mediated immunity.

Even when no explicit deal is signed, countries often don’t prosecute dictators for fear of upsetting army officers and foreign countries or implicating people in the current government, judiciary and army as accomplices.

Thus, Indonesia half-heartedly prosecuted Suharto. Turkey recently initiated trials against some generals, years after their original crimes. Bangladesh’s Ershad was imprisoned briefly but got bail while Egypt’s Mubarak is still facing trial.

This lack of prosecution creates several problems. Firstly, it deprives victims of a chance to get justice. Secondly, it creates an aura of impunity for future dictators nationally and regionally. Thirdly, it creates non-transparency in national history as their wrongdoings are never documented and publicly shared. Fourthly, it keeps elected governments weak in dealing with army officers on policy issues and hampers democratic consolidation. Finally, it affects national prestige globally.

Bringing ex-dictators to justice is thus a moral, legal, political and external imperative.

Pakistan is among the countries with the highest numbers of military interventions and has repeatedly faced the dilemma of how to deal with ex-dictators.

A comparison of the fates of Pakistan’s civilian autocrats, military dictators and elected leaders is educative. Among elected leaders, Liaquat Ali was murdered mysteriously. Bhutto was hanged following a controversial, globally criticised trial, which was ultimately labelled as unfair by even Pakistan’s own Supreme Court. Nawaz Sharif languished in jail for a conviction subsequently overturned. Benazir was murdered mysteriously.

In contrast, Ayub and Yahya only faced home confinement. Zia died mysteriously. Musharraf’s fate remains undecided. Similarly Pakistan’s civilian autocrats did not face prosecution. While these politicians probably deserved prosecution for other crimes, the comparison above still reveals vividly as to who has escaped justice the most.

This is lamentable since abrogation of the constitution is a far more serious crime than the usual allegation against politicians, i.e., corruption. Abrogation not only undermines the rule of law but also creates economic costs which may exceed political corruption.

So, after Musharraf’s Nov 3, 2007 emergency proclamation, Pakistan suffered nearly a 5pc fall in the Karachi Stock Exchange in one day and almost a quarter billion dollars of capital flight.

For the first time ever, Pakistan can prosecute a dictator. There may have been an informal agreement brokered by the army, America and the Arabs not to prosecute Musharraf immediately in 2008, as he lived in Pakistan without facing prosecution for six months before being allowed to proceed abroad.

Whether such an agreement is still in place remains to be seen. On its merits, prosecuting Musharraf is imperative because of all the reasons identified earlier.

But, even some pro-democracy advocates counsel against prosecuting Musharraf for fear of alienating the army and Saudi Arabia, and consequently derailing democracy. This fear is overblown.

The army is unlikely to overreact to save Musharraf. Too many other strategic considerations counsel against such adventurism just for protecting him or even the army’s prestige. In fact, a fair trial may even enhance the military’s prestige. At most, the army and Arabs may apply informal, quiet pressure against convicting Musharraf.

The other fear is about opening a Pandora’s box which may implicate serving, retired and dead generals, bureaucrats, judges and politicians. Why not prosecute every constitutional adventurer and their abettors from 1947 rather than only Musharraf?

While this is an interesting rhetorical argument, it cannot become a strong legal defence. Courts pass judgments based on the evidence in the present case rather than on whether everyone else committing the same crime since 1947 has been prosecuted or not.

Going too far in the past may be impossible now due to legal and other complications. Thus, instead of individual prosecutions, a truth and reconciliation commission would be the right option for pursuing earlier transgressors.

The focus must be on prosecuting the 2007 transgression. Here too, the question of abettors is pertinent. While the main transgressor is easily identifiable since the emergency proclamation was issued in his name, identifying abettors is less easy.

The dictionary meaning of an abettor is one who actively advises, instigates, or encourages another to commit crimes. But the question is who among the key Musharraf-era players actively abetted him and who passively accepted his decision fearing reprisals given how Musharraf dealt earlier with opponents. Perhaps, once Musharraf’s trial is completed, it may become easier to identify abettors. There is no compulsion on governments to pursue all transgressors simultaneously. But, obviously, the case of the main transgressor must be the first priority. It is also unlikely that his trial will leak any state secrets that Wikileaks has not already leaked. Even if it does, it will only enhance transparency.

However, Musharraf must be prosecuted and not persecuted. Thus, the tribunal for his treason trial must include upright judges not aggrieved at his hands. Acts like barring him electorally for life seem ill-advised since constitutionally only people convicted for at least two years can be barred and only for five further years after release. Persecuting Musharraf undermines the objectives behind prosecuting ex-dictators.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

Immediate issues are obviously paramount. However, even worse than poor immediate performance is when the future appears equally bleak. Many people are too overwhelmed by present worries to worry about the future. But for those interested in evaluating both, the remaining question is about the impact the post-2008 democratic era had on future governance prospects.

History shows that national progress requires strong governance institutions but it cautions that such institutions develop gradually. The French Revolution is presented as a short cut to democracy’s leisurely, meandering gait. However, governance in post-revolution France did not improve immediately but decades later once democracy produced strong institutions.

Such institutions will mature and produce tangible results gradually in Pakistan too. Governance institutions include immediate service-delivery ministries and government enterprises. The performance of many such institutions actually deteriorated post-2008.

Governance institutions also include more strategic legislative and watchdog institutions — eg the judiciary and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — some of which can gradually force improvements within service-delivery institutions. Fortunately, one sees positive signs here if one defines progress as not only achieving the ideal but also improving incrementally over the past.

Take the case of interim set-ups. The current set-up is not ideal. But earlier, presidents blatantly appointed interim prime ministers from favoured parties. So, Ghulam Ishaq Khan handpicked Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi in 1990 while Musharraf handpicked Mohammedmian Soomro. The current set-up, selected by the government, opposition and the ECP, is more neutral, so much so that it is almost invisible and the ECP appears to be running Pakistan.

Consequently, the parties that boycotted the 2008 elections, eg, the Baloch nationalists and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), are now participating. The current ECP’s performance itself is not ideal, but is an improvement over its predecessors.

Finally, the Supreme Court has been able to function more freely than ever before, despite repeatedly challenging the government, including firing its prime minister.

Contrast the PPPs resigned acceptance with Musharraf’s ferocious reaction twice to far smaller Supreme Court challenges. While the PPP did drag its feet before the Supreme Court, democratic pressures did not allow it to trample it with its feet like military dictators did.

People complain that the Supreme Court and the ECP have allowed major culprits to contest the 2013 elections. The counter argument is that while angry voters may demand instant, Taliban-style street justice without due process, institutions must follow constitutional provisions.

Pakistan’s constitution mandates (rightly) that, except for government defaulters and violators of ECP electoral guidelines, candidates can only be barred after court convictions, whether the charges relate to committing crimes or violating Islamic and Pakistani ideology.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s justice system lacks the capacity to prosecute major crimes speedily. Thus, fake degrees are being largely targeted as these can be investigated quickly.

Given continued democracy, the Supreme Court and the ECP can eventually help strengthen the justice system so that major culprits get barred from future elections. However, even the present situation is an improvement over 2008 where Musharraf’s National Reconciliation Ordinance allowed even convicted persons to contest elections.

Another post-2008 positive has been the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) rapid rise. Parties can be evaluated based on their ideology, policy, management capacity, internal democracy and integrity.

Ideological differences bar me from supporting the PTI (and even other major parties). However, one must acknowledge the objectively verifiable fact that the PTI represents an improvement over existing major parties along the last three dimensions. Its rise undermines the argument that the current democratic trajectory will merely perpetuate corrupt politics.

Interestingly, the PTI floundered under Musharraf even though he was supposedly encouraging new politicians. But Musharraf actually supported status quo politicians in the PML-Q and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and persecuted the PPP and PML-N. Their persecution allowed the latter to present themselves as victims once Musharraf’s ‘miracles’ floundered by 2007, upending the PTI.

Thus, the PTI was the biggest loser under Musharraf. However, having governed unhindered but poorly for five years now, these parties cannot present themselves as victims. Consequently many people are eyeing alternatives.

So, while they are well short of the ideal, promising strategic institutional developments have occurred under post-2008 democracy.

How much stronger would governance have been today had Pakistan had unfettered democracy instead of four military dictators and the subtler manipulations of bureaucrat-presidents during the 1950s and 1990s? Perhaps, parties capable of solving immediate issues and possessing sounder ideologies may have emerged and be winning elections by now.

While the post-2008 improvements may seem inadequate to some, these 50 years produced less strategic institutional development than five years of even highly imperfect democracy.

Democracy’s beauty is that it forces tainted politicians to introduce greater institutionalisation than supposedly well-meaning dictators claiming to inculcate ‘genuine’ democracy. Dictators strengthen themselves and weaken institutions, not realising that the strong democracy that they promise emerges from the reverse.

However, democracy is an investment offering future pay-offs. As economists argue, investments involve foregoing some immediate consumption (performance). Thus, the correct criterion for judging democratic developments is not whether they improve immediate but future performance. History’s answer to that question is a resounding yes.

This does not mean that voters should ignore immediate performance. Electoral fates get largely determined by immediate performances. Moreover, the improvements highlighted above largely represent inexorable results of democratic development rather than deliberate incumbent intent. Thus, this article preaches persisting with democracy, not incumbents.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

The PPP’s performance was indeed disappointing. However, the assertion that incompetence was so acute that extra-constitutional steps are justified rests on spurious statistics and hyperbole.

Many claim that the PPP destroyed the economy.

Pundits report that it incurred more debt than all previous governments combined. This is an evocative and hair-raising but meaningless comparison.

Firstly, nominal debt values cannot be compared over time since inflation has reduced rupee values significantly since 1947. A small debt from 1950 equals a debt several times larger today in real terms.

Secondly, as the real size of economies increases, so do their debt-carrying capacities. Thus, anyone employing this comparison is a bad economist or a good politician.

Good economists compare debt ratios over time, eg, annual debt-servicing levels compared with exports and/or tax revenues. World Bank databases show that Pakistan’s external debt service-to-export ratio deteriorated from 10 per cent in 2006 to 15pc by 2010 but improved to 9pc in 2011. However, it was worse (26-40pc) in certain years under Musharraf, Sharif and Zia!

The Pakistan Economic Survey shows that the public debt-public revenue ratio deteriorated from 404pc in 2008 to 474pc in 2011 before improving to 419pc. It once touched 589pc under Musharraf!

Analysts portray the 2008-2013 GDP growth as Pakistan’s lowest. (World Bank databases show that growth was actually slightly lower during 1997-2002 under Sharif and Musharraf.)

If one takes a dozen critical indicators, the 2008-2013 performance may emerge as the worst. However, this period experienced Pakistan’s worst-ever combination of external threats, including the worst recession since 1929 globally and the worst floods since independence nationally.

Would the 2008-2013 performance still be the poorest, and that too poor enough to justify extra-constitutionalism, once the impact of these factors is removed? This determination requires rigorous econometric analysis which unfortunately is unavailable. Off-hand, the latter outcome is extremely unlikely.

Critics claim that this was Pakistan’s most corrupt government by spuriously highlighting Pakistan’s post-2008 deterioration on Transparency’s corruption perception index rankings. However, Pakistan’s rankings could deteriorate even because of decreased corruption perceptions in other countries.

Pakistan’s corruption trends can only be gauged through its own absolute scores over time on this index, which journalists rarely report. Pakistan’s scores have fluctuated between 2.1 and 2.6 (out of 10) since 1999.

The worst score within this narrow band occurred under Musharraf. Media reports about astronomical corruption increased after 2008, though without court convictions, they must be treated with caution. Transparency reports Rs18 trillion of post-2008 corruption, media headlines scream. However, reading further, one discovers questionable inclusions, which represent weak economic performance rather than corruption.

One hears repeated claims about unprecedented post-2008 insecurity. However, under Musharraf, the Taliban’s physical control extended close to Islamabad and even inside it if one counts their Lal Masjid fortress.

The Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies reports that suicide attacks/fatalities have decreased after 2009-2010. Baloch nationalists are now contesting elections unlike under Musharraf. However, Karachi violence, sectarian attacks and crime have increased recently.

In summary, PPP’s performance was the poorest on many immediate dimensions but also better than earlier periods on some, despite a tougher environment.

Most major immediate problems (energy-related, inflation and insecurity) were legacies inherited from Musharraf.

Despite inheriting these issues, it could have resolved them instead of making some of them worse eg, by initiating poor-friendly taxation given the persistent stagflation; holding early, credible elections in Balochistan; and tackling militants forcefully. However, this comparison with non-democratic eras is legitimate when comparing the virtues of democracy with non-democratic alternatives.

More importantly, there is no evidence of extraordinary incompetence which justifies extra-constitutionalism. To give a flavour of what extraordinary incompetence looks like, a quick global tour is helpful.

Governments in Liberia, Rwanda and Somalia completely collapsed faced with rebellions during the 1990s. Zimbabwe recently experienced inflation of trillion per cent (compared with Pakistan’s recent highest of 20pc plus under Musharraf). Argentinian and Indonesian GDPs contracted by 25-50pc over two years. Pakistan’s growth remained positive throughout 2008-13.

Ironically, most of these countries moved from autocracy towards democracy subsequently. To suggest the opposite for Pakistan despite its far better performance is nonsensical.

Turning to abstract issues, devolution, curtailment of presidential powers and institution of an independent election commission and judiciary represent major democratic advancement. While the debt comparison above is meaningless, it can be legitimately claimed that this era probably produced more democratic advancement than all previous eras combined.

Ironically, these previous eras include the 30 years of three dictators who promised “genuine” democracy. The credit for this advancement goes to all major parties in proportion to their parliamentary strength.

Many dismiss this advancement outright since immediate issues remained unaddressed.

Coming from those who suffered grievously during 2008-2013, e.g., the bottom 25pc or the Hazaras, such dismissal makes sense. Coming from the majority which escaped acute suffering, especially those who boast endlessly of having longer-term perspectives than illiterates, it reflects shocking short-sightedness.

Such advancement only will eventually produce the good governance that can resolve immediate issues effectively.

However, immediate performances and hyperbole ultimately determine electoral fates. Given the PPP’s poor immediate performance and failure to debunk hyperbole, it would be neither surprising nor unjust if voters seek change in May. But this will not represent democracy’s death-knell, rather its rejuvenation.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

However, some pro-democracy writers and newspapers keep reading conspiracies in various military and judicial actions. So, has Pakistani democracy really matured?

Political scientists use the concept of democratic consolidation to measure national democratic progress. Consolidation includes two sub-components: stability and quality. Democratic stability occurs once democracy is accepted as a country’s best governance option by all kingmakers, and when credible elections occur regularly.

Democratic quality means that power is exercised democratically after such elections, resulting in good governance. Although democratic quality is the ultimate goal, I focus here on the more immediate milestone of democratic stability.

So have all kingmakers finally and forever accepted democracy as Pakistan’s best governance option? The list of Pakistani kingmaker groups includes the military, the media, mafia, militants, judiciary, industrialists, landlords and some foreign countries.

A detailed analysis of the preferences of all these kingmakers will far exceed available space. However, most kingmakers can only operate indirectly through groups which can topple democracy directly. Thus, the former can topple democracy only if the latter groups agree. Fortunately, the list of these latter groups includes only the military and militants. Hence, one can develop a good estimation of Pakistani democratic stability even by reviewing only the inclinations of these two.

Four sets of factors influence the willingness and ability of various groups to undermine democracy. Structural factors include macro-level societal fundamentals, eg, the higher per capita income and literacy the more stable is democracy.

Institutional factors encompass the relative strength of various societal institutions, eg, the more powerful political parties and judiciary in relation to the military, the more stable is democracy.

Strategic choice factors include the choices of powerful individuals based on self-interest, eg Zia and Musharraf’s coups while facing termination by elected leaders.

Finally, transient factors refer to chance occurrences which undermine democracy nationally, eg the Soviet Afghanistan invasion strengthened the military and militants in Pakistan. Since structural and institutional factors are far more fundamental and less easily reversible than transient and strategic choice factors, democracy truly becomes stable when the former become favourable for democracy.

These factors help in analysing the ability and willingness of the military and militants to undermine Pakistani democracy. The militants abhor democracy and see their version of caliphate as a better governance option for Pakistan. Their ability to realise this dream reached a peak under military-man Musharraf when their physical conquests stretched to within 100km of Islamabad.

Since then, while their willingness remains undiminished, few outside their ranks give them any realistic chance of conquering Pakistan the way militants once conquered Afghanistan and Somalia. However, they remain a major nuisance without being able to take over.

The factors identified above help in understanding their contrasting fortunes. The movement is kept alive by the two less fundamental sets of factors, ie, strategic choice (eg personal desires of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan leaders for power) and transient external factors (eg Pakistani Army’s post-US Afghanistan calculations). But, institutional (eg the capacity gap between the TTP and the Pakistan Army) and structural (eg Pakistan’s higher per capita income than Somalia and Afghanistan) factors make an outright TTP victory nearly impossible. Thus, Pakistani democracy’s defences against militants rest on the solid foundations of the two fundamental sets of factors.

While the military keeps the militants at bay, its own predisposition towards democracy remains ambivalent. With respect to structural factors, Pakistan is still far below the per capita income and literacy levels where countries generally become immune to military coups.

Institutionally, the military is not only physically stronger than political parties (a quick march by the Triple-1 brigade alone can topple elected governments), but also enjoys greater credibility.

The recent emergence of a fiercely independent and to-date pro-democracy judiciary (and to a lesser extent media) has somewhat reduced the credibility edge of the military over pro-democracy institutions.

Even so, unlike Pakistani democracy’s sturdy defences against a militant takeover, Pakistani democracy’s recent success in avoiding a military takeover unfortunately rests largely on less fundamental and easily reversible strategic choice (eg the army chief’s individual preferences) and transient (eg international pressure) factors. This clearly is bad news for pro-democracy forces.

This does not mean that a military coup is imminent. Coups are only one possible governance alternative to democracy for the Pakistani military. Because of their overuse and repeated failures, coups have also become discredited internationally and domestically, and therefore costly for the military to exercise.

The other options include the current de facto control over strategic governance (security and foreign) domains and the Bangladesh technocratic model whose use may face less resistance externally and internally. However, as in Bangladesh, the model will fail in Pakistan too since timid technocrats, while comfortable with crafting mid-range policies under visionary leaders, will be out of their league tackling the socio-economic problems of a country as complex, vast and unpredictable as Pakistan.

It was technocrats who crafted Pakistan’s economic policies that caused much inequality and grief in the sixties. Thus, even if applied in Pakistan, this model cannot be used repeatedly or indefinitely. Ultimately, democracy will re-emerge within three to five years.

So, while the last 65 years saw 40 years of autocracy, the coming decades will likely witness either uninterrupted, though partially managed, democracy, or at most a last desperate three to five years’ failed experimentation with an alternative (the Bangladesh model) and then a resigned acceptance of democracy as Pakistan’s fait accompli despite all its faults. In other words, while it is premature to consider Pakistani democracy stable, it can safely be termed as a gradually stabilising one.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

The Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics explains these differences by using the concept of elite political bargain which is an unwritten, relatively stable informal agreement among national elites about the access of different ethnic groups and economic classes (i.e. landlords, industrialists etc.) to national political and economic resources.

The elite bargain embodies the pecking order among different ethnic groups and classes in terms of their access to government and non-government economic resources and opportunities (e.g. government expenditures, subsidies and licences) and the tax burden on different economic classes.

It also embodies the means of pacifying non-elites, which generally include, provision of broad-based, plentiful meritorious economic opportunities, personalised patronage distribution, indoctrination about the virtues of docility — and outright repression.

Countries where elites fail to reach an agreement themselves or pacify non-elites face continual economic and/or violent political crises once marginalised groups become organised enough to resist the elite bargain.

Such resistance usually takes three forms: organised crime, secessionist movements by ethnic groups and ideologically driven insurgencies aiming to capture power nationally. Since the collapse of communism, religious fundamentalism has become the main form of ideologically driven insurgencies.

The concept of elite bargains provides a powerful lens for understanding Pakistan’s frequent forays into economic and violent crises.

Soon after Independence, a coalition of elite economic classes struck a political bargain which remarkably has endured until today despite the mutual distrust among member classes.

Under this bargain, the military and bureaucracy assumed coalition leadership, while marginalising the political leadership and co-opting landlords, capitalists and religious leaders in return for low tax burdens.

The limited state resources available due to low taxes under this bargain are largely spent on oversized military budgets, lavish perks for the military and bureaucracy and generous subsidies and other support for landlords and industrialists while social-
sector expenditures for non-elites are minimised.

Non-elites are pacified mainly through personalised patronage distribution by elites to their respective networks of non-elite supporters.

Additionally, religious leaders have been used, mostly unsuccessfully, to encourage people to ignore their class- or ethnic-based grievances in the name of Islam-based national unity. Finally, violent repression has also been used in the face of serious resistance.

Since the formation of this elite coalition, there have been two occasions when some members of this coalition have attempted to significantly alter the terms of the bargain. Thus, landlords under Bhutto and industrialists under Nawaz Sharif unsuccessfully attempted to wrest overall coalition leadership from the military, instigating military coups which soon re-established military dominance.

However, even these challenges merely aimed to change coalition leadership rather than the basic exclusionary nature of the bargain.

But, violent resistance in Pakistan has often resulted from rebellions by aggrieved ethnic groups poorly represented within elite classes. After independence, all elite classes (i.e. military, bureaucracy, landlords and industrialists) were largely dominated by Punjabis and/or Mohajirs, which understandably created serious grievances among Bengalis, Pakhtuns, Sindhis and Baloch.

While Bengali grievances remained unaddressed until East Pakistan’s secession, many of the other aggrieved groups were gradually co-opted into the elite coalition. Pakhtuns found their opening under Ayub while Sindhis found it under Bhutto.

Their ascension came largely at the expense of the Mohajirs, who consequently became an aggrieved group by the 1980s. Since then, they have made a partial comeback into the corridors of power through the MQM.

Punjabi and Pakhtun elites remain the most secure members of this elite club since their ability to access state resources is largely independent of the fortunes of particular political parties (e.g. PML-N and ANP) while that of Sindhis and Mohajirs is tied to the fortunes of the PPP and MQM.

Unsurprisingly, whenever these two parties come under pressure, grievances among those ethnic groups re-emerge. This elite configuration excludes religious minorities and numerically small ethnic groups e.g. the Baloch. Thus, violent resistance has often resulted from the grievances of these groups and less frequently from those of less secure elite coalition members (Sindhis and Mohajirs).

Violence has also increased as non-elites, often well educated ones unable to advance under this elite bargain, have increasingly joined criminal and militant fundamentalist groups since 1980 in the absence of well-organised progressive movements.

Ironically, both these categories of violent resistance reputedly have strong links with members of the elite coalition, e.g. criminal gangs with mainstream political parties and militant groups with security agencies, As such, they often are not genuine challenges to the elite coalition but part of their underhand strategies for accumulating power and money.

Beyond causing continual violence, this exclusionary elite bargain also perpetuates a low-productivity, patronage-driven economy given the reliance of industrialists and landlords on generous state handouts rather than innovation and economic dynamism.

Continuing violence further undermines economic performance.

However, compared globally, Pakistan has escaped the massive economic collapses and complete breakdown of state authority
that countries like Zimbabwe and Somalia have experienced. Nor will it face such collapses in the future in my opinion although this exclusionary elite bargain is reaching the end of its shelf-life given the increasing expectations of non-elites.

Nevertheless, urbanisation, education and per capita income trajectories suggest that such groups are still a couple of decades away from becoming strong enough to wrest power from the narrow elite. In the interim, a genuine transformation of the current elite bargain is unlikely. More likely are incremental, piecemeal changes initiated by the elites in response to periodic economic crises and violent upheavals.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

It is now applied loosely to all groups exhibiting broadly similar tendencies. While a consensus definition eludes scholars, certain key characteristics are generally ascribed to fundamentalists.

Firstly, they desire strict adherence to their interpretation of an earlier ideology which they view as being perfect and timeless. Their interpretation often distorts the original ideology. Usually, the idealised ideology is religious since religious reverence makes it easier to recruit followers, though political, economic and nationalistic ideologies also occasionally spawn fundamentalism.

Secondly, fundamentalists see only black or white, viewing themselves as perfect and others as wrong.

Thirdly, fundamentalists often invoke the memory of a past community which prospered by supposedly following the idealised ideology.

Fourthly, they believe in manifest destiny, i.e., that they have been prophesised to prevail universally. The more a group exhibits these characteristics, the more fundamentalist it is.

Not all fundamentalists are terrorists nor are all terrorists fundamentalists. Fundamentalist groups fall into three categories.

The first includes reclusive fundamentalists who practise their traditions in isolation, e.g., the American Amish and the Pakistani Kalash, and show little interest in converting others. Beyond adherence to traditions, they share little else with other fundamentalists, being fairly egalitarian in their practices.

The second category includes pacifist fundamentalists who non-violently want to establish states run strictly on “divine” laws though no religion provides detailed divine rules to cover all or even most present-day complexities. Religions do however provide timeless general principles.

The third category includes violent fundamentalists, whom Pakistanis know well. Pacifist and violent fundamentalists believe that a small, morally superior vanguard group must carry the burden of converting the morally inferior majority. Thus, they generally adopt a top-down disciplinarian approach where the vanguard group leads while others follow their wisdom unquestioningly.

Fundamentalism has mushroomed recently largely in reaction to the uncertainty and tumult caused by the spread and dominance of Western liberal civilisation globally. A civilisation is a large national group spread over a large territory for several centuries with a distinct combination of cultural, religious, economic, political and epistemic institutions which make significant contributions to overall human progress.

The distinctive coordinates of Western liberal civilisation include capitalism, democracy, science/rationality, materialism, secularism, individualism and imperialism. Imperialism along with capitalism has been a key factor in spawning resistance to Western civilisation globally despite its other sterling features, e.g., democracy and science.

To date, Western liberalism has faced three generations of global challenges: Nazism/ fascism (a political philosophy); Soviet communism (an economic philosophy); and religious fundamentalism (a cultural philosophy). Common to all three were vanguard groups who attempted to convert the “impure” majority through strong discipline and even force.

Ironically, each succeeding challenger initially cooperated with the West to defeat its predecessor before becoming the West’s nemesis. Communism helped the West defeat fascism in 1945 and fundamentalism helped defeat communism in Afghanistan.

Fundamentalism exceeds the other two in the totality of its rejection of Western liberalism and the barrenness of its own ideas. While fascism and communism at least achieved significant geographical and scientific progress before their demise, fundamentalism cannot even boast of that and will fail too.

Humanity’s most glorious achievements ever have undoubtedly occurred under Western liberalism, notably the immense freedom provided by democracy and the spectacular technology provided by science.

However, it is equally true that individualism, materialism, free-market capitalism and imperialism are causing today’s most serious global threats, including climate change, nuclear proliferation, unsurpassed inequality, anomie and economic
depressions.

Thus, there is scope to challenge those specific liberal coordinates. Any successful challenge to Western liberalism must match its positive aspects (i.e., freedom and technology) while avoiding its weaknesses.

By basing their strategy on top-down discipline and even totalitarianism, the three challengers each instantly failed this test and consequently could not attract large numbers of people. Fortunately, other non-violent movements like the global green movement (a political, economic as well as cultural movement) meet this test better, though it has a long distance to travel before it becomes a coherent intellectual challenge.

While all major religions have fundamentalist groups, the most virulent ones today are Al Qaeda-cum-affiliates and the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (the former being far more potent globally).

Consequently, some argue that revealed Middle Eastern religions generally encourage fundamentalism more since each claims to be the only right religion unlike South and Southeast Asian ideologies, e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism etc. However, Abrahamic religions also emphasise rationality, tolerance and moderation.

Opinions differ on why people become fundamentalists. Some view poverty as the main cause. However, the motivations of its leaders rather than its foot soldiers represent the root causes of any movement. Poverty supplies fundamentalism its foot soldiers, but not its leaders.

What motivates the leaders remains a mystery. Psychologists define defence mechanisms as mental processes people adopt to deal with uncertainty and challenges. One such mechanism is regression, i.e., mentally living in the past when life was better instead of tackling present challenges bravely. The desire of fundamentalists to recreate the distant glorious past literally represents collective millennial regression. Something in the socialisation of fundamentalists gets them hooked to regression.

For anyone dissatisfied with liberalism’s downside and contemplating embracing fundamentalism, violent or pacifist, the message is clear — fundamentalism represents regressive escapism and a blind alley.

Despite their developing nature, progressive global movements already provide better answers to liberalism’s downside while embracing its many positive features. However, to wean impressionistic minds away from fundamentalism, progressives must articulate their ideas more loudly and clearly.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

So, an American scholar’s article, having an alarmist tone and a provocative title (‘Running out of everything’), claims that a 2008 UN assessment found half of Pakistan food insecure. However, the UN report itself states that since its sampling was non-representative, these findings cannot be extrapolated nationally. Thus, analysts must utilise rigorous measures.

Broader poverty measures cover multiple dimensions, eg, food, income, assets, health etc. However, since people lacking even adequate food obviously suffer deeper poverty than those lagging in other dimensions, absolute poverty measures generally consider food intake alone.

Pakistani government surveys periodically measure national absolute poverty. The 2007 survey, the last published one, estimated absolute poverty at 17.2 per cent of Pakistan’s population.

While international institutions validated this estimate, unlike earlier Musharraf-era ones, several Pakistani experts deemed poverty being closer to around 25 per cent.
Even this figure is less than half that in the poorest African countries.

My observations in rural Pakistan three to four times annually, from Fata to Thatta, and across almost 30 African countries reveal similar differences between Pakistan and Africa. While many Pakistani villagers I meet report some hunger since 2009 due to disasters and stagflation, few report hunger as an issue earlier.

Despite government neglect and land inequities, most Pakistanis have escaped absolute poverty. The 2011 National Nutritional Survey shows that almost 85 per cent families live in bricked houses while almost 90 per cent use relatively safe water. That Pakistanis have achieved these improvements widely shows that they normally earn above-subsistence incomes.

In contrast in Africa, I find straw/mud huts predominate. African Sahelian pastoralists tell me they travel six hours for water. Forest pygmies in war-ravaged Congo showed me how they extract sewage-colour water from banana leaves. In Ethiopia, farmers toil on 1.2 acre farms with archaic technology. Millions depend regularly on food aid. Such miseries are rare even in today’s stressed-out Pakistan.

So, while experts lament underestimation, I worry about overestimation of poverty earlier. But neither do I believe in Musharraf’s “economic miracle”. Poverty has reduced since 1973 due to migration and not government efforts. Wherever migration is low (eg rural Sindh) poverty is higher.

However, many other Pakistani indicators rival African ones. Malnutrition figures in the 2001 and 2011 nutritional surveys match those in poor African countries even though poverty is about half in Pakistan.

This paradox is because of two reasons in my opinion. The first is the status of Pakistani women (the keepers of family health) in education, income and decision-making which I feel is among the lowest across the almost 100 countries that I have visited.

National nutritional surveys reveal that most Pakistani women lack nutritional education. So even if families can afford nutritious diets, children may not get it since parents lack nutritional knowledge.

The second reason is poor government education and health facilities. Thus, Pakistan’s globally low social rankings are due to women’s disempowerment and government neglect, and not absolute poverty.

What about the future? While futuristic discussions must certainly consider population growth, this can be done from two perspectives. The first perspective strongly supports population control since evidence clearly shows that large family size undermines maternal and child health. It views failures of government population services as the main reason for population issues.

The second perspective, largely rhetorical, considers poor, illiterate people’s irrationality as the main cause of population growth, and the latter as an unmitigated disaster and the main cause of all evil, including corruption, terrorism and poverty.

Such Malthusian theories have consistently failed since at least 1750 as technology-led growth has far outstripped population growth. The main causes for global scarcity, terrorism and poverty today are political, not demographic.

Between 1970 and now, Pakistan’s population tripled from about 60 million to 180-plus million while absolute poverty halved from almost 50 per cent to between 17-25 per cent, thus debunking alarmist demographic perspectives. Moreover, this halving, despite tripling of population, occurred under a modest five per cent average growth.

Pakistan ranks around 60 on both population growth rate and population density globally. From being three per cent-plus in the 1980s, its population growth has slowed to around two per cent though recent evidence suggests an increase again. Even with these lower rates, which regionally remain the highest, Pakistan’s population could reach 265-300 million by 2030. These figures justify strong population measures, but not demographic alarmism.

Successfully tackling this challenge will require sound economic management. It requires moderately improving upon inflation, economic growth, external balances and tax-GDP ratio levels that successive Pakistani governments have earlier successfully maintained.

Additionally, if Pakistan also institutes land reforms and adequate health, education and disaster management expenditures it could reduce poverty further.

Natural constraints like land and water scarcity could affect performance. Pakistan barely achieves food supply-demand balance during good crop years currently.

However, studies show that Pakistan could double food production without increasing arable land by using improved technology. Water scarcity is a threat, but Pakistan currently wastes half its riverine flows in canals and on-farm. Better irrigation management should help improve water security.

Thus, success in improving social indicators despite population growth can come from even moderate performance while failure only from poor performance. Viewed so, Pakistan’s prospects are not bad, though, as with its cricket team, even moderate performance often eludes this mercurial country.

So, if present performance continues and Pakistan fails to achieve even these moderate economic targets, then the demographic challenge could become a demographic disaster.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio (nine per cent) is admittedly low even regionally and must be increased by at least five per cent. However, this will not immediately eliminate the need for foreign aid. Pakistan’s budget deficit runs around seven to eight per cent of GDP annually.

If it increases its tax-to-GDP ratio and eliminates governmental losses and corruption, Pakistan could break even fiscally. However, Pakistan’s current expenditures on critical sectors like health, infrastructure and disaster management are abysmally low. So, Pakistan spends around two per cent of GDP on education annually while Malaysia spends six per cent-plus. Financing these sectors sufficiently would cost at least five per cent of GDP, producing a budget deficit again.

Thus, foreign aid will remain important for Pakistan at this stage of development even if it miraculously attains exemplary fiscal management. Nor is that something shameful, for World Bank information shows that even countries more economically advanced and sensitive about sovereignty, e.g. India, China and Israel, still accept aid. However, they utilise it smartly. Instead of rejecting aid completely, Pakistan should also do the same, based on a dispassionate analysis of different forms of aid.

Foreign aid includes all non-market inflows from foreign sources based on diplomatic or humanitarian considerations, e.g. grants or soft loans for budgetary support or project implementation, easy transfer of technology and preferential market access. Pakistan presently receives several different categories of aid, including soft IMF loans for balance of payment problems; loans and grants by multilateral and bilateral donors for government projects; and grants given by such donors and private sources to NGOs.

Of these, Pakistan should certainly aim to eliminate IMF loans by building large foreign exchange reserves, not only because of IMF’s controversial conditions but also because, unlike other forms of aid, IMF aid use reflects serious financial crises.

The other aid categories are not problematic fundamentally but only in the way they are utilised. So, with project loans to the government, the main problem is not generating sufficient returns for repayment in foreign currency. With such loans and even grants implemented through the government, there is the additional risk of poor implementation due to the highly bureaucratic nature of both those donors and the Pakistani government.

However, there is nothing in the DNA of such aid which makes it inherently non-beneficial. Whatever problems exist with them can be eliminated through better management.

Some bilateral aid also comes with controversial political conditions. However, among Western donors, this issue is largely confined to American aid, which also includes higher overheads and self-serving procurement rules.

Unsurprisingly, even the Centre for Global Development, a US-based NGO with close links to the USAID, ranks America 19th out of 27 major donors in aid quality on its 2012 ‘commitment to development’ index.

However, accompanying American aid’s low quality is its huge quantity since the US is the largest bilateral donor in absolute terms, though its generosity (foreign-aid/GDP) ratio is lower than that of other Western donors. Moreover, America tends to be flexible faced with hard-nosed negotiations. Thus, the answer is not refusing American aid but negotiating tenaciously. In being rightly wary of American aid conditions, Pakistan must also remember that Chinese and Saudi aid may also have implicit harmful conditions.

Finally, there is the aid of ‘pesky’ NGOs, whose loud, critical advocacy work annoys governments. People accuse international NGOs of spreading Western values and harbouring Western spies, e.g. as with Save the Children in Pakistan recently.Because of these suspicions and stinging NGO advocacy work, governments clamp down on NGOs, ostensibly to make NGO aid more effective. However, hardly any Third World government has sufficient capacity to help enhance NGO programme quality and their monitoring efforts actually reduce NGO effectiveness.

Given the thousands of NGOs around globally, sweeping statements in favour of all NGOs are unwise. Reputable international NGOs all sign up to credible international codes and coordination/accreditation structures, which have principles prohibiting NGOs from undertaking political and religious activities.

NGOs signing up to such mechanisms are extremely unlikely to engage in nefarious activities. Certainly Save the Children is among the most reputable and principled NGOs around and I cannot believe the charges against it unless I see strong evidence personally.

Rather than engaging in counterproductive, heavy monitoring during NGO operations, governments would do better to check while admitting NGOs initially into the country whether they are signatory to credible international NGO mechanisms.

Even the best of NGOs are generally poorly managed entities, due to their insecure funding base, shortage of skilled staff, high turnover and difficult, isolated working areas.

Despite these problems, they provide better service to highly marginalised communities than governments and markets, daring to go into isolated, war-affected areas. In the more than 100 villages that I have recently visited from Fata to Thatta, people generally feel that NGO work is much more extensive, participatory and transparent than that of other actors.

One must be realistic about what aid can do for Pakistan. While no country has ever developed due to foreign aid alone unless its own governance standards were good, American aid has been a critical secondary contributory factor in South Korea, Taiwan and Israel’s rapid development.

However, it was not budgetary or project support which was most helpful but the preferential transfer of technology and market access that America gave them to help establish high-tech industries. This type of aid is not on offer to Pakistan. Thus, foreign aid cannot help it achieve Korean-style spectacular economic growth even if Pakistan spectacularly improves governance.

Aid, though, can play a less visible, yet important role in helping maintain infrastructure and improve abysmal social indicators. For Pakistan’s marginalised millions otherwise deprived of help, even this aid is better than nothing.

The writer is a political economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com