Category: Pakistan Politics

Pakistan’s rupee slumped to a near four-year low against the U.S. dollar Tuesday, the latest move downward in an effective devaluation of the currency that had been kept steady against the greenback for much of the past two years.

The rupee’s slide began Friday and continued after Pakistan’s central bank signaled a drop in its value would help the country’s economic growth. In all, the rupee has fallen 2.7% in the past three trading days, with one U.S. dollar buying 109.25 rupees in recent action, according to Thomson Reuters data.

With the exception of a short-lived plunge in July, the Pakistani rupee had held at around 105 to the dollar since late 2015, with the State Bank of Pakistan regularly intervening to maintain the currency’s value by selling down its foreign-currency reserves to buy rupees, analysts said.

But the policy has proved difficult to sustain as the country’s trade deficit has widened, thanks to a surge in imports. Net foreign-exchange reserves held by the central bank slumped to their lowest level in at least a year at the end of November.

“They have allowed [the rupee] to devalue,” said Umair Naseer, deputy head of research at Topline Securities, a brokerage firm based in Karachi, referring to the central bank.

The Pakistani rupee’s woes stand out in a year in which many emerging market currencies have performed strongly, thanks to robust global growth and relative dollar weakness as the Federal Reserve refrains from sharp interest rate increases. The Korean won has surged nearly 11% this year, while the Indian rupee has gained more than 5% against the dollar.

Until recent days Pakistan’s government has resisted calls to allow the rupee to fall, hoping that a stable currency would increase confidence in the South Asian nation’s economy. A steady exchange rate has also been seen as a way to encourage the thousands of Pakistanis who work abroad to send money home: Pakistan received $19.8 billion in foreign remittances in 2016—equivalent to 6.9% of the country’s GDP—making it the fifth-largest destination of such flows globally, according to the World Bank.

“A stable currency is seen as an electoral winner … so the authorities have been very reluctant to allow it to sell off,” said Charlie Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital. Pakistan is set to hold national elections in 2018 and has been plagued by political scandals, including one that led to the ouster of the prime minister in July.

But a sharp rise in imports in the fiscal year ended June, driven by increased shipments of petroleum, machinery and transport equipment, and a decline in exports, have led to a widening of Pakistan’s current account deficit. The Pakistani rupee could be overvalued by around 25%, Mr. Robertson estimates.

The International Monetary Fund in June called for Pakistani officials to allow for greater flexibility in the country’s exchange rate. Typically, a weaker currency makes a country’s exports cheaper globally and makes it more expensive for local residents to buy foreign goods, which should help narrow its trade deficit.

“There was a lot of pressure on the government to loosen its grip on the currency,” said Ruchir Desai, senior investment analyst at Asia Frontier Capital Limited in Hong Kong.

IMF officials are currently in Pakistan for discussions with the country’s leaders. Miftah Ismail, special assistant to the prime minister on economic affairs, said the devaluation has “no relation at all with the IMF.”

Pakistan’s political turmoil has sapped investor demand for the country’s stocks, even after they were admitted to MSCI’s popular index of emerging-market shares this year: The benchmark KSE 100 has dropped 20% this year. The country recently tapped the international bond markets, raising $2.5 billion.

The Asian Development Bank expects Pakistan’s GDP to grow by 5.3% in 2017 and 5.5% in 2018, slightly lower than the averages for developing Asian economies in both years.

—Saeed Shah contributed to this article.

ISLAMABAD — In the past 10 days, two dramatic events — the government’s capitulation to a violent protest by radical Muslims and the release from house arrest of an anti-India militia leader — have crystallized the sway that hard line Muslim groups increasingly hold in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state whose military leaders claim to be fighting extremist violence.

The freeing of Hafiz Saeed, a Islamist cleric accused of masterminding a deadly rampage in Mumbai nine years ago, came as no surprise. Although denounced as a terrorist by the United Nations and the United States, Saeed enjoys a large following in Pakistan as a fiery champion of Muslim rights in Kashmir, the disputed border region with India. He has been repeatedly detained and released by the courts, a sign of Pakistan’s often-contradictory efforts to secure both domestic Muslim loyalty and international support.

In contrast, the chaotic scenes in late November of angry Muslim demonstrators throwing stones at police near the capital, then rising up across the country to protest a minor change in an electoral law, shocked the nation and raised the specter of mass religious unrest — a permanent worry in an impoverished nation of 207 million, 95 percent of whom are Muslim, most from the same Sunni branch as the protesters.

But the quick resolution of the problem also raised worrisome questions about the long-term capability of the Pakistani government, a fragile democracy whose prime minister was recently ousted, to push back against religious extremism and the risks of bringing in the powerful military to settle civilian disputes.

Saeed was released Nov. 24 after a provincial court found “insufficient evidence” to link him to the four-day Mumbai terror spree in 2008 that killed 164 people. This time, the court action came amid intense pressure from the Trump administration on Pakistan to prove it is not harboring Islamist militias. It also met with especially sharp denunciations from India, an archrival whose Hindu nationalist prime minister has developed a warm relationship with the new administration in Washington.

American officials demanded that Saeed — who was detained in January under U.S. pressure — be arrested again. The U.S. Embassy here expressed “serious concerns” over his release and charged that his now-disbanded militia, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the deaths of “hundreds of innocent civilians” in numerous terrorist attacks. Six victims in the Mumbai bombing and shooting attack, which Indian and U.S. officials believe was carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba commandos, were U.S. citizens.

In Pakistan, though, Saeed remains a force to be reckoned with and a political survivor who has continually reinvented his movement, changing its name and founding a charitable offshoot that helps people in emergencies. In October, after years of denouncing electoral politics, he also formed a political party, and its candidate performed better than expected in a race for parliament. After he was released, he triumphantly returned to his Friday pulpit in Lahore and demanded that his name be removed from the U.N. sanctions list.

While Saeed’s supporters were celebrating his return to the public arena, a tense drama was playing out in the capital between another religious firebrand and government security forces. The confrontation that erupted early on Nov. 25 quickly escalated into a nationwide protest surge and ended 24 hours later in triumph for the protesters and embarrassment for the government, which accepted virtually all of their demands.

In contrast to Saeed, a well-established though controversial leader in Pakistan, the recent protests thrust a little-known, rabble-rousing cleric into the news. Within 48 hours, Khadim Hussain Rizvi had exhorted his supporters to violence, sparked mini-protests across the country, stared down civilian officials, bargained hard with the army — and became a household name.

Unlike Saeed, Rizvi is not associated with armed militant groups. His movement is built around reverence and love for Muhammad as Islam’s final prophet. On Friday night, just one week after the angry protests subsided, Pakistani Muslims everywhere jubilantly celebrated Muhammad’s birthday, thronging streets hung with dazzling lights and gathering around tents where devotees recited chants glorifying him.

But Rizvi’s movement is also harsh and extreme in its views. It has built a cult around a man who assassinated a provincial governor for religious reasons, believes blasphemers should be executed and crusades against Ahmedis, a small religious minority that follows a later prophet. The protests were raised against a change in electoral laws that softened requirements for candidates to avow Muhammad as the final prophet — a move that Rizvi’s group suspected was aimed at increasing the political participation of Ahmedis.

The price of pacifying Rizvi and his followers, many Pakistani leaders and commentators said, may be the emboldening of other fanatical Muslim groups, a further weakening of civilian authority, an increased potential for the military to intervene, and a rise in both sectarian hatred and conflict between rival Sunni schools. Some warn that the foundations of Pakistan’s fragile democracy have been shaken.

“This is a steep descent into a bottomless pit for the state and society,” said Faratullah Babar, a liberal senator. “It is the abject surrender of the constitutional government to a lawless mob” whose leaders seek to gain power through the “facade of religion.”

Others suggest that the episode signifies a growing confluence of interest between hard line religious groups and the military, whose leaders have vowed to stay out of politics but are known to be unhappy with both the ruling party and its top electoral rival, the movement led by cricket legend Imran Khan.

Imtiaz Alam, writing Thursday in The News International newspaper, noted that the state, which once encouraged militant groups like Saeed’s to fight in India and Afghanistan, has now abetted the domestic agenda of a fanatical strain within Pakistan’s large, mainstream Sunni group, the Barelvis. “The law of the jungle is to prevail,” he warned. “The state has left its citizens . . . at the mercy of demons.”

Much of this drama will play out in Punjab province, the country’s most populous and wealthy region, and its capital, Lahore. Punjab is the home base of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, headed by the former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. The party has been riven by divisions and disarray since Sharif was ousted by the Supreme Court in July and will be fighting for its political life next year.

The Lahore area is also the headquarters of Saeed’s operations, as well as Rizvi’s smaller Movement in Service to the Messenger of God. The provincial government and courts have long been criticized for coddling Islamic extremists — allowing Saeed to preach freely, radical Islamic students to intimidate university campuses, and hard line sectarian groups to operate. Recently authorities agreed to allow Rizvi’s group to influence school curriculums and blasphemy cases.

But that policy of appeasement may have backfired. Both Saeed and Rizvi fielded candidates in the October race to fill Sharif’s seat in parliament — and both won far more votes than expected. Now, the successful protests have put Rizvi’s group in a position to challenge the Sharifs on their home turf and play a central role in next year’s polls.

Former president Pervez Musharraf, in a video message on Wednesday, welcomed the formation of a political alliance between Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), however, Musharraf did so even before it was formally announced.

The video message was shared on social media from the official account of Musharraf’s political party — All Pakistan Muslim league (APML).

Musharraf started the video message by expressing his delight on the merger of political forces representing the Mohajir community. He, however, was quick to clarify that he had no sympathy for MQM and didn’t see any future of that party, but it was necessary for the Mohajir community to unite under one political umbrella.

The former president went on to say that he did not support community-based politics and preferred to do politics for the betterment of the country.

“If the factions of APML unite in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and join hands with them [the newly formed alliance] then this will give birth to a new national-level political force,” Musharraf said while presenting his formula for changing the existing political scenario in the country.

He urged all the communities living in Karachi and rural Sindh to unite under this platform, so that they are able to defeat PPP and form the government in the province.

Alliance or merger?
The announcement of an alliance between the political parties that, until recently, were highly critical of each other attracted mixed reactions on Twitter from politicians. MQM stalwart Ali Haider Abidi announced his decision to quit the party and vacate his NA-251 seat while the press conference was ongoing.

On the other hand, Faisal Sabzwari provided clarification that MQM and PSP had only formed an “alliance” and not announced a merger.

Senior MQM members Nadeem Nusrat and Mustafa Azizabadi did not hold back in hiding their displeasure over the announcement. They lashed out at the “establishment” and praised Abidi for quitting the party. Azizabadi claimed that “Muhajirs” will not accept this alliance.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) leader Asad Umar regarded the event as a long-formed conclusion.
Umar’s colleague Naeemul Haque said there was “nothing wrong” with the announced alliance, however, he raised questions over the leaders’ past.

The leaders of MQM and PSP set aside their bitter rivalry to announce that they were gearing up for the eventual consolidation of their political forces.

“The modalities of this alliance will be decided in the days to come,” MQM Pakistan chief Dr Farooq Sattar had said while addressing a much-hyped press conference at the Karachi Press Club with PSP chairman Mustafa Kamal by his side.

Lahore, Pakistan – Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom has won a hotly contested by-election seen as the ruling PML-N party’s first key political challenge following the ex-premier’s recent dismissal.

Kulsoom, 66, comfortably defeated the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Yasmin Rashid in the by-poll in the eastern city of Lahore, considered the Sharifs’ political heartland, on Sunday, unofficial results showed.

Earlier in the day, long lines of voters were seen at many of the NA-120 electoral constituency’s 220 polling stations.

Kulsoom was contesting the seat vacated by Nawaz Sharif after his dismissal by the country’s Supreme Court in July over an omission in his parliamentary wealth declarations.

Her campaign has been spearheaded by Maryam Nawaz, the couple’s daughter and Nawaz’ political heir apparent, in her first real foray into electoral politics. Kulsoom herself is undergoing treatment in the United Kingdom for her recently diagnosed lymphoma.

Nawaz Sharif and three of his children, including Maryam, are currently facing a corruption investigation and trial by the country’s anti-corruption watchdog, on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Delivering a victory speech in her mother’s stead, Maryam Nawaz congratulated her party’s workers on the win.

“Today, you have not only fought against those who are visible in the battlefield, but also against those who are invisible,” she said, a veiled hint at the country’s powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for roughly half of its 70-year history since independence.

She said the by-poll result represented a rejection of the Supreme Court’s decision by voters.

“The people have given their verdict on the verdict today,” she told a roaring crowd of hundreds gathered at the Sharif residence in Lahore.

Standing against Kulsoom was the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Yasmin Rashid, a middle-class professional doctor who has mainly campaigned on the Imran Khan-led party’s anti-corruption platform.

The constituency, home to almost half a million of Lahore’s 11 million residents, is deep in the heart of the old city, and is considered a Sharif stronghold. His party has not lost the seat since it began contesting elections in 1985.

“It’s very difficult for them to take this from us,” said Sohail Butt, 48, a PML-N voter in the Mozang area of the city. “In our area, work only gets done if you go through [the PML-N’s] workers.”

Arif Khan, 32, a voter from the working class Bilal Ganj neighbourhood, said he voted for Sharif’s party because of its overhaul of the road, sewerage, and water network in his area.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) voters, meanwhile, appeared to be motivated to vote more on national issues, rather than connection to their party’s local networks.

“I see this is as the first main test for Nawaz Sharif [after his dismissal],” said Zeeshan Khan, 22, a student at Punjab University. “This is a way for the people to show whether they still stand with the PML-N after the verdict.”

Seventy years ago today, Mohammad Ali Jinnah took to the floor of the Constituent Assembly as its first elected president and delivered the iconic lines, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

He added: “We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.”

Seventy years later, Mr Jinnah’s founding vision and direction for the country have yet to be realised. Indeed, an argument can be made that this nation has drifted further than ever from the one that he had envisioned. The founding father had warned that the “first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the state”, but society itself has fallen prey to extremism and an infrastructure of hate.

Most worryingly, Mr Jinnah’s vision of a secular, constitutional democratic state focused on the welfare and material good of its people has itself fallen victim to hate and distortion. The very word ‘secular’ is considered taboo by large sections of the polity. Democracy, too, is yet to be meaningfully accepted, with elected governments always vulnerable to undemocratic pressure and attack.

What would Mr Jinnah make of the sight of yet another ousted elected prime minister travelling down the fabled GT Road as political uncertainty and turmoil swirl across the political landscape again? Surely, as Mr Jinnah exhorted in his Aug 11 speech, some of the responsibility for the upheaval and drift from the country’s founding ideals lies with the political class too.

Bribery and corruption, black-marketing, nepotism and jobbery — all ills that Mr Jinnah identified as fundamental impediments to a democratic, fair and just society fall in the domain of civilian control. The failure to address fundamental social inequalities is nearly at par with the crimes against democracy the country has suffered. It may take several more decades before a Pakistan more in line with Mr Jinnah’s aspirations can be established.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2017

Pakistan’s ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday insisted that his removal from office did not mean his future in politics was over, as he plans to go head with a rally this week and fight a legal battle to reverse his disqualification.

“I don’t want reinstatement for myself. I am struggling to ensure the rule of law in Pakistan,” he said in a meeting with a select group of journalists in Islamabad.

Sharif said his legal experts will soon file a review petition against the July 28 Supreme Court order that ousted him from power for concealing assets — specifically, that his son’s Dubai-based company listed a monthly salary for him. Sharif has repeatedly said he never received any of that money.

He said that he was determined to travel the following day to his powerbase, the eastern of city of Lahore, despite a deadly bombing there Monday which killed one person and wounded 30 others.

“I am going to my home. Do I not have a right to go to my home?” asked Sharif.

According to Malik Mohammad, a spokesman in Punjab where Lahore is the provincial capital, security arrangements for Sharif’s rally have finalized.

Ahmed said police were still investigating who was behind the Monday bombing.

Sharif said he wanted to start a debate, in parliament and public, to discuss why no elected prime minister has complete their full term in Pakistan, which has been ruled by army generals for more than half of its 70-year history.

When asked whether the army had influenced the judiciary against him, Sharif said “let’s leave this question for later.”

Sharif has a history of rocky relations with the military, and he was cautious about commenting on the sensitive issue of civil-military relations. He insisted he was a victim of a conspiracy, but he avoided a direct answer when asked who conspired against him.

“You will know the answers to these questions soon,” he said.

Sharif’s removal plunged Pakistan into political turmoil but parliament in less than a week elected senior lawmaker Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the country’s new prime minister. Sharif’s party initially wanted Abbasi to serve as an interim premier for 45 days until Sharif’s younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, secures a national assembly seat in a by-election.

On Tuesday, Sharif said his party won’t replace Abbasi with his brother, but that decision has yet to be finalized.

Sharif did not say who will now lead his ruling Pakistan Muslim League party as last month’s court decision also barred him from participating in politics.

He said he was first removed by a president in 1993, then military dictator Pervez Musharraf toppled his government in 1999 and “now the judiciary has sent me home.”

“Does Pakistan’s elected prime minister deserve to be removed in such an insulting manner?” he asked.
He reiterated that neither he and nor any of his family members were involved in corruption.

Sharif criticized the investigators in the probe against him and his family, saying “our worst opponents were part of the JIT (Joint Investigation Team)” which was appointed by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
Sharif insisted that a larger panel in the court should hear his review petition.

He vowed to launch a mass campaign to apprise his countrymen of the work he did to put the country “back on path of progress and prosperity.”

“God willing, I will remain active. I will keep guiding my party,” he said.

Meanwhile, in another challenge to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party, firebrand opposition cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri returned home after mostly living abroad amid pending court-cases against him in Pakistan. He has vowed to get justice for eight of his supporters killed in anti-government rallies in 2014.

Qadri, the fiery cleric, said Tuesday that he will launch a new anti-government campaign and praised the Supreme Court for disqualifying Sharif.

Pakistan’s ousted Sharif vows to remain active in politics
“Nawaz Sharif lost power because of the curses of those who lost their dear ones” in the 2014 shootouts with police, the cleric said.
———
Associated Press Writer Zaheer Babar in Lahore, Pakistan, contributed to this story.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a politician educated in the United States, was elected prime minister of Pakistan on Tuesday. Parliament held a special election to replace his predecessor and mentor, who was disqualified on corruption charges.

Here is what you need to know about Pakistan’s new leader.
A Staunch Loyalist

A steadfast ally of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Mr. Abbasi, 58, was named interim prime minister last week after the Supreme Court disqualified Mr. Sharif from office and he was forced to resign.

Mr. Abbasi has gone to prison for his political patron. He spent two years behind bars after a 1999 coup, in which Mr. Sharif was overthrown by Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Mr. Abbasi at the time was pressured by the military to testify against Mr. Sharif, but he refused and was jailed. He was later acquitted.

That loyalty to Mr. Sharif was later repaid with a high-profile cabinet position when the ousted leader returned to power in 2013. It is assumed that Mr. Abbasi is holding the office until Mr. Sharif’s brother Shehbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab Province, wins a seat in Parliament in a coming by-election and can become prime minister.

A Long Career
Mr. Abbasi is a member of the governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. He has been elected to Parliament six times, losing an election only once.

After losing his first and only election in 2002, Mr. Abbasi founded Airblue Limited, a budget carrier. After being elected to Parliament in 2008, he was named commerce minister, and he was appointed minister of petroleum and natural resources in 2013. He held that position until last week, when Mr. Sharif’s cabinet was disbanded by the Supreme Court.

An American Education
Mr. Abbasi comes from a wealthy and well-connected political family. His father was a member of Parliament and a commodore in the Pakistani Air Force. His father-in-law was director general of the powerful military intelligence agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence.

An electrical engineer by training, he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a master’s from George Washington University in Washington.

People who know him, including businessmen who have dealt with him, say he is highly intelligent and has a sharp sense of humor. In addition to his holdings in Airblue, he is said to own property in his hometown, Muree, and a restaurant business, making him one of Parliament’s richest members, according to the local news media.