Is The Prime Minister Ready?

There is something schizophrenic about the manner in which Pakistan is being governed. The government signs peace deals with murderous gangs in Swat with its left hand, and then forces PIA’s flight crew to shave their beards with its right hand. Worse still, no one can quite guarantee that either of these things will work. No guarantee that peace is what will come out of the government’s game of footsie with the TNSM, which in many ways are pre-cursors to the more in-your-face, Pakistani Taliban in Swat. Nor is there any guarantee that newly clean-shaven men serving you in-flight chai and biryani, will somehow become such an asset to PIA, so as to cause a reversal in the cancerous hole that the airline is burning in the government’s coffers.

In fact the only thing that there can be a guarantee about is that in the absence of decisive leadership, Pakistan will continue to veer completely off the reservation. It cannot afford to continue to meander as it currently does, and it cannot afford the kind of bleak future that this current trajectory leads to. Decisive leadership of course is not an IMF loan, or a Wall Street banker–both things available these days with a wink, a phone call, and any indication that you have a pulse. International bureaucrats in particular are only too eager to cater to Pakistan’s perpetual thirst for credit. International terrorist networks are even more eager to expand their franchises in Pakistan. In the face of this kind of pressure, decisive leadership needs to act firmly, swiftly and with an eye to the long term.

Given the poor quality of advice that he has been provided with so far, on issue after issue, President Asif Ali Zardari may have lost the window of opportunity available to him to demonstrate that kind of decisive leadership. His inability to reinstate the chief justice has damaged his party’s standing in the Pakistani middle class irreparably. His failure to repeal the dictatorial presidential powers inserted into the system by the military under Gen Musharraf, has exacerbated the mutilation of the country’s constitution, by rendering his model of governance no different from Musharraf’s.

In these crazy and challenging times, the prime Mminister of Pakistan has a golden opportunity to create a lasting legacy that extends far beyond his own, and his party’s current constituency. He is the prime minister of a country in which the constitution is very clear that it is the prime minister that is the chief executive officer of the nation. He is from the Punjab, a behemoth province in which the opposing party currently rules the roost. He is no fair-weather jiyala, having spent jail time without switching loyalties on Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and her mission. Best of all he has the ability to credibly distance himself from mistakes made by both the president of the country, and the chief minister of his province. The prime minister has a golden opportunity to demonstrate long term vision and a commitment to constitutional legitimacy by seizing moral authority in a time where national leadership outside of the deposed chief justice of Pakistan is sorely missing such authority. In short the prime minister has a chance to be a decisive leader at a time when Pakistan needs such leadership most.

What must the prime minister do? There are two aspects to what he has to do. The first is style. He must change his tone dramatically. The second is substance. He must undertake major policy reform. To do so with any momentum or clarity he must make the difficult bargain of leaving national security alone. That debate must be left to the president and the armed forces–it is not a fight through which any mainstream politician in Pakistan can come away a winner. And there is very little mileage to gain politically from the sustained damage being done to the Pakistani state in its fight against terrorism.

To change gears in terms of style, the prime minister has to adopt two very simple and easy measures. He must shift his primary language of communication to a language with which he is comfortable. His English language skills, better than most Pakistani lawmakers, are still not good enough to enable him to communicate clearly with the outside world. But even if he was a native English language speaker, the outside world is not listening to him. It is busy listening to President Zardari, Information Minister Sherry Rehman, Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and ISI Chief Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha. The world is interested in Pakistan for the wrong reasons. None of those reasons are political winners for the prime minister. His best political bets are all domestic and all easily saleable and communicable in the Urdu language. Any delegations that want the honour of sitting with him must bring a translator. The prime minister is the Big Boss of a country of 172 million people. He must not be afraid to speak in his own language. I’ve written previously about the death of the Urdu language. The prime minister of Pakistan speaking it proudly wherever he goes may prove to be a kiss of life for the national language.

Still on the subject of style, the second thing the prime minister must do is to endorse the lawyers’ movement. He doesn’t need to do anything substantive in this regard. He simply needs to get on television, speaking in fluent Urdu, and unambiguously announce his principled support for the lawyers. This does not necessarily have to translate into material support (although that would be excellent). It simply has to be a statement of audacious independence from his increasingly unpopular party. He already has a major party leader that would be glad to have his support (Aitzaz Ahsan), and other leaders (Amin Fahim and others) would fall in line rather swiftly. Strategically, such an announcement would take part of the sting out of the proposed dharna in March, but only in a good way. It would make the lawyers’ movement a much less politically divisive issue. It would create the momentum for an eventual peaceful and conciliatory resolution to the crisis. This would be much more preferable to where the lawyers’ movement is heading right now–which is a major confrontation in the heart of Islamabad.

Those two measures would announce loudly, and proudly that parliament is back in charge of Pakistan, in a way that one year of the PPP government’s rule thus far has not been able to do. The prime minister, speaking in Urdu, would be a much more effective communicator than he is. Having separated himself from his party line on the judiciary, he would be a much more comfortable communicator. Thus far, it is clear, his defence of his party and its lack of forthrightness on the constitution and on the judiciary makes him deeply uncomfortable.

Once these issues of style are resolved, where then would the substance of change at the prime minister’s office come from?

This is where the prime minister is lucky to be in Pakistan. It really doesn’t matter what issue he picks up. No matter what substantive issue he wants to tackle, he will find acres of space. Pakistani public policy has been so deeply ravaged by neglect, incompetence, and narrow self-interest that championing anything at the Prime Ministerial level will yield important results.

There is only one caveat to this guarantee of successful public policy. It has to be real. It cannot be faked, and it cannot be loaded with short-term political gain. The prime minister has an opportunity to be a historically transformational figure. He does not need to stand pat and watch Shahbaz and Nawaz Sharif become national heroes, on his watch much less! History and fortune favour the brave. Is the prime minister ready?

The News. com .pk