During the third round of the US Presidential debate a fortnight ago,
Republican candidate Mitt Romney made a remark about Pakistan, with
which not only President Barack Obama, but most governments in the world
would concur
: encouraging Pakistan to move towards “a more stable
government”. This is also an aim to which the government and people of
Pakistan would aspire. The question is what is the nature of the current
instability? In this context, what are the imperatives of achieving
some semblance of stability?
There are five forms of instability that are now feeding off one
another to push Pakistan into the vortex of a gathering storm. First,
extremist militant organisations have acquired the ideological influence
and military capability to threaten not only Pakistan’s fledgling
democracy but the existence of the state itself.
Second, the financial fragility of the economy is symptomatic of key
structural constraints to achieving a sustained, high GDP growth: a low
domestic savings rate and failure to achieve export diversification that
could enable growth of export earnings sufficient to finance the import
requirements of a high GDP growth path. These structural problems lead
to an unstable GDP growth; they induce continued aid dependence,
recurrent balance of payments pressures and a serious lack of fiscal
space.
At a more fundamental level, Pakistan’s poor economic performance is
rooted in a rent-based institutional framework, which prevents both, a
sustained as well as an equitable economic growth process. Consequently,
there is persistent mass poverty and high levels of unemployment in a
rapidly growing and young labour force. At the same time, the fiscal
pressures and governance weaknesses render the government incapable of
providing adequate electricity or the provision of the minimum basic
services necessary for civilised human existence to a large proportion
of the population. These deprivations, combined with widespread
corruption and the endemic inequality of incomes, assets and economic
opportunities, creates growing resentment amongst large sections of the
population. The failure of the government to address these issues — and
instead the proclivity for providing an opulent lifestyle for the upper
crust of the state apparatus — fuels extremism.
Third, the military has historically played an important role in
foreign policy, security policy, public sector resource allocation and
has even influenced the political process as the recent Asghar Khan case
disclosures have shown. This is divergent from the Constitution, which
stipulates the subordination of the military to elected civilian
authority. The predominance of the military in the actual practice of
the government has been a major factor in instability, with recurrent
coup d’etats and a constant nurturing of extremist groups as ‘strategic
assets’ in the pursuit of national security.
Fourth, there are growing regional inequalities and the tendency to
respond to the consequent political expression of grievances in the
backward regions, with military force. This tends to place pressures on
the federal structure and leads to the rise of regional nationalisms
such as in Balochistan.
Fifth, there is a tendency in the elements of the state, as well as
society, to use self-serving fantasies and conspiracy theories in
assessing the domestic and international situation. There is lack of an
objective evaluation of where national power is to be projected; the
place of Pakistan in the world; the fragility of the economy; the
magnitude of the threat posed by the extremists and the dangers of
ambivalence towards them.
The path to stability involves understanding each of these five forms
of instability and their dynamics in the domestic and international
arenas. Achieving stability will require building a combination of
forces in the social, political and state spheres that can seriously
address the challenges that confront Pakistan.