Monday, December 09, 2013

Unfair remarks: PM’s grouse

THE prime minister is upset that the media has not treated his government fairly or justly in its coverage of the government’s performance so far and he specifically complained over the weekend that the great vegetable price inflation was highlighted far more than the recent downward trend in prices. Governments complaining about the role of the media in undermining them and treating them unfairly and unjustly is as old a complaint as the media itself. In reality, it is often the media that has been treated unjustly, unfairly and worse by governments throughout history, and that history certainly includes PML-N governments. To be sure, there are sections of the media here that often project themselves as participants in, instead of observers of, the political and governance process, but even that is not something a vibrant and thriving democracy cannot absorb.

The problem with the PML-N government, which has led to growing, though far from historically fierce, criticism of its performance, is twofold: it does not appear to have a coherent plan nor does it appear to know how to communicate well the plans it does have. Have a look at the economic front. The management of the economy is nearing shambolic and yet the chief stewards of the economy appear unwilling to factor in reality in their public assessments, as detailed further down in these columns today. On other fronts, even when the prime minister does act and makes some reasonable choices in appointing officials, controversy follows. For example, if a foreign secretary was chosen and his name all but officially announced, why embarrass all concerned, including the prime minister, by a last-minute change? These instances are only a tiny sample of the political paralysis and indecision that seems to have afflicted the PML-N government.

What is troubling about the prime minister’s comments is that he has chosen to criticise the media at precisely the moment the country is looking to him to get on with the business of governance and policy now that a new army chief has been installed and a new chief justice of the Supreme Court will be sworn in this week. Is the prime minister once again simply looking for scapegoats?

It surely cannot bode well for the prospects of an improvement on the governance front.

No political will: Siachen freeze

IT was once talked up as potential low-hanging fruit — diplomatic speak for a goal that is relatively easily achievable. In reality, Siachen has proved to be anything but. The latest indication has come in the shape of an anonymous rebuttal to the Indian media by the Indian army regarding the suggestion by Sartaj Aziz that troops should be withdrawn from Siachen because of the environmental dangers to the critical glacier. Mr Aziz’s words were reported in an India-specific context — that Pakistan’s water supplies are threatened by the environmental damage the Indian troop presence on Siachen is causing — but it is a long-standing position of the Pakistani state that both countries’ troops should be pulled back and Siachen be returned to its no-man’s land status. But the Indian army has quickly expressed its disapproval of the idea, reinforcing the new status quo on Siachen discussions: Pakistan proposes; India opposes.

The Indian army’s stubbornness on Siachen is rooted in the narrowness of military thinking: the Indian side has a military advantage in Siachen; the beefing up of military infrastructure and supply routes has reduced the risk of succumbing to the extreme cold and inhospitable terrain; occupying Siachen serves as a badge of honour in the macho military culture; and, thanks to the utter foolishness of Pervez Musharraf, the Kargil disaster has given the Indian military enough ammunition to shoot down talk of building trust and abiding by joint agreements on Siachen. Understanding that logic, however, does not equal to automatically accepting it. What the Musharraf disaster did can be undone through a verification mechanism that ensures neither side creeps back into Siachen once troops withdraw. But then the Indian army’s insistence that the present positions of both sides on Siachen be marked becomes a red flag to Pakistan because it lays down a marker in a disputed region. The solution, as ever, remains well known: political will from both sides to wrest control from their respective security establishments. That is surely doable in this specific area on this specific matter.

Dar’s pie in the sky: Economic ‘feats’

FINANCE Minister Ishaq Dar is one of those men in government who appear to know the value of personal relationships in establishing durable business ties. He was following PML-N convention when, during a recent meeting with the German ambassador — who had a kind word for the government’s economic efforts — he “recalled that the first dignitary who met … Nawaz Sharif after he was sworn in as prime minister was the German foreign minister”. Mr Dar used the meeting to go over the government’s ‘feats’ in the brief period it has been in charge of the “broken economy” that it had “inherited”. The highlight was his reiteration of his commitment to economic reforms. He made no secret of his party’s resolve to carry out large-scale reforms without any prodding from the IMF. These steps, Mr Dar asserted, were there in the PML-N manifesto in the last election. With these words, there remains little doubt that the Pakistani people’s harangue against world donors over the rising inflation in the country has little justification. This was apparently written in the stars and is not something laterally imposed by the IMF.

In his meeting with the German envoy, Mr Ishaq Dar — inevitably — listed the ‘clearance’ of the circular debt in the energy sector as an immediate, big success of his government. Some bitter observers would say he might as well have proceeded from there to thank the ambassador on the impact the development of the Gutenberg press in Germany back in the 15th century has had on currencies, and the subsequent convenient payments of debts. But that admission will take time. For the moment, we can be satisfied in the knowledge that it is the PML-N and not the IMF that has taken up the task of reforming us economically.