Persisting fault line

In its very first sessions, Pakistan’s newly elected National Assembly was the scene of protests and rowdyism by opposition members belonging to Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Although these noisy sessions did not prevent the election of the prime minister and speaker of the Lower House, it indicated that proceedings of the assembly will continue to be disrupted by PTI-backed lawmakers. Opposition members have in fact threatened to disrupt every meeting of the NA unless their complaints about ballot fraud in the February general election are addressed. This foreshadows the difficulties ahead of conducting legislative business and lays bare the risk of parliamentary paralysis.

Unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. Government-opposition confrontation in Parliament and outside has a long pedigree in Pakistan’s political history and is in fact among the country’s enduring fault lines, that has served to undermine the working of democracy. Lack of tolerance has been a longstanding characteristic of Pakistani politics.

A culture of compromise and consensus never took root which left democracy fragile and unstable and allowed it to be frequently upended.

Those in power rarely accepted the need to eng­age with the opposition, while those in opposition almost always tried to destabilize the government of the day. These power struggles became fatal distractions from governance and meeting public needs. What were essentially intra-elite squabbles — over power and patronage rather than policy — created the conditions for the military to intervene and occupy the political stage.

PTI has a better chance of advancing its goals by working within the system and using its considerable strength in parliament to press its case. 

Maleeha Lodhi

Political leaders repeatedly ignored the lesson that mutual accommodation and compromise were essential to achieve civilian supremacy and strengthen democracy. Also overlooked was the risk that endless power tussles would open space for the military to seize control of the political system. There were always political parties ready to encourage military interventions to remove their opponents. The military for its part easily found political allies to oust civilian governments and aid its takeovers of power. At other times when civilian governments were in place their reliance on the military establishment to neutralize their opponents enabled it to acquire a greater role in governance – in what came to be known as a hybrid political system. This is what prevails today.

Lack of tolerance among political rivals was also evidenced in troubled center-province relations over the decades, which repeatedly tested the country’s unity with deleterious consequences. The notion that reciprocal obligations between the center and provinces are more than a constitutional precept and have to be fulfilled is still not readily accepted. This has implications for the state of play today when three of the four provinces are controlled by political parties different from the one leading the coalition government at the center headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. 

There is no indication that tensions between the coalition government and opposition will ease. If anything, their confrontation is likely to intensify. Both sides seem to have calculated that continuing the confrontation is in their political interest. PTI thinks that continuing with a combative strategy will mount pressure on the government to concede to its demands, whereas it has a better chance of advancing its goals by working within the system and using its considerable strength in parliament to press its case. The government’s priority should be to calm down the fraught and volatile environment rather than add to the tensions being stoked by an angry opposition. This approach will contribute to instability in the country and distract the coalition leadership from governing. 

The costs of confrontation to the country are evident. Continued turmoil will leave the country in an unstable state. This at a time when many challenges need to be urgently addressed. The most important of course is to fix an economy that is still on life-support. A slew of negative trends continues — internal and external financial imbalances remain wide, foreign exchange reserves are at a fragile level especially in view of heavy debt service payments ahead, domestic and foreign debt have reached unsustainable levels, inflation is at a historic high, the rupee has lost record value against the dollar, growth has stagnated, exports have fallen and foreign direct investment remains dampened. These trends need to be reversed but the old way of managing public finances cannot achieve this. What are needed are wide ranging reforms to deal with the structural sources of internal and external financial imbalances, which create the need for constant bailouts. 

But the present unstable and unpredictable environment is an obstacle to efforts to heal the ailing economy. A failing economy cannot be in anyone’s interest. But whether or not the coalition government and opposition accept that the political costs of their strategies outweigh their presumed advantages, the country will continue to bear the cost of unceasing confrontation.

– Maleeha Lodhi is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, UK & UN. Twitter @LodhiMaleeha