Category: Pakistan Politics

ISLAMABAD: In its meeting on Monday evening, the federal cabinet decided to abolish the discretionary funds of the prime minister, federal ministers and development funds for MNAs, a decision which has been widely projected as an unprecedented step by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government. The reality is quite the opposite.

Very few observers have cared to check whether these funds existed before. A sum of just Rs80 million a year used to be allocated to the prime minister, which he would largely spend on entertaining the applications of needy people for free medical treatment and the like. Even incumbent government officials agree this was not a substantial allocation.

A special fund of Rs1 million used to be allocated to each cabinet member, but had already been abolished by the previous government. The practice of releasing secret funds to different ministries had also been stopped by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) administration; the intelligence agencies remained the only exception to this rule.

The PML-N government had also announced the abolition of discretionary development funds to MNAs, although this practice continued under different official nomenclature.

So what is different? The hefty allocations made for development projects in the constituencies of ruling coalition MNAs is the key point. Abolishing this would really be a big test for the government. These funds are what the PTI government has decided to stop, terming them as “discretionary funds”. Ideally, development is the domain of the local government apparatus, not that of federal lawmakers, since financial resources were largely devolved to the provinces under the 18th amendment to the constitution.

The abolition of these funds was promised in the PTI manifesto published in 2013. The party had announced an end to this practice in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it formed the government there five years ago. Did it keep the promise? The answer is negative.

Before pinning so much hope on such pledges, it is important to ascertain the fate of such measures announced in the past so as to spell out the challenges faced in translating rhetoric into reality. In the early days of the Nawaz Sharif government in 2013, there was a similar air of optimism. Austerity was the buzzword, as with the newly ensconced PTI government.

The first budget of the PML-N government unveiled a 45 per cent cut in the expenses of PM House, reducing it from Rs725 million a year to Rs396 million. However, they started increasing again from Sharif’s second year in office onward. By the time the PML-N government presented its last budget in May, some Rs986 million was budgeted for PM House, significantly more than the slashed budget announced in 2013.

Likewise, non-development expenditures were trimmed by 30 per cent in line as part of the austerity drive at the time. This resulted in the slowing down of office work, as staff would complain of shortages of paper, ink and other supplies, and about restrictions on the use of telephones. Ultimately, the government had to backtrack on its decision to cut financial corners.

Similarly, a radical decision was taken by the erstwhile PML-N government to abolish development funds for MNAs. This was made controversial by the unconstrained abuse of the funds by former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) premier Raja Pervez Ashraf. He lavished funds totaling Rs47 billion on his native Gujar Khan, while a further Rs5 billion was granted to other influential PPP lawmakers and their allies.

When the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court, it directed action against Pervez and ruled that the allocation of discretionary funds to the prime minister and chief ministers for development projects was an unconstitutional practice.

“The government is bound to establish procedure/criteria for governing allocation of such funds for this purpose,” the Supreme Court noted in its verdict on December 5, 2013.

When the PML-N formed the government, it initially refused to grant funds to MNAs for handpicked development schemes in their constituencies. Meanwhile, any announcement by the prime minister for, say, the construction of a road or the provision of piped natural gas, was routed through the Planning Division. The Nawaz Sharif government faced raucous opposition when it approved funds for the Rawalpindi-Islamabad metro bus project, with critics dubbing it a violation of the Supreme Court order in the Raja Pervez Ashraf case, although the plan was expedited via the Planning Division, not from any discretionary fund.

In an apparent attempt to counter-balance this criticism, Nawaz announced the establishment of 46 state-of-the-art hospitals across the country, a move which failed to make any headway due to the poor conception of the project. It gave rise to questions as to whether administrative charge and financing of the hospitals would be undertaken by provincial administrations or the federal government.

However, the government found itself under real pressure from MNAs to restore the funds after the destabilising crises created by the PTI-led dharna in 2014 and the Dawn leaks controversy in 2016. It was torn between obeying the court’s order banning the discretionary allocation of development funds and appeasing lawmakers in the run-up to the 2018 general election.

It sought and found an innovative way of releasing the controversial grants. They were allocated under the heading of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which require the government to invest in the provision of clean drinking water, energy and poverty alleviation – all through the Planning Division and mostly to treasury MNAs, with the major chunk allocated to politicians from Punjab.

The PTI provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa behaved no differently, violating its 2013 manifesto pledge and the Supreme Court’s order. In 2014, PTI Chairman Imran Khan wrote a letter to the then chief minister, Pervez Khattak, directing him to stop the release for discretionary funds for himself, cabinet members and MPAs. What happened in reality is a matter of public record.

The following year (2015), Rs8.5 billion was released to MPAs. Whereas the PML-N government had made such allocations under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the KP government did so under its Annual Development Programme, doling out funds in the form of special packages and district development initiatives. A significant chunk went to the constituencies of treasury lawmakers and ministers, according to according to Centre for Governance and Public Accountability (CGPA), which obtained the data courtesy of Right To Information (RTI) laws.
Another RTI request by the CGPA brought to the public’s attention the fact that Khattak and his finance minister, Muzaffar Said, collectively spent Rs837 million in the financial year 2017-18 alone, sourcing it from the discretionary funds for local governments at their disposal.

Some Rs557 million was allocated to Khattak and Rs280 million to Said, according to the data obtained by the CGPA. The single highest allocation of Rs490 million was made for projects in Khattak’s home district of Nowshera, followed by Rs200 million to Said’s home district of Lower Dir.

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IMRAN Khan has set ambitious goals for his government. While his priorities seem right the challenges are enormous. His first address to the nation has indeed inspired people giving them some hope.

No Pakistani leader in the recent past has spoken so earnestly about the problems faced by the common people and also the difficulties confronting the nation. He believes he can change the destiny of this crisis-torn country. All that sounds reassuring. But can he deliver on his promise?

The transition from the position of an opposition leader to one of power is never easy, particularly when it has taken one decades of relentless struggle to reach that level. Khan’s outburst during his first speech at the National Assembly following his election as prime minister was seen to prove the point.

He lost his cool in the face of the PML-N’s unruly protest and went into his confrontationist ‘container’ mode. He, however, appeared more in control during his televised address.

Notwithstanding some populist rhetoric, the prime minister has given his vision of turning Pakistan into a social welfare state. His emphasis on human development is in contrast with the PML-N government’s obsession with big-ticket infrastructure projects. Health, education, environment and institutional reform are at the top rung of Khan’s priorities.

The PTI government has taken populist rhetoric too far on the issue of accountability.
It is rare for our political leaders to take such an emphatic position on critical issues directly linked to the well-being of the masses.

The lack of investment on human infrastructure has been a major cause of Pakistan lagging behind in economic and social development. Surely successive governments had pledged to improve education and health services but there has never been any serious effort to fulfil those promises.

Financial constraints have also been a factor in low investment in the social sector. Khan’s promise to get millions of children into school needs massive resources. It is a similar story in the health sector. The party may have succeeded to some extent in reforming the education and health sectors in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that it ruled for five years, but a lot more needs to be done.

The financial crisis is certainly the most serious concern for the new government as acknowledged by the prime minister. The current account deficit and falling foreign exchange reserves need urgent action. But Khan does not seem to have clear thoughts on the question of whether to seek an IMF bailout or to see if other options are available to deal with the crisis. The massive debt burden has limited our options. The delay in making decisions could worsen our predicament.

Equally serious are the burgeoning circular debt affecting the power sector and the massive losses incurred by public-sector organisations that have added to our financial woes. There is an urgent need to formulate a clear policy to stop this haemorrhaging. The government has made it clear that it did not have any plan to privatise the losing state-owned enterprises. But it will be hard to revamp organisations like PIA and Pakistan Steel Mills and make them run more efficiently by just making changes at the top. The government will have to take some tough and unpopular measures early in its tenure. It remains to be seen whether it is ready to bite the bullet while keeping its populist promises.

Khan has promised to double the tax revenue by reforming the FBR and appealing to the conscience of the people to pay taxes. That sounds great. But it requires much more to instil the tax culture in society. There is a lot of symbolism involved in Khan’s austerity drive. His decision not to live in Prime Minister House and cut down on protocol certainly has great symbolic value, but the administration needs to do much more in order to decrease public expenditure.

Given the enormous challenges of governance, the new government needs a more prudent approach on the political front. But there seems to be no let-up in the party’s confrontational politics. The decision to put the former prime minister and his daughter on the Exit Control List does not make any sense as they are already in prison. The move smacks of vendetta and it only serves to divert attention from the government’s reform agenda.

Also on the issue of accountability, the PTI government has taken populist rhetoric too far. Indeed, there is a need for across-the-board accountability but the government’s actions reinforce allegations of a witch hunt. The pledge of bringing back looted money is nothing more than rhetoric. It would be much better for the PTI administration to let the law take its course rather than have its leaders trumpeting the mantra day and night.

Although Khan has vowed to implement the National Action Plan, there seems little clarity on how the administration plans to deal with the menace of religious extremism that threatens to tear apart our social fabric. There was not even a mention of the problem of violent extremism in the prime minister’s address to the nation.

In order to accomplish the ambitious target, the prime minister needs a good team. Surely the 22-member cabinet has many capable and experienced people, but there is no new blood to bring in dynamism and fresh thinking in the administration. One can understand the compromises one has to make in a coalition setup, yet some space could have been created to bring in new faces.

Most shocking has been the choice of chief minister of Punjab. The logic offered by Khan on the odd appointment that Sardar Usman Buzdar comes from the most backward region is astonishing. The selection of a man who had never held any public office before and has a dubious personal record to head the government in the country’s biggest province is more alarming as the provinces are responsible for carrying out the reform agenda announced by the prime minister.

Notwithstanding Imran Khan’s commitment of building a ‘naya Pakistan’, there is now a need for the new incumbent to focus more seriously on governance rather than pandering to populism. Governance is serious business and must be taken as such.

The writer is an author and journalist.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government on Tuesday lifted political censorship on the state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) and Radio Pakistan by allowing these to air point of views and news of all political parties without any discrimination.

Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Fawad Chaudhary spoke out via Twitter saying that, “As per vision of [Prime Minister] Imran Khan ended political censorship on PTV, clear instructions issued for a complete editorial independence on PTV and Radio Pakistan, drastic changes will be visible in information department in coming three months”.

Chaudhry elaborated that PTV and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would not be used as a private property by any government anymore rather these would be used to portray and promote the country’s positive image.

Before taking the reins of the ministry, the PTI leader said that the official media of the country which includes Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), PTV and Radio Pakistan would be improved and made independent with no political interference drawing parallels to foreign media outlets.

He doubled down on depoliticising the national news broadcaster and expressed making it independent like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

During the Pakistan Muslim League –Nawaz (PML-N) government’s tenure, opposition parties called for PTV to run news and views of the opposition parties, but to no avail.

In view of the PML-N government’s response, the opposition parties had labelled the national broadcaster as the supposed ‘mouth piece’ of the government.

Moreover, opposition parties claimed that the political decisions and unnecessary coverage in support of the then government was a catalyst for PTV being mired by financial problems.

Outgoing setup suggests harsh economic measures to PTI

In the wake of the blow back by the opposition, the former PML-N government rolled out PTV Parliament, a new channel.

The new channel aimed to provide coverage of the parliamentary proceedings, as well as, being a platform through which citizens could delve into their elected representatives’ performance.

The former government launched this new channel despite knowing that PTV was already facing financial crunch.
Therefore considering the financial crunch PTV is currently facing, Hussain directed PTV and PBC to make all out efforts to generate revenues by improving their content, programming and screen.

He had also directed PTV Sports to focus more on promoting other traditional games of the country such as Kabaddi, Volleyball along with Cricket and the national game Hockey.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Imran Khan, the charismatic cricketer-turned-politician, was elected prime minister on Friday in an acrimonious vote in the lower house of Parliament that was punctuated by partisan shouting.

“Those people who have looted the country, I promise that they will be brought to justice,” Mr. Khan said in a brief speech after the vote, repeating an anti-corruption campaign theme and offering little conciliation to his adversaries.

Surrounded by loyalists as the opposition’s sloganeering grew louder, he added: “No one has ever been able to blackmail me before. I tell you please go ahead and protest and hit the streets.”

Mr. Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, received 176 votes on Friday while his opponent, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, got 96. He is scheduled to take the oath of office on Saturday.

The hall of Parliament erupted as soon as Asad Qaiser, the speaker, announced the vote count. Mr. Khan’s supporters exalted “Prime Minister Imran Khan,” while his opponents stood up and roared “Vote thief not acceptable,” alluding to allegations of rigging in the July 25 general election.

Mr. Khan sat smiling after his victory, holding a prayer bead in one hand and occasionally shaking his head in disapproval of the opposition ruckus.

Mr. Khan’s party, known as PTI, holds 151 seats in the parliament. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the former governing party, has 81 seats. The Pakistan Peoples Party, the third-largest party, has 54 but abstained from Friday’s voting.

The uproar in Parliament may be a prelude to the difficult path ahead for the new prime minister. The large number of opposition members in the two chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate, will make legislating a tough bargain.

PTI’s rise has marked a stunning turnaround in Mr. Khan’s political fortunes. He emerged as a serious contender only in 2011 when he began attracting large crowds at rallies.

For a long time, he was considered a nobody in the political landscape, and people often mocked his ambition of becoming prime minister. In 2002, his party had just one seat in Parliament. He boycotted the 2008 elections, and in 2013 managed to increase his party’s share to 35.

But he has a history of doing the improbable. Pakistan’s cricket team emerged as one of the best in the world under his leadership and won the World Cup in 1992. Mr. Khan also built the country’s first cancer hospital that treats poor patients for free after raising money through charity.

Mr. Khan has no real governing experience and will face an enormous task in steering the country out of its economic and political challenges.

During the election campaign, Mr. Khan vowed to end corruption and official malfeasance. A broad section of the country’s population, especially the young and educated middle class, has been enamored of his promise of change and reform.

But the elections on July 25 were also marred by allegations of the powerful military’s meddling and irregularities in voting.

The military has denied tilting the election in Mr. Khan’s favor, but the party formerly in power, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, has leveled loud accusations that intelligence agencies forced its members to defect to Mr. Khan’s party or run as independents.

The corruption conviction and jailing of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister, just before the elections also helped Mr. Khan’s ascent.

In many ways, Mr. Khan was responsible for the downfall of Mr. Sharif, a towering figure in the country’s politics who has served as prime minister for three times but never managed to complete a full term.

Mr. Khan led large-scale street protests against Mr. Sharif and helped to advance Supreme Court cases that led to his ouster in July 2017.

Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of Mr. Sharif, is now running their political party but analysts here say he cannot match the elder Sharif’s leadership style.

As former cricket superstar Imran Khan assumes office as Pakistan’s prime minister vowing to change the way the country is governed, members of his Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) have started to ask embarrassing questions about the perks enjoyed by Chinese companies involved in belt and road projects linking Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea.

Fighting the election on an anti-corruption plank for building a “new” Pakistan, Khan’s party has jump-started its promised public examination of agreements for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) made by the last government led by Khan’s nemesis, Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif’s government released only piecemeal information about CPEC and its officials often made contradictory claims, fuelling criticism that the agreements were poorly negotiated – as well as allegations of corruption involving members of the Sharif family.

Chairing a senate committee this week, PTI politician Shibli Faraz questioned the “discrimination” of creating a dedicated US$179 million revolving fund to ensure regular partial payments to Chinese power companies.

Pakistan’s power sector is riddled with debt, created by the government’s inability to keep pace with bills owed to fuel suppliers and independent power producers.

Responding to complaints from Chinese companies and to avert possible Chinese pullback on future CPEC projects, the revolving fund was agreed upon by the caretaker administration that oversaw Pakistan’s government during the three-month campaign season and transfer of power.

Why is the US trying to bully Pakistan with empty China threats?

According to that agreement, the government would finance the fund through expensive short-term borrowing from domestic banks, senior power ministry official Zargham Ishaq told the senate committee.

Although the fund was yet to be established, the government was required to implement the agreement as part of its CPEC commitments, he said.

The incoming PTI administration might have other ideas, and choose to scrap the agreement on the grounds that the caretaker government exceeded its constitutional mandate. Faraz’s interjection reflects a continuing political sniping in Pakistan, placing Chinese companies in the line of fire.

Another Senate committee this week ordered the national highway authority to provide it with details of a CPEC motorway project in central Pakistan, after PTI member Nauman Wazir claimed favourable terms accorded to the Chinese contractor were tantamount to the “embezzlement” of US$1.1 billion.

Pakistan’s politics is known for its volatility – and the current state of play is no different. Sharif, who is serving a 10-year sentence for corruption after being sacked by the Supreme Court following a petition by moved by Khan and his allies last year, prioritised CPEC projects that helped plug the country’s crippling power shortfalls.

Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at The Wilson Centre, a Washington think tank, said China likely would have been more comfortable with Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) staying in power, knowing that it had largely agreed with Beijing on the broader terms of CPEC on the whole and had not raised any concerns about the lack of transparent financing plans.

“The PTI’s emphasis on more transparency could certainly be an irritant for Beijing, but at the end of the day this is something the Chinese may well have envisioned happening anyway, especially on the assumption that Pakistan would go to the International Monetary Fund for a loan and have to open its books,” Kugelman told This Week in Asia.

Whoever wins, Pakistan’s new boss will be bossed just like the old boss

But Sharif is far from done. His Pakistan Muslim League has formed a grand opposition alliance that poses a formidable opposition to Khan’s legislative programme in the directly elected National Assembly, where Khan’s PTI enjoys a thin majority. The opposition alliance already holds a majority in the senate, which has the power to block non-finance bills. It also plans to mount protests against last month’s election, disrupting Khan’s ability to govern in much the same way he had done to Sharif in 2014.

Chinese diplomats have repeatedly voiced concerns about political instability and its potential impact on the execution of CPEC projects. Khan, who has little experience as an administrator, has promised “real change”. That, along with the need to keep Sharif in check, would necessitate continuing attacks on past government policies, many of which helped Chinese companies.

Hardline PTI politicians and allies are expected to continue to make noises about CPEC-related corruption by the Sharif administration, leaving it to responsible cabinet members to play down the Chinese connection
.
Finance minister-in-waiting Asad Umar said on Wednesday CPEC agreements would be placed before parliament to “ensure transparency”, but there was nothing wrong with them in general – although members of the incoming government have not yet seen the texts. Agreements would only be “reopened” if clear evidence of corruption emerged, he said.

How far the PTI can go in pursuing corruption within CPEC projects is questionable as the military assumed political ownership of the corridor last year by integrating it into national security policy.

“They will take time in rebooting the mindset of an eternally angry opposition, provided all is not lost by then,” said Aamir Ghauri, the editor of The News International, a Pakistani newspaper.

The PTI’s questions about CPEC transparency echoed those raised recently by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ahead of a request for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout by the incoming Khan administration. The bailout is needed to address a yawning trade imbalance worsened by Chinese machinery imports for the US$28 billion of CPEC projects launched over the past three years. Beijing has helped shore up Pakistan’s plunging foreign exchange reserves with US$6 billion of emergency loans, adding to Pakistan’s debts.

In considering the implications of an IMF bailout, Umar would have to weigh Pompeo’s warning that a bailout application would be subject to intense vetting to ensure US taxpayer dollars did not end up paying Chinese debts.

The US has launched an increasingly aggressive campaign against China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, which seeks to boost global trade through infrastructure projects. It has recently announced the establishment of a US$113 million fund to aid economic competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific in partnership with Japan and Australia. Soon after, a group of 16 US senators known for their hawkish views on China wrote to Pompeo and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin asking how the US government could use its influence at the IMF to ensure the terms of a Pakistan bailout “prevent the continuation of ongoing BRI projects, or the start of new BRI projects”.

The recently approved US defence budget also includes a stipulation by Congress that would require the Donald Trump administration to submit a report by March on China’s use of the belt and road plan to “gain access and influence”.

“Pakistan needs the IMF but the US administration has been uncharacteristically candid in drawing a link between the donor agency’s leaning and the state of US-Pakistan ties,” said Moeed Yusuf, author of Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: US Crisis Management in South Asia.

“From everything I am picking up, this doesn’t seem to have been a hollow threat,” Yusuf said in a recent commentary for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.

This has built pressure on Umar to rebalance Pakistan’s financial exposure away from dependence on China, and to make good on promises to make public the terms of existing CPEC agreements. Some pullbacks on big-ticket infrastructure projects are in any case likely as Khan will be forced to trim expenses, meaning a pullback on some future CPEC projects.

“We look forward to constructive relationships with all important countries and the US is the most important. But the PTI will not have an either-or approach. We want good relations with both the US and China,” Umar said, participating in a US think tank discussion on Wednesday.

With the future of the Pakistan-US relationship shrouded in uncertainty, Khan would not do anything to alienate China in a big way.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2156011/whoever-wins-pakistans-new-boss-will-be-bossed-just-old-boss

ISLAMABAD: An all-party conference of opposition parties has denounced the parliamentary elections as sham and unfair, said Senator Sherry Rehman on Thursday.

“The opposition alliance has declared the elections as non-transparent. But we have decided to challenge the puppet government in the parliament,” Sherry Rehman told media persons after the APC which was attended by PML-N, PPP, MMA, ANP and other parties.

“We will take oath in the Nationa Assembly,” she said.

Opposition parties have developed a consensus on some points which include fielding joint candidates for the upcoming elections of Prime Minister, Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the National Assembly, she said.

“It has been decided that every political party will separately issue a white paper against the elections,” she said.

She said that opposition parties would back a PML-N candidate for the election of Prime Minister.

PPP will field its candidate for the election of National Assembly Speaker while Deputy Speaker will be taken from the MMA, she added.

“We have also agreed to stages protests in the assembly and outside,” she said, adding that election was held to ensure the victory of one party.

Speaking on this occasion, PML-N MNA Ahsan Iqbal said that all democratic parties would launch a democratic struggle. “The flawed election is an assault on the foundation of Pakistan,” he said.

ANP’s Mian Iftkhar Hussain said that opposition parties were in a strong position to form a government.

A rare Communist to survive and win, Wazir refused a seat from Imran Khan, who later didn’t put up a candidate against him.

Ali Wazir, a central committee member of The Struggle, has won a seat in the national parliament of Pakistan from NA-50 (Tribal Area–XI) with 23,530 votes and his closest rival from a religious parties alliance, MMA got 7,515. Thus winning the seat with a majority of 16,015.

Ali Wazir is one of the main leaders of the Pashtun Tahafaz Movement (PTM). This year, mass meetings were organised in major cities of Pakistan to raise voices for fair compensation to the victims of the “war on terror” and to demand the release of all ‘missing’ persons or to bring them to the courts if they are guilty.

Two other leaders of the PTM also contested for the national parliament and one of them, Muhsin Dawer also won the seat after a close competition. Mohsin Javed Dawer got 16,526 votes while Aurangzeb of Imran Khan’s PTI got 10,422. However, the MMA candidate Mufti Misbahudin got a close 15,363 votes.

These two PTM leaders contested from Waziristan, an area dominated by religious fanatics. However, a strong movement for civil rights of Pashtuns had cut across the influence of the fanatics and Pashtuns voted despite all the threats to them.

Two main leaders of the PTM present in parliament has given hope to many in Pakistan that at least there would be peoples voices in a parliament dominated by feudal lords, corrupt capitalists and stooges of the military and judicial establishment.

Who is Ali Wazir?
Ali Wazir is a very special person. His personal ordeal best illustrates what prompted his demands. Ali Wazir was pursuing a degree in law at the turn of the century when his hometown, Wana, the headquarters of the south Waziristan agency, became the epicenter of global terrorism after a host of Taliban-allied groups sought shelter in the communities.

No doubt the terrorists had some individual local facilitators, but ultimately it was the state that failed to prevent them from using the territory. When his father, the chief of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, and other local leaders complained of their presence, government officials ignored and silenced them. Instead, Islamabad spent years denying the presence of any Afghan, Arab, or Central Asian militants.

By 2003, the militants had established a foothold in south and north Waziristan tribal agencies and were attempting to build a local emirate. Ali Wazir’s elder brother Farooq Wazir, a local political activist and youth leader, became the first victim of a long campaign in which thousands of Pashtun tribal leaders, activists, politicians, and clerics were killed with near absolute impunity. Their only crime was to question or oppose the presence of dangerous terrorists in their homeland.

In 2005, Ali Wazir was in prison when his father, brothers, cousins, and an uncle were killed in a single ambush. He was behind the bars because of the draconian colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) law, that holds an entire tribe or region responsible for the crimes of an individual for any alleged crime committed in the territory.

Ali Wazir had committed no crime, never got a fair trial, and was not sentenced, yet he was prevented even from participating in the funerals for his family.

In the subsequent years, six more members of his extended family were assassinated. The authorities have not even investigated these crimes let alone held anyone responsible.

Ali Wazir and his family faced economic ruin after all of the notable men in his family were eliminated. The government failed to prevent the militants from demolishing his family owned gas stations. They later used those bricks to build bathrooms, claiming they were munafiqin (hypocrites) so even the inanimate materials from his businesses were not appropriate to build proper buildings.

His family-owned apple and peach orchards in Wana were sprayed with poisonous chemicals, and tube wells were filled with dirt to force them to surrender to the forces of darkness.

In 2016, his family-owned market in Wana was dynamited after a bomb blast killed an army officer, which was an accident. They nevertheless destroyed their livelihoods under the FCR. After the demolition, the government prevented the local community — mostly members of Ahmadzai Wazir tribe — from collecting donations to help them. They were told it would set an unacceptable precedent because the government cannot let anyone help those it punishes.

So all together 16 members of his family, including his father, two brothers were killed by Taliban during these years.

Ali Wazir was one of the main leaders of Pashtun Tahafaz Movement. He recently toured the country and organised mass rallies in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Swat. Lahore Left Front was the host of Lahore public meeting which was formally not permitted by the authorities. We were not allowed to campaign, no posters or stickers were allowed to be put up in the city.

Ali Wazir and seven more were arrested a night before the public meeting and after a massive immediate response, they were released before the rally. Yet, over 10,000 participated in this public meeting.

In June this year, dozens of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) supporters were injured and 10 were killed as a result of an attack on Ali Wazir by the “pro-government militants”, also known as the Peace Committee. However, the PTM sympathisers gathered to welcome Ali retaliated, upon which the militants fled, leaving Ali’s cousin and a Voice of America (VOA) journalist injured among others.

In an interview in April 2018, Ali Wazir said, “The past few months have transformed my life. Amid the agonies I have endured and the threats, suspicion, and accusations I face, the love, support, and respect I receive is overwhelming.

Since February, when we began protesting to draw attention to the suffering of ethnic Pashtuns — among the worst victims of terrorism — I have learned a lot about the potential of ordinary Pakistanis. Their thirst for change is inspiring and heralds a peaceful, prosperous future we must build for generations to come”.

During those difficult years, he didn’t lose faith in the mass movement and remained committed to politics of class struggle. He ran in parliamentary elections in 2008 and 2013.

In the 2013 general elections, his victory was changed to a defeat at gunpoint. He lost the election for just over 300 votes after the Taliban intimidated voters and tortured his supporters and campaign volunteers.

Amid the volcano of violence, thousands of civilians have disappeared, and thousands have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings. The leaders of PTM are profiled as suspected terrorists across the country, face humiliation at security check posts, and innocent civilians have to face violence during security sweeps and operations. As the world’s largest tribal society, the Pashtuns are known for their hospitality, commitment, and valour, yet they were falsely reduced to terrorist sympathisers despite the fact that they are their worst victims.

Ali Wazir belongs to The Struggle, a Pakistani Marxist organization that has joined the Lahore Left Front, a united platform of several Left groups and parties. However, the Lahore Left Front has organised some mass activities where Ali Wazir participated.

The general election of 2018 was the most rigged elections in the history of Pakistan. The society has pushed further to the right with Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) coming to power. Imran Khan called Ali Wazir prior to the elections and offered him PTI nomination from the area which Ali politely refused. However, such respect for Ali Wazir Imran Khan had that that he told him that in any case, “we will not put up our candidate against you”.

Prior to the general elections, a wholesale rigging took place on the behest of the establishment. PML(N) candidates were threatened, forced to change loyalties and so on. The PTI had open support from most of the state institutions.

In this background when a more Right-wing party PTI, than the previous ruling party PML(N), has come to power, a Marxist in parliament would be a breath of fresh air.

Although other Left groups also contested including Awami Workers Party (AWP) and had launched tremendous election campaigns, however, the election campaign of Ali Wazir had some special characteristics. He addressed few public meetings every day, went door to door with his meagre resources. Thousands cheered him at all times. We were all sure that he will win but were afraid of any incident that could cancel the elections from his constituency.

Ali Wazir has opened the gates for the entire Left. He is loved by most of the social activists, a sober person who is always down to earth in his presentation in workers meeting but speaks like a lion when he is addressing the ruling class. A fearless class fighter who has emerged as one of the most respected Left leaders in recent working-class history.

This article was originally published in the Asian Marxist Review

LAHORE, Pakistan — Imran Khan, a charismatic cricket star who has fiercely criticized American counterterrorism policy in a region plagued by extremism, appeared poised on Thursday to become Pakistan’s next prime minister.

After preliminary results showed his party decisively ahead in an election that critics say was deeply marred, Mr. Khan addressed the nation on television, outlining what he would do as prime minister.

He said he would fight corruption at the highest levels, improve relations with China, seek a “mutually beneficial” relationship with the United States and create a just welfare state along the lines of what the Prophet Muhammad did centuries ago.

“We’re going to run Pakistan in a way it’s never been run before,” he said.

He also said he would never live in the prime minister’s mansion. In a country of so many poor people, he said, “I would be embarrassed” to stay in such a house.

For years, Mr. Khan had tried but failed to take the reins of this nuclear-armed Islamic republic, which has struggled with poverty, economic stagnation and instability and which is increasingly torn between its two biggest allies: China and the United States. But this time around, he found a powerful ally in Pakistan’s military.

In recent months, army and intelligence officers pressured, threatened and blackmailed politicians from rival parties, human rights groups have said, steadily thinning out Mr. Khan’s competition.

Members of rival parties said unfair practices continued during the vote, with some ballot counting done in secret, guarded by soldiers. But Pakistan’s election authorities said the vote, on Wednesday, had been fair.

“The way this stage has been set, it would have been a surprise if he didn’t win,” said Nighat Dad, the executive director of Digital Rights Foundation, an advocacy group.

Mr. Khan’s ascendance injects a volatile element into relations with the United States under President Trump, who has accused Pakistan of lying about the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militants embedded in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mr. Khan has denied that and accused the United States of recklessness and murder in its use of drone strikes on suspected extremists in his country, signaling he wants them to stop.

Friends and foes describe Mr. Khan, 65, as relentless, charming, swaggering and highly unpredictable.

As a young man, his good looks, prowess on the cricket pitch and success with women made him something of a fascination in England, where he lived for a time. In 1982, he posed for a London newspaper lounging on a bed, wearing only briefs.

“Imran Khan is worried in case I portray him as a sex symbol,” wrote the London newspaper journalist sent to interview him.

“This is possibly why Imran is stretched across his hotel bed wearing only a petulant expression and a pair of tiny, black satin shorts.”

But a complex, mysterious transformation would begin soon after. In 1992, Mr. Khan captained Pakistan’s cricket team to a World Cup victory over England, the country’s former colonial ruler. It was a moment of immense Pakistani pride, and Mr. Khan was at the center of it.

But looking back on it, he told interviewers, he felt empty.

He began to stay away from the clubs, the partying, the girlfriends. He began a quest to build a cancer hospital in Pakistan for the poor; his mother had died of cancer, and the two had been close.

He turned to Islam and the Sufi sect, which he said helped lend purpose to his life.
Then he entered politics. Pakistan in the late 1990s was a mess: Its Machiavellian spy services were working with the United States and, at the same time, supporting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. The country was poor, troubled and divided — which could still be said today.

Mr. Khan seized on a single issue: governance.

“In Pakistan, the main problem is not extremism,” he said in a recent interview with The New York Times. “We are a governance failure. And in any third world country, the moment the governance collapses, mafias appear.”

He focused on corruption, repeatedly stating that a few political dynasties had shamelessly enriched themselves while governance weakened and the country grew poorer.
But Mr. Khan’s shouts for reform were not taken seriously at first.

The Justice Movement he founded in 1996 initially won only one seat in Parliament — his — and a Pakistani newspaper ridiculed him as “Im the Dim.”

His personal life also careened back and forth, always attracting enormous attention, especially after he married a wealthy British heiress, Jemima Goldsmith. She converted to Islam, they had two children, and tried living in Pakistan together. But it did not last, and they divorced. Mr. Khan married twice more, the last time to his spiritual healer, which again raised eyebrows across Pakistan.

But he seemed adept at not letting the gossip pages distract him, and he kept hammering on about corruption. And two years ago, he received a gift from the Panama Papers.

Those files, an avalanche of millions of leaked confidential documents from a law firm in Panama, included several pieces of information that incriminated Pakistan’s prime minister at the time, Nawaz Sharif. Evidence began to build that Mr. Sharif had stolen millions of dollars from public coffers in Pakistan to buy expensive apartments in London, under the names of his children.

Mr. Khan capitalized on this and called for Mr. Sharif to resign. The Supreme Court removed Mr. Sharif from office, and just two weeks ago, right before the election, Mr. Sharif and his daughter were imprisoned.

Few would disagree that corruption is out of control in Pakistan. But many observers here saw something in Mr. Sharif’s downfall that was more selective, possibly more sinister.

The widespread suspicion was that Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence services had pressured the judiciary to take out Mr. Sharif, clearing a path for Mr. Khan to take over. Mr. Sharif had clashed with the army chiefs, even some of those he had chosen, many times. He was a thorn in their side.

Mr. Khan, on the other hand, was someone the military bosses seemed to think they could work with. Analysts said he shared their worldview, in which Pakistan would kowtow less to the United States and talk more with the Taliban and other extremist groups.

In the prelude to the election, the military seemed to push even harder for Mr. Khan. Human rights groups, academics and members of other political parties said security officers threatened politicians to defect to Mr. Khan’s side. Several did.

That does not mean that Mr. Khan was not genuinely popular. He was, especially among young men who lionized him as a sports hero. As elections loomed, a Khan wave swept Pakistan. His face was everywhere — on banners, lampposts and torn flags flying from the sputtering rickshaws that flit in and out of traffic. His supporters were the most energized and confident. His party’s symbol: a cricket bat.

Votes were still being tabulated on Thursday, but Mr. Khan’s party was far ahead, though still falling short of an outright majority in Parliament. According to results on state television, Mr. Khan’s party had 120 seats, Mr. Sharif’s party 61 and a party run by the Bhuttos, one of Pakistan’s most storied political families, 40.

Even with some vote rigging allegations unsettled, it is widely expected that Mr. Khan will entice politicians from several smaller parties to join a coalition government, with him as prime minister. Depending on how many smaller parties he woos, his government could be strong or weak.

What will Mr. Khan face?
Domestically, the challenges will be overwhelming. Pakistan’s electricity grid is disintegrated, its infant mortality rate is among the most distressing in Asia, its currency is sliding, and its debt — especially to China — is ballooning. So many Pakistanis are unable to find jobs that every year, countless young men set off on a desperate exodus to the Middle East to work as street cleaners, luggage handlers, anything.

Internationally, Pakistan is in a pinch. China has extended it billions to build roads and other infrastructure, which at the current rate will be impossible to repay.
At the same time, President Trump has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid. “They have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools,” Mr. Trump said of Pakistan in a tweet in January. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

Mr. Khan deeply disagrees.

“To blame Pakistan for that disaster is extremely unfair,” he said in the recent Times interview. “The moment the U.S. went into Afghanistan, everyone knew what was going to happen.”

“It was the history of Afghanistan,” he added, citing the defeat of occupying Soviet troops in the 1980s. Just as with the Soviets, he said, the longer the Americans stayed, the more resistance would grow.

Pakistan, he says, has borne “the brunt of the war on terror,” and he lamented what he called a misguided strategy that has killed thousands of people in his country and deprived Pakistan of billions of dollars in lost business. For years, he has been a particularly vocal critic of American drone strikes.

All these positions play well with many Pakistanis. So does Mr. Khan’s recent support for the country’s strict blasphemy laws. Pakistan is socially conservative, and about 96 percent of citizens are Muslim.

Mr. Khan’s positions on religion have tacked like a sailboat over the years. But as the election drew closer, he seemed to set his course for the Islamists. In the past, he expressed support for the application of strict Islamic law, including hand amputations for thieves.

Mr. Khan has successfully rebranded himself as a populist alternative to Pakistan’s political elite, whom voters seemed more than ready to jettison.
But his life, in many ways, could not have been more different from that of most Pakistanis.

Born to a rich family in Lahore, Mr. Khan went to the best schools in Pakistan and in England, including Keble College, Oxford. He is independently wealthy, still travels abroad regularly and remains close to Ms. Goldsmith, despite their divorce.

Though many acquaintances credit him with being charming, he can also come across as remote and desultory. His attendance record as an elected member of the National Assembly, Pakistan’s Parliament, was one of the worst.

Many analysts wonder how long Mr. Khan’s friendship with the military will last.
“He is known to have erratic behavior and a very unpredictable personality,” said Taha Siddiqui, a journalist and critic of the military who recently moved to France, saying he feared for his safety.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan; and Meher Ahmad and Daniyal Hassan from Lahore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/world/asia/imran-khan-pakistan-election.html

In its 70-year history, Pakistan has alternated between quasi-democracy and pure military rule. In the process it has become embroiled in international conflicts and morphed into a home base for Islamist militancy.

Over the past decade, Pakistanis have witnessed democracy at its most undiluted thus far, but it’s now under threat from what some say appears to be a “democratic coup” of sorts.

And just as in the past, the country’s powerful military establishment remains the chief suspect behind the fresh round of political manipulation.

In the past, the military used to either stage a direct coup or use special powers to sack an elected government and then manipulate elections to ensure it wasn’t re-elected.

In 2008, those special powers were done away with, leading to a first in 2013: an elected government completing its five-year term.

But since then the tide appears to have reversed, and critics say the establishment is resorting to more primitive tactics to recover its edge.

A three-pronged approach is in evidence.
First, as some legal experts have observed, the courts have selectively applied the law to clip the wings of the outgoing government, thereby creating an advantage for its rivals.

On Sunday, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court said that the ISI intelligence service was interfering in the judiciary, and had pressured judges not to release convicted ex-PM Nawaz Sharif ahead of the vote.

Mr Sharif was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court on questionable grounds last year, and has since been sentenced to 10 years in jail by a trial court, in a ruling which one legal expert described as an embarrassment to his community.

According to the Dawn newspaper, Justice Siddiqui told the Rawalpindi Bar Association he was not afraid of speaking out against the powerful ISI, saying: “I am not afraid even if I am assassinated.”

Second, authorities have either looked the other way as banned militant groups have joined the election process, or have actively helped them to do so.

And third, the military has been given what many call an obscenely large role in administering the voting process on election day.

More on Pakistan’s election
 Why the election matters
 Viewpoint: Pakistan’s dirtiest election in years
 The acid attack survivor running for parliament
 The assault on Pakistan’s media

The first two stages have already unfolded enough for one to see their preliminary results.

Many candidates from Mr Sharif’s PML-N have been lured to leave the party and either join the PTI party of rival and former cricketer Imran Khan, or stand as independents.

There is evidence that those who have resisted such demands have faced physical violence, had their businesses attacked or have been disqualified from office.

Other parties with a stake in undiluted democracy, such as the PPP party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, are also under threat. The party is now led by her widower, former President Asif Zardari, and fronted by their son, Bilawal Zardari Bhutto.

Some PPP leaders have been named in renewed money-laundering allegations, while authorities in the field have been accused of disrupting its election campaign.

The party, as well as other secular groups, also faces the prospect of militant attacks.

One such party, the leftist Awami National Party, lost a prime candidate in a suicide attack in Peshawar last week. Two more candidates, including one from the PTI, have since been killed in similar attacks.

In Balochistan, a secular candidate, Gizen Marri, has been battling travel restrictions and house arrest, while a man linked by many to sectarian militancy, Shafiq Mengal, is free to stand for election in a neighbouring constituency.

Mr Marri is being stopped probably because of his strong views on provincial rights, an idea which runs contrary to the military’s strictly centrist approach.

But Mr Mengal’s reported links to the sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militant group and his alleged involvement in several attacks in Balochistan are being ignored, secular parties say, apparently because he has been acting as the military’s proxy against Baloch nationalists.

n June, Pakistan removed another leader with LeJ links, Maulana Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi, from its terror watch list, apparently to free him up to lead his group in the election campaign, which it is contesting under a different name.

The Jamatud Dawa (JuD) group, whose leader Hafiz Saeed is on a UN terror blacklist, has also been allowed to field candidates under the banner of a different party.

Mr Saeed is accused of being behind co-ordinated attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people in November 2008.

More recently, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, the founder of the Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM) militant group, ended his long hibernation to announce his support for Imran Khan’s PTI party. He is on a US terrorism black list.

Taken together, all of these moves point to a scenario where left-wing or pro-democracy parties are being squeezed by legal or physical threats.

This has left the field open for Imran Khan’s PTI party and the religious extremists.

If this is any guide to the probable outcome, the aim appears to be to ensure no clear mandate for any one party, a result which the establishment can then manipulate to determine who the next prime minister will be.

And since all of this is being done in plain sight, the media has been put under pressure – by unidentified authorities – to offer only selective coverage of events.

So while on the surface the country still seems to be going through the motions of democracy, many say that what is actually happening is far from democratic.

A former senator and columnist, Afrasiab Khattak, has called it a “creeping coup.”
This alleged effort has been “conceived by the deep state [meaning the military] and midwifed by the judiciary”, he wrote in a recent newspaper column.

And this has led, he said, to a “fascist-like strangulation of democratic freedoms and the media”.