Looking at the year ahead

Will the PPP fall in 2011? Any midterm changes will not affect things, not even corruption.

In 2011, Pakistan’s number one crisis will not be corruption, inflation or political instability, but the ongoing violence inflicted by the Taliban and the war in Afghanistan that is winding down to its final date in 2014. The year 2011 will be crucial, as it will decide whether the difference of opinion between Pakistan and America over Afghanistan will be resolved. It will also be a year of Pakistan’s correction of its unrealistic and unjustified opposing of China befriending India and the US in its strategic thinking.

The year 2010 ended with Pakistan telling the US that it is not yet ready to attack foreign terrorist safe havens in North Waziristan. This has happened apparently because of the diversion of forces made to counter resurgence of terrorist attacks in Mohmand and Bajaur agencies as well as some movement in Swat and Malakand. But this year may also see closer cooperation between the two allies: despite bad public optics, there is close coordination between the two militaries, the intelligence and police forces, through the institution of joint ‘fusion centres and cells’ at different places within Pakistan and Afghanistan.

More upbeat developments have been noted in Washington. Towards the end of 2010, Pakistani and US drone attacks had pulverised the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its foreign supporters, particularly the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which has now begun to head back to Central Asia. The war against the militants may now be conducted on the basis of intelligence fed by drones surveillance and passed on to the Pakistani military. What happens to Pakistan in the coming months will depend on how pragmatically army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani handles the situation.

It is dangerous to allow anti-American emotion to spread in Pakistan as it plays into the hands of al Qaeda and the TTP and makes any cooperation with the international effort against terrorism look like a betrayal of the Pakistani nation. The nation is expected to respond to terrorism in 2011 in two ways: by hating the Americans and by matching the terror of the TTP, with its own political and social extremism. The economy, ever the non-honour-based entity, depends on the US and the European Union for its survival. And the IMF bailout — sorely needed through 2011 — will be possible only if the military plays its cards right.

Coalition politics has predictably soured because of the primitive nature of Pakistani environment, driven as it is by a feudal mindset. No government, even when it has a two-thirds majority under its belt, has looked like it will last very long. Why not topple when toppling looks easy? And if Nawaz Sharif is lingering, let TV channels rebuke him with the dishonourable epithet of ‘friendly opposition’. The numerous strange bedfellows have started falling apart and the year 2011 will see a time-wasting unfolding of this tragic theatre, while the common man continues to bear the brunt of a dysfunctional economy, worsened by administrative paralysis in Islamabad and the provincial capitals.

Reflex, rather than reflection, will characterise the politicians’ conduct. Altaf Hussain of the MQM was once the most pragmatic — meaning adjustable — leader in the country. He was fearlessly ‘secular’ when no party was willing to say so; he supported the international community against terrorism and spoke about normalisation with India. Now he talks of ‘French Revolution’ — not knowing that it was a quick failure after four years of senseless blood-letting — and has become fashionably anti-American, supporting the dubious cause of Aafia Siddiqi.

Karachi is in for more trouble, especially going by the recent verbal sparring between the MQM and the PML-N. The ethnic divisions of the megalopolis and its fallout of target-killing might escalate if the counterbalancing spat between Altaf Hussain and Nawaz Sharif doesn’t give way to a semblance of sanity. If it continues to escalate, it could very well send a wrong signal to the PPP. While the terrorism and violence that is manifest in Karachi is not driven by political parties, it does have to be handled by them collectively. It is a moot point whether 2011 will make this truth dawn on the political parties that have a following in that city.

If the reformed general sales tax (RGST) continues to be driven by politics, the year will be economically bleaker than last year. But like some other tragedies of the past — for instance the crisis of East Pakistan — the entire nation beating the breast on TV channels may be wrong. There is no running away from the need to expand the state’s resource base. There is a dire need also to stop relying on a miraculous and instantaneous cessation of corruption in order to somehow postpone tax collection. The year may not see any realistic move towards collecting from the rural aristocracy. The suffering will go on but may be alleviated a little by cooperating with the international community fighting terrorism.

Balochistan will simmer and public sentiment aroused in favour of the Baloch after the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, might have to give ground to the Pakistan Army’s unavoidable action against the insurgents there. The media have realised, but will not mention it, that truthful reporting from Balochistan is not possible and that any viable existence of an independent Baloch is a figment of the imagination. We could well have problems on our southwestern border if the army is forced to back out of the Balochistan crisis which is bound to peak during the year.

Will the PPP fall in 2011? For those nourishing their negative hopes on the media, it will come as a shock that any midterm change will not change things much, not even corruption. If it is a national government after the PPP — which means put together by the army — trouble with India will grow and more terrorist attacks from Pakistani soil will ensue, a recidivism that has got Pakistan nowhere in the past. Nawaz Sharif is right if he thinks winning midterm elections will be of little use if it puts him in the same bed together with the terrorists of south Punjab.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2011.