Pakistan: Back to the Future?

Notes internacionals CIDOB, núm. 91

At the start of 2014, a number of Pakistan’s leading analysts identified what they saw as the major challenges facing the country: (i) extremism and violence, (ii) weak governance, (iii) the economy, and (iv) the imperative of a changed foreign policy towards the neighbours.

Half way through 2014, and at the end of the first year of the third Nawaz Sharif government, the attention is focused on two of these imperatives: extremism and governance. Pakistan faces a triple challenge in this regard: from the resurgence of militant mullahs in the capital to the power struggle inherent in the government-military relationship, the most recent chapter being the government’s entanglement with the independent media. How these challenges play out will affect Pakistan’s future and will have international repercussions. Geopolitical factors of concern include the impact of any quid pro quo to be expected by Saudi Arabia for bailing out the Pakistani economy with its recent US$ 1.5 billion “gift”; the potential implications for any export of jihad from Pakistan to Syria that might be demanded in return; and the effects of regional relationships on the development of a united stance against domestic militants within Pakistan.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been head of government three times. The last time round, he was deposed in 1998 by a military coup led by General Musharraf. However, even those who consider that periods of military rule are a root cause of Pakistan’s many problems, also regard the current judicial processes against Mr. Musharraf as overly-antagonistic. And the Pakistan army has a strong reputation of looking after its own. The jury is therefore still out on how this situation may unfold.

When Mr. Sharif was elected in May 2013, questions were raised about how he may have changed, and how might the new Nawaz “mellowed” in political terms by years of exile - in none other than Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s financial benefactor. Some, however, still see Sharif as having remained an “unreconstructed” politician –promoting the same policies, the same ideas, the same choices of self-interest over national urgencies, the same tendency to promote the largest, most populated province of the Punjab at the expense of the rest of the country, as a type of extension of the Sharif business empire– (to wit, recent Punjab to Punjab commercial overtures to India by his brother Shahbaz, Chief Minister of the Pakistan Punjab).

From the perspective of policies towards the neighbours, the way in which this triangular relationship between the mullahs, the military and the media unfolds, and the consequent institutional responses, has more than a solely domestic impact. Countries in the region are concerned that the Pakistani military and political elite cannot maintain law and order in large parts of the country. Further afield, fears over the vulnerability of the nuclear arsenal remain vivid in the West.

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