//php if(!empty($last_str)){if(!preg_match('~[0-9]+~', $first_str)){echo $title;}else{echo $last_str; }}else{echo $title;}?>12 : Manifestoes and Political Preferences in Pakistan
Shahid Javed Burki
24 April 2013
As Pakistan heads towards another general election on 11 May 2013, the obvious question to ask is whether the new leadership groups will be able to pull the country back from the abyss at which it stands and set it on a course that would bring political and social stability and with it economic progress. The country faces many problems. It still has a political system that is not fully defined in terms of the locus of policymaking. In this context, the role of the military remains unclear as does the relationship between the president and the parliament. How the recently-empowered provinces will conduct their affairs remains to be clarified in the light of the 18th Amendment that was enacted in April 2010. The country has to tackle the problem posed by the rise of Islamic extremism. It must not only bring the dissidents into the political fold but also ensure that all minorities are granted full constitutional and human rights. The economy is in a state of serious stress. What can be done to put it on a higher growth trajectory that can be sustained over time? How should the country refashion its relations with the outside world so as to reduce its isolation from international community? How should it take advantage of the rapidly changing global economy and political order? At this time, Pakistan is essentially a bystander as enormous change is taking place all around its borders.
1 Mr Shahid Javed Burki is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at sjburki@yahoo.com. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. During a professional career spanning over half a century, Mr Burki has held a number of senior positions in Pakistan and at the World Bank. He was the Director of China Operations at the World Bank from 1987 to 1994 and the Vice President of Latin America and the Caribbean Region at the World Bank from 1994 to 1999. On leave of absence from the Bank he was Pakistan's Finance Minister, 1996-97.
2
The May elections will contribute to the reshaping of the political order in Pakistan. This will matter not only for the country but also have consequences for the western part of the Muslim world. Most countries in this area are engaged in deep political and economic transformation. Some, like Egypt and Tunisia, are attempting to fashion political systems that can accommodate Islamic groups that have been, for decades, attempting to create legitimate political presence for themselves. They would also like to wean their economies from Western financial support. Some, like Turkey, are engaged in establishing civilian primacy in governance, narrowing the space available to their militaries. The political order in Iran is attempting to find space for the non-religious elements in a system that has been dominated since the 1979 Islamic revolution by the clerics. And Afghanistan will need to figure out how an exceptionally militant Islamic group can live in political harmony and within a constitutional framework that is acceptable to the entire citizenry. Pakistan is involved in finding workable solutions to all these unresolved issues. It is moving simultaneously in a process of transition and transformation in all these areas. This paper looks at one aspect of the on-going Pakistani experiment: how the three main political parties will address these various issues.