(1st April 2013)

Dismal ranking: UN report

THE disconnect between the rulers and the ruled has come into even starker relief than usual of late. Details of the obscene amount of wealth possessed by many of our erstwhile legislators have been laid bare thanks to electoral rules. Then there was that telling departing gesture by these august personalities whereby they gave themselves — with retrospective effect, no less — added perks and privileges. Against this backdrop, the statistics in the UNDP report released recently are a scathing indictment of those at the helm of this country. Pakistan is tied with Bangladesh at 146 out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index, just above Angola and Myanmar, slipping one place from its last ranking. Nearly half its population lives in poverty and it has one of the lowest investments in health (0.8 per cent) and education (1.8 per cent) in the world.

Predictably, political parties in their election manifestos have pledged to substantially increase investment in the health and education sectors if they come to power. However, the problems in these crucial sectors have hardly just come to the fore, nor are such promises anything new — although in the PTI’s case, they haven’t been put to the test yet. The bitter truth is that when push comes to shove, incumbent governments weasel out of electoral promises to take steps that will improve the lot of those in whose name they rule. Also, policy continuation is given short shrift and ongoing projects are dismantled in an effort to discredit the efforts of political rivals, regardless of their efficacy. Pakistan cannot afford a continuation of this myopic, cavalier approach. The only long-term resolution to the country’s militancy problem lies in a comprehensive effort to improve its people’s quality of life, rather than only increasing the defence budget, which went up by 6.8 per cent last year. Otherwise, the political elite may find that consigning multitudes to lead an existence that is “nasty, brutish and short” is a route to self-annihilation.

Insecure cities — The militant threat

A REPORT in this newspaper yesterday has once again underlined the growing threat that Pakistan’s cities face from the Taliban and militant activity — a threat that the media has been highlighting without having been able to motivate the state into action. Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta are already reeling from the wave of violence unleashed by militant elements. But the more subtle, though no less dangerous, aspects of the threat are often overlooked. First, in Lahore and Islamabad, the other capital cities, and in smaller cities across Pakistan, the threat also exists — lurking below the surface, but real nevertheless. Second, across the country, the state — the provincial and federal governments and the security and intelligence apparatus, both military and civilian — appear either paralysed or unwilling to confront the threat.

It is the state’s virtual abdication of its responsibility for ensuring law and order that the militants exploit, filling the vacuum with their own ideas and systems. In yesterday’s report in this newspaper on the virtual takeover of some parts of Karachi by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and affiliated militants, the complicity of the police or often just their unwillingness to take on a threat that is organised and lethal with the militants possibly better armed than the law enforcers is revealed in stark detail. In Peshawar, where brave police officers have laid down their lives fighting on the frontlines of the militant threat, the underlying problems have long been laid bare. Inadequate resources, political interference, lack of effective intelligence and treating militancy as a law and order problem instead of using specialised counterterrorism expertise are only some of the reasons why the law enforcers are unable to meet the challenge.

Ultimately, though, the spread of militancy in Pakistan’s cities is not just about one instrument of the state failing to do its job — it’s about a collective, and ongoing, failure. The deeper problem is of a declining state, one that appears to have lost the will to protect or transform for the better the lives of its citizenry. By the time the militants are emboldened enough to annex neighbourhoods, much of the battle would already have been lost and only a stirring rear guard action would be able to salvage the situation. Much of the fight has to be fought before, to identify emerging threats, know how to tamp them down and keep the cities secure. Unhappily, little of that is happening at the moment.

More time needed: Overseas vote

OVERSEAS Pakistanis should be able to vote in Pakistani elections, but as important as giving them that facility is making sure that it runs smoothly and is secure. Understandably, officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan have said that trying to put overseas voting in place in time for the upcoming elections, as the Supreme Court had suggested, would be risky. First, there are the basic challenges: determining who should be able to vote and how they will vote, setting up the infrastructure required at home and abroad, and ensuring that the process is a secure one in which votes aren’t lost, misdirected or tampered with. This stage also includes settling the fundamental question of whether overseas voters will constitute a separate constituency or vote from the last (or another) constituency they lived in while in Pakistan.

Then there are problems specific to the Pakistani expatriate community and electoral system. The high number of emigrants from certain areas means they have the ability to change election outcomes in those constituencies, which increases the costs of any manipulation or lapses. Also, the country’s electoral system is not a presidential one with a couple of candidates contesting elections. Numerous candidates run for each of hundreds of constituencies, which means an incredible volume of paperwork to be shared with foreign missions unless a system is worked out in which overseas voters form a single constituency or are registered for their home constituency ahead of time. Voting over the internet, the ECP has argued, would be too risky in terms of information security. Determining what the best mechanism is and putting it in place cannot be done in a few weeks. Overseas Pakistanis deserve to be able to vote. But they also deserve a user-friendly and secure system, even if that means waiting till the next elections.