Pakistan: After The Elections

and when you fry them really good to see a full house here at Hudson I am Hussein hot money director for South and Central Asia here at the Hudson Institute welcome to our discussion on Pakistan's elections and the prospects after the election on July 25th Pakistan had its third successive elections since restoration of civilian rule after the ouster of General Pervez Musharraf in 2008 the results were somewhat foretold with the pre polling environment being muddied by allegations of blatant meddling by the country's all-powerful military and judiciary as well as restrictions on the media the result was a disputed plurality or cricketer turned politician Imran Khan and his Pakistan tehreek-e-insaf PTI a party mr. Han is already being identified as Pakistan's next prime minister and potential Savior by his supporters it has been argued that mr. Han won with the support of a younger generation of Pakistanis eager to rid the country of the politics of corruption and patronage with no prior experience of government mr. Han is being painted as a can-do leader and like other Pakistani politicians he has not been presented to the world as financially corrupt though many of his views and his frequent u-turns on stand on different issues coupled with the circumstances of his success have raised questions both about his competence or competence and his integrity he has also often adopted hyper nationalist positions including anti India and anti-american rhetoric and showed sympathy for religious extremists including the Taliban critics believed that this election will make little dent in Pakistan's reputation as a crisis State but those who are optimistic say that this may be the birth of a new Pakistan pakistan's problems have deep roots and addressing them requires a fundamental shift away from the narrative that has brought the country to its current state and that would need more than one election and certainly more than one college figure to resolve to discuss the context of Pakistan's election its impact on us Pakistan relations and what to expect moving forward we have with us in knowledgeable panel to my right is professor Christine fair Provost distinguished associate professor in the security Studies program within George a Georgetown University's Edmund a Walsh School of Foreign Service her research focuses on political and military affairs in South Asia which includes Afghanistan Pakistan India Bangladesh and Sri Lanka one of her recent books it was fighting to the end the Pakistan Army's Way of war published by Oxford University Press a couple of years ago and we were fortunate to have the doctor fare here at Hudson to discuss that book when it was launched to my left is dr. muhammad taqi assistant professor at the University of Florida he's a columnist for The Wire and former columnist for The Daily Times in Pakistan his interest areas include Pakistan Afghanistan India and the United States is South Asia policy dr. lends his expertise as a regular commentator on current affairs for Radio Free Europe special service and the push to service and the other services of Voice of America dr. taki grew up in Peshawar Pakistan and has had a lifelong association with the liberal pursue nationalist movement I realized that both our panelists today have been consistently critical of Pakistan's policy direction especially the role of its military and various jihadi groups that call Pakistan home we had hoped to include someone with a somewhat softer view on Pakistan but August is a difficult month to find panelists washington-dc everyone we wanted as our third panelist is either out of town or was otherwise unavailable so that has put me in the difficult position to try and dutifully put forward some of the questions that are generally raised by those who believe that Pakistan is not sufficiently understood by Americans or that its complexities are ignored or that it is quote/unquote bashed frequently in the international media of course we cannot guarantee that those who have imbibed the official Pakistani narrative will be satisfied by what we accomplished this afternoon but we will try to accommodate their perspective in the course of our discussion my own views can be found in my books including the latest one a reimagining Pakistan transforming a dysfunctional nuclear state as well as as well as in articles on our website ww-what's an orgy or www.hsn.com - i will try to be the moderator who helps the audience learn not only the perspective of our knowledgeable panelists but also those who are not present here so let us begin dr. turkey tell us what you think about the elections and why you are skeptical about Pakistan's evolution as a democracy as a result of these elections thank you very much mr. ambassador and great to be on the panel with Professor fair I think I should just say off the bat that this was not quite an election it was an election heist back in 1970 there was an election in which the mandate was stolen after the election in 1970 we had west pakistan and east pakistan east pakistan voted overwhelmingly for Awami League and afterwards their mandate was rejected which ended up in the independence of Bangladesh this time around it seems that the mandate was stolen before we went to hustings before we went to polls and a systematic and pre-planned free poll rigging was undertaken leading up to the day of the polling on the day of the polling and even after the polling day to me this is essentially an experimentation which has been carried out ever since 1958 this is an exercise in political engineering that we just saw happening and why do we keep getting that exercise in political engineering and the usual suspect always is the Pakistani military establishment and even that is a euphemism because Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Air Force have nothing to do with anything of that sort it is actually the Pakistan Army who called the shots so this experimentation has actually gone on since 1958 when field marshal you plant first took over in a coup d'etat and toppled the civilian dispensation of that time he introduced a system of what was called basic democracy at the time we saw another formulation of that same control democracy when we went into the 1970 election another military dictator General Yahya Khan at his core tree of generals they came up with what was famously known as general Cheryl hitori formula basically to handpick patriotic political parties we saw that again under general zia-ul-haq he created a National Assembly in Parliament which was elected on a party list basis political parties was were not allowed to contest same thing happened again when General Musharraf took over taking a government of technocrats was found cobbled together eventually that did not work and another Parliament which was cobbled together in 2002 it one of the most tainted elections so this to me that the 2018 election since 1970 it is perhaps among the top three most entered elections and in the manner it was conducted and even more than that after now that the dust has settled on the results there is a complete blackout of actually analyzing the election results what went wrong people not in the Pakistani media in the Pakistani media there is there's almost an undeclared ban a censorship in the in the tele media you cannot use the word rigging on the media versus a muted / columnist after columnist who wrote up leading up to the election their columns were dropped when they were critical of the military's role in the pre election rigging and now after the elections very seasoned columnist respectable names former parliamentarians who have been writing in newspapers regularly their columns get dropped thanks to social media and other websites we get to read what they wrote and we know that no criticism whatsoever is allowed of what this exercise was so if there was nothing to hide why the censorship so that sort of tells us that something went wrong and something was special before I go to doctor fair you've been saying you know the run-up of the election sort of give us a little more detail explain what you mean by pre pole rigging what constitutes pre-poll rigging see back in the day when elections were manipulated ballot stuffing well the Election Day stuffing used to be the primary mode of election rigging over the years with the advent of social media and handy phone cams and so on and so forth the Election Day rigging becomes a little bit difficult and when the idea is actually to manipulate a mandate you set things into motion ahead of time and I would go back like what when I would go I would go back to 2013 when actually Nawaz Sharif took over as Prime Minister for the third time you need to understand what went wrong between Nawaz Sharif and the military Wow why actually they wanted to kick the man out and the critical beef that he had with the army was a treason case against former dictator or sheriff that was the problem that they had from day one his piece over towards to a new Shara want the NEBOSH sheriff wanted to point a sheriff or Bashar and the military didn't to a trial had already been started in the previous government now our sheriff wanted to prosecute that trial forcefully and that was the the beef between the army and Omar Sharif so that's where the the trouble started first the attempts were made to actually bring down a marshal you scrap government through street protests pakistan's former defense minister went on record to say the two ISI directors won a sitting director and one a former director were orchestrating a sit-in protests and slower bars in which a political party namely Pakistan tehreek-e-insaf actually surrounded the Parliament mr. Han's patreons PTI so this is the run-up to the same however they were not able to talk of the government and owashi remained fairly popular our chance Army got a bit lucky when what became known as the Panama papers came out in which now our Sherry's family members were named for financial impropriety actually they were not named for political or financial impropriety in the Panama papers they were just identified as owners of offshore companies along with many other long with many others said there was dozens of people's from people from Pakistan and that gave them a break to bring in the de penser they applied the judiciary media pencil on Nawaz Sharif and his party something which happened in 1990s at a time when Nawaz Sharif actually was almost partners with the military now he had to be put on trial for for something he did not commit or says that he did not commit okay so media management judiciary manipulation and then you say no no go ahead and then going on towards the actual election in which the wheeling dealing is is very common there is a set of about 50 60 80 families or people in Pakistan who actually switch sides and they basically turn the tables in the parliament you look at Parliament after Parliament the 2002 Parliament was cobbled together by some of the same people who were with President Musharraf and so on so that was among the basically the four things you would say that were done to influence the election result was number one mr. Sharif was disqualified yes he was disqualified by the supreme court by demanding that he explained property that he held in London which would have which should have followed a trial rather than proceeded a trial so he had a absolutely he had already been disqualified then was came the question of his after his disqualification he was convicted and ended up in prison which is way and on very flimsy legal grounds I must say yes the legal questions we could actually have a entire different panel on that then the second thing was control of the media absolutely all of these mr. Sharif when he went on his tour his party was not allowed the kind of media access that if a political party of that position and the fact that it was the ruling party at the time was denied and the third thing you are saying is that influential political figures were directed or advised to leave their political parties and join mr. Han's political person and I would add a fourth thing here that set of religious zealots were introduced in the electoral system in the name of mainstream okay okay so doctor fair why would the Pakistan military go to I mean this is what other questions that the none of us are that not innocent but there are innocents out there who kind of turn around and ask this criminal why would they go to such elaborate lengths to to deliver an election result of a certain type in which actually mr. Han's party the PTI does not have an absolute majority it has not won convincingly and overwhelmingly and if you end up having to have many junior partners and a very unwieldy coalition why would they do that what would be their objectives in doing so why go through so much trouble so let's start with the last part of that question I looked at a lot of the media coverage of this election I think you can you can tell the journalist sort of been on this beat for less than six months because they are effusive about Khan's victory that he's broken the deadlock of the two parties in Pakistan you can tell the more seasoned people who for whom this is not their first general election rodeo because they sort of see what the big picture is and what is the big picture for all intents and purposes for things that probably most of us care about in this room the prime minister is really the mayor of Islamabad right his writ doesn't even extend to Rao pindy because that's where the Army has its general headquarters so most of the things that we care about us Pakistan relations Pakistan's continued support of proxy elements in India in Afghanistan Pakistan's perfidy all these things that Husein has detailed gloriously and his fabulous book magnificent delusions and all the things that many of us have howled about since 2001 are simply not in his room it so why does the army care so much in terms of rearranging the poolside chairs and health which is how I describe Pakistan elections well it's very simple what a Prime Minister can do it his worst is be what Nawaz Sharif was right which is really a speed bump in the path of the military the Prime Minister can create political resistance to the core interests of the army and I think know why Sharif really did do this he did this a number of ways he campaigned on wanting to have a lease and economic normalization with India he was very much beloved amongst the the mone bethey Wallace you know the folks with the peace candles he also vigorously argued for having Afghanistan is a neighbor not a client and of course he wanted to hold the military accountable for coos now interestingly enough Musharraf committed treason twice but he only wanted to try him for one so and he had some support for these things and this is why the army went out of its way to emasculate him politically so the best Prime Minister will be one that lubricates the Army's agenda someone that creates public support for the things that the army wants to do to keep in balance this trifecta of the military the militants and the mullahs right so what was at stake for the Pakistan Army is that they had to get they had to make sure that Nawaz Sharif his party the pml-n wasn't going to have a surprise victory so I was actually election observer in 2013 you know all things equal that wasn't the worst election but for my point of view this election probably has the closest analogue to this election was 2002 in the sense that many of the the dog-and-pony tricks that the ISI brought out had been done in that 2002 election so just sort of give you a sense so the most important thing that happens before an election is really cobbling together a Coalition of the Willing as well as a loyal opposition right and this happened in 2002 really quite quickly and one of the ways and you know this sort of filled off with what dr. taki said with a little bit more granularity they went to specific parties and they picked off specific leaders and they said you can either join the PML queue which was Musharraf King party and we're gonna give you you know ministerial position or you know what we're just gonna bring up corruption charges and it's gonna suck to be you right and and when they do this you got to remember if for those of you who don't know about South Asia in politics it's not just the politician that you're plucking off your actually plucking off their vote bank so some of the most important turncoats in fact the PTI had been labeled the Pakistan turncoat industry long before this election right they picked off several PPP leaders to other parties just before that's right and so what's so interesting with these candidates that many of them are good be machines right so these will be traditional spiritual leaders and they have a large vote bank with them so if you're just thinking well what's the big deal these folks are defecting you have to remember what's actually defecting is that particular leader and taking their vote bank with them the the the rise of this new tool the judiciary is actually to me as an analyst the most interesting because for the first time the Pakistan Army didn't have a lot of options right so when it had 58 TV which was a Zia era constitutional amendments that they could put pressure on the President to prorogue the Parliament that was easily done but Zardari got rid of 58 TV with the 18th amendment actually Zardari may be criticized for all sorts of things but he did something that was quite extraordinary he voluntarily gave up those sweeping powers of the presidency and restored Pakistan to a parliamentary democracy so the Pakistan Army had to scramble how does it undermine a sitting Prime Minister without its trustee 58 to be well this is a we saw this and Zardari's period it began engaging in these streets and a ngons right remember some of you guys right we might remember the cleric from Canada Taher old Calgary and he actually had amazingly asha hobbit proof box that he roamed around in now the Parliament the excuse me the provincial police chief's do not have armored vehicles in Pakistan but this guy appears out of nowhere like he just lands from Canada with a ship hobbit proof conveyance right and they were able to shut down Cottenham that cannot be blown up yeah that you can still blow up you know provincial police chase but this guy all of a sudden has this secure conveyance where he can roam around in rabble rows and he and Imran Khan shut down the capital for weeks with these contained these darkness how where in the world does this kind of money come from right I mean please it's like you know the Trump administration just watch what goons are making the money yes but going back to this election an election fraud okay and soundly coremedia we will come to the judiciary in a second let me just let me just say I have heard both of you and I generally know the stuff the subject so I can say I understand what you're saying but try to answer people who are saying the following number one there's a yeah Pakistan has a youth bulge there's an extremely youthful young population this young population did not like politics as usual some of them actually have a cult-like adoration for Imran Khan after all he was the cricket hero who brought the Cricket World Cup in 1992 to Pakistan and he hasn't been accused of corruption himself partly because he's never been in government you've never been in government you don't pilfer government funds but that is a fact and then people were frustrated and of course mr. Nawaz Sharif the accusations against him irrespective of the legal niceties not being observed there are many people who do believe them and they think that the two major political parties their leaders were corrupt so so these are the factors that made a large number of people turn against the old political leadership and saw potential in mr. Imran Khan had to be the leader of a new era they voted for change how is any of this wrong of course he's the PTI still got 16 million votes compared to the PML which is mr. Nawaz Sharif's party's 12 million votes and the PPP is six and a half million votes so that's about eighteen and a half million votes for old Pakistan and sixteen million for new Pakistan but there was a desire for change amongst a segment of the electorate would you say that there wasn't what I would say is that none of this is new and and I'm just going to sort of dovetail into what what Chris was saying about the judiciary and media the judiciary media pincer is the oldest trick in the military's playbook and I'd take you all the way back to 1958 October so a you pan declares martial law April 1959 they take over at gunpoint progressive papers limited Paxton times in English in rows in order to and lalana her a weekly which was founded at the instructions of Hadassah Muhammad Ali Jinnah they take over there and in August 1959 they do the anti-corruption Drive which was called Abdo elected bodies disqualification ordinance and the first man to be targeted was essentially soar worthy and that and that man had formulated in one of the prestigious publications here Foreign Affairs in 1959 57 a vision for a nation-state as against a Yukons vision for an ideological state anchored in Islamism and anti-india jingoism now when you came along it was the same story he's a good-looking man he's clean the people are desirous of a change they want to get rid of the corrupt politicians fast forward 50 60 years now we are at this same situation and and Plus that you've got immunity through the notorious Supreme Court back then it was the Pakistan High Court judgement the justice money back stand federal court a judgment was passed same things so okay do your judiciary and the political manipulation so yes I can understand that there can be about the youth bulge and the youth vote but keeping the electorate divided and manipulating the old electoral system is what gave PTI the edge and that was not possible without the as she pointed out back in 2000 to generate the shams Aamir was managing the election cell we don't know who is managing at this time no I Sharif has actually named and general Fez who's in charge of the counterterrorism at the ISI Mia Sabhas named the name so there's there's people who were going care okay let me bring people let me try and reduce this into a sort of abbreviated form that basically what you're saying is that in Pakistan wants the establishment the military and the intelligence services make a decision about how domestic politics has to move then the courts give judgments that enable that particular agenda to be moved forward so a person can be described as corrupt or whatever and the media then jumps in into creating that image of their corruption for example mr. Khan himself and some of his associates also had offshore companies and offshore tests that didn't become the same level of issue that Nawaz Sharif's offshore holdings became and then if you read Pakistani papers you will be told that there are 200 billion dollars of Pakistani Hotel looted money in foreign banks that figure has just come out of a hat because because there is no study nothing that indicates that the property that mr. Sharif is supposed to have in London is believed to be worth 7 million pounds at the best exchange rate that would be what 10 11 million dollars so it certainly doesn't run into billions but then the media jumps in and they go and described it as billions of corruption and that's the reason of our poverty but surely that does move the electorate a little bit too so do you think and you can come back to your judicial part while you are answering this question without wondering of discussing countries in North America and their politics rather than Pakistan's I'm gonna do this so tell me tell me more about ha I mean obviously the electorate is affected by this but even then the result does not manifest a total disillusionment with the old guard I mean yes the pml-n lost a lot of seats and the number of people who voted declined in percentage terms not in absolute terms about two or three percent less turnout then then the last election so obviously pml-n supporters didn't turn out in that number but still twelve million votes for the pml-n and six and a half or something million votes for the PPP and then the Mme also got the religious parties also got their segment of the world so in terms of Pakistani society still we have to contend with the reality that those who have been described consistently by the media and by these judges as corrupt and bad and evil and even treasonous they still have a significant following how will this actually result in the complete triumph of one narrative obviously this will continue to be a fight that is ongoing I take your point I want to put this in a more structural sense I think democracies in Pakistan has democratic features while not being a fully functional democracy I think democracies all over the world are actually wrestling with this question Millennials are not happy and many of you are Millennials I can see are not happy with the electoral systems and in which we live right and I will say what I find very uplifting about Pakistan's Millennials is that they have been very involved with PTI now for what at least a decade right and what PTI has done is that leave leave my mind without the rigging in a second the PTI has done is that Imran Khan for all of his problems all the way problems really for the army or he could have been Prime Minister ten years ago had he been more willing to play ball with the army right he's he's actually a slow learner in this regard but what he was what he has done is that he made foreign policy issues that youngsters in Pakistan talked about he's made policy instead of patronage the talking points right I think that's part of the frustration is that that politicians don't provide policy options or solutions they provide patronage now by virtue of Imran Khan coming to power in this way he has been co-opted into that very same system that Pakistani Millennials find so distasteful I think like many of us that were hopeful that Barack Obama would do more on certain progressive issues I know many of the earlier PTI supporters you know I taught it LUMS many years ago I've stayed in touch with them the older Millennials have already become very dissatisfied with Imran Khan they were much more precipitation in observing his co-option by the army and the intelligence services so I don't think the problem is that you have youngsters who want change democracy's all over the world right now I think about the Indian election you know if you're an Indian young person what were your options between the Congress party and the BJP right Congress actually began the communalism for which the BJP gets all of the credit right so I think we are all living in a time where our electoral options are highly constrained even in a democracy like our own we can see the perils of democracy my grouse is not that people want something new my grouse is when elections are hijacked and and hiked and elections are being hijacked all over the world so this isn't just Pakistan problem it turns out that in Pakistan's case the primary committer of malfeasance is an internal actor but when I wish Pakistani Millennials would would understand is this system right the pockets the reason why the pml-n in the PPP are such sub-optimal performers is I would argue and many of us have is democracy interruptus right no Prime Minister has ever served out his or her term right and it's not because the people rampage on the street and said you hang the fellow bring out the is because the army manipulated to bring them down the media is also very much driven by the army that the media sends a constant message that these politicians are corrupt slimeballs now you know what's interesting to me no one has ever asked with the exception of a handful of people how corrupt is the army right it is it's a wound to tune organization and we have no insights into their finances the army literally sits here throwing stones at a glass house and also it's important to remember that until mr. Nawaz Sharif's conviction and a very dubious circumstances dubious because the disqualification came before the trial that to me is wrong as the Supreme Court starts the trial process or the legal process instead of the being their last court of appeal so these are things that are deceiving but that said at least he's been convicted in the past we've had a situation where mr. Zardari for example was in prison for 11 years and he wasn't convicted of a single crime so there is something essentially wrong there that you charge somebody with corruption use that as a basis for propaganda for a year on Iran Iran through a controlled media and yet you do not bring it to any legal conclusion I agree with you but this Saavik or Ameen ruling is it doing that so yeah Supreme Court did not first convict him of financial malfeasance what it actually said was that he is not Sabich or a mean he's not honest and trustworthy these terms come from Pakistan Constitution but I believe was in 2006 the court had previously ruled that these terms have not been defined now what mr. Imran Khan because he's not you know the straightest shooting arrow he's a little bit of a political ie D the Army is gonna have problems corralling him but he's gonna find very quickly that he can be equally subjected to this arbitrary definition of not being Sadiq or a me we've we've all seen the rumors floating around about rocket canoe finances it says that the meat economy is the charity that Imran Khan became famous for that he established in the name of his mother after winning the 1992 World Cup it's a cancer hospital and there are issues that you know about its finances not being completely transmitted is an addition to a number of peccadilloes we may say you cannot get into the detail the numerous exotic peccadilloes but but what I am going to say is it when you have now had a precedent of the Supreme Court saying that a prime ministers not saw the core I mean terms are not used in the Constitution this other core Amin is essentially it comes from Islamic history those were the attributes of Prophet Muhammad in Islamic history so the honest and the trustworthy and it was put in by generals they all Huck when he amended the Constitution arbitrarily before restoring some semblance of elected segments of government in 1985 and then when the Constitution was being remanded to restore the parliamentary democracy features ironically it was mr. Nawaz Sharif who opposed removing this provision so he ended up falling to it question is will this be used against me same around Khan or somebody in his coming now look we have six more minutes I'm going to divide that equally between the two of you two and a half two and a half to talk about sort of where does where do we see things moving forward and then I'm going to open it for questions from the audience which will enable us to clarify things a little bit further what is being said is that about this election and its outcome a it is a disputed election result but still mister Imran Khan has a lot of support from young Millennials who look upon him as a savior high expectations immediate need is for him to perform on the economic front Pakistan's economy is in dire straits as it also often finds itself almost at the time of every political transition large amount of foreign payments coming due which will require Pakistan to borrow more to pay off previous loans and at the same time he's promised a state resembling the state of Prophet Muhammad in Medina and he says that this is going to be an Islamic welfare state among the things that people who are saying this election is a positive development is that the Islamist parties while they got a significant number of votes they did not get a large number of seats in parliament so we will have a parliament that will not have too many Islamists in it my own feeling on that which you both are welcome to disagree with is that not having them in Parliament may be even worse than having them in Parliament because now they will be again free to do the kind of things that they have done in the past of of coming out in the street so what what mr. Imran Khan is going to lead if he is able to cobble this loose coalition together because his part he does fall short of a majority then he has to deal with not having a majority in the Pakistani Senate the next Senate election is not due until 2021 and at the moment mr. Khan's party has only 15 seats in a house of 104 so he will have a Senate minority situation and that will require him to be more compromising the more compromises he does the less he's seen as the man of principle that he has projected himself and disappoints his first time voting change seeking Millennials so how do things move forward and second what does it entail for the rest of the world india-pakistan relations which are always important because both countries have nuclear weapons Pakistan in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the United States each one of you three minutes please dr. tucky you go first i I really foresee that it is going to be a tough parliamentary course for Imran he's actually an untrained man despite being in the Parliament he hardly actually showed up where he attended five sessions out of a more than a hundred and son he was a he was a dead he was he was a deadbeat parliamentarian for that matter and the burden that he carries of this election manipulation that is a ball and chain around his foot I think I have that appear this is the Pakistan Army's spokesperson inter-services public relations director general tweeting from his verified personal account now this man declared victory before Imran Khan declared victory this look at the timing of the tweet and this is essentially a sub tweet citing a Quranic IR saying that a Quranic verse saying that whosoever God pleases exalts him and whosoever God is displeased with he basically just brings them to dust and dirt so this was while the election results were rolling in now look at this kind of gloating army did not go into this situation to actually lose this election on the Election Day and the reason being that this is the first time that in the history of Pakistan a Punjab based Punjabi politician with a strong electro base actually challenged the Army's own interest on its own turf and this is where the real issue and the friction will lie going forward I think the opposition is still formidable apart our Muslim League Nawaz and its allies actually end up becoming allies by default Pakistan Peoples Party and certain other groups they would definitely have a significant role to play in the parliament but Imran by himself Chris talked about the policy issues to me it looks more like a wish list I mean there's there's very little evidence to show that some of the things that they have been talking about on the campaign trail they actually have a play and to implement for it look at the immediate currency deficit situation and the bailout talk that we have right now going on whether going to China versus International Monetary Fund and so on similarly on the militancy issue the man has been sympathetic to the militants Taliban is he was nicknamed Taliban hun would he be actually to moderate himself maybe but the fundamentals of the Pakistani state where the military preeminence as the Praetorian Guard remains I think in the foreseeable future there will be there it is also important to remember the history that even the meekest of the hand-picked prime ministers have actually picked battles with the army mama Fangio NATO came from a party less parliament in 1985 and when he decided to proceed with geneva accords with with afghanistan guaranteed by us and the USSR xel-há had a beef and bone to pick with him and that whole assembly was dispatched so i think we are in for some choppy waters to put it mildly okay while you were speaking I looked up the statistic because it had slipped my mind 6% was Imran Khan's attendance of Parliament if he was in my class he would be rusticated he would he would now have to attend Parliament so let's see how he manages because he will the office of Prime Minister is not like the presidential form directly elected he will have to go through Parliament he will have to manage a coalition and for the sake of Pakistan let us all hope that he can Chris your final comments before I turn to the audience on this long list of things I said where do we go from here so as a weakness of his coalition in his precarious situation with the Senate of course as a feature not a bug right the army wants this the army didn't want to have a situation that it confronted in 2013 we're in watch we've had a clear mandate what is I think quite interesting going forward is that the army doesn't have any more options right the reason why we have Imran Khan is we didn't have anywhere else to go so I think keeping in mind the June a Joe's of Pakistan Pakistan histories is worthwhile I still don't anticipate major change on any foreign policy portfolio that matters because it's just not in the hands of the Prime Minister that is always in the hands of the generals I think for the Americans we have a really interesting question on our hands what do we deal with the IMF right there is a very real likelihood that if we do not cut them off at the IMF the American taxpayer who is the biggest contributor to the IMF will be subsidizing Pakistan CPEC loans now you will have to unpack this because you've used an acronym which is which is forbidden here unless you explain what the acronym is APEC is the china-pakistan economic corridor it's part of a it's such a sixty billion dollar plan of China actually building significant infrastructure in Pakistan linking Pakistan to China and critics feel that Pakistan is heavily an indebted to China because most of them are in the form of loans and what Chris is saying is that if the United States ends up supporting a PUC and IMF bailout for Pakistan which is being sought about it said that it could be anything between a billion to twelve billion dollars the Pakistanis immediately to get out of its current difficulties of low foreign exchange reserves then this amount would essentially be used to repay China is that what you're saying yeah basically okay and if we don't do that then we have an equally unpalatable scenario and that is if you look at the Chinese business model by the way I call CPEC colonizing Pakistan to enrich China so their business model and they've done this in Djibouti they've done this in Sri Lanka they're doing this Myanmar they're trying really hard to do this in in Bangladesh which is they basically set a price and the price is far in excess of what a market price would be and in that they roll up all the bribes that it takes to pay off the different corrupt politicians so it's a very effective mechanism of moving money from the public offer to private coffers right and then when the country and these by the way these projects are not economically viable we can go through each single one of them and when the country cannot make the loan service payments China says I'm great give us a 99-year lease I give this Chinese company a majority stake in getting whatever money does come out of it so essentially they get a sovereign Chinese island so our choices are subsidizing Pakistan's CPEC adventurism right we don't subsidize Pakistan CPEC adventurism and we get a little Chinese island there Atwater so neither those so basically I in terms of us-pakistan relationship you don't see a major shift and me you think that the United States should not be subsidizing Pakistan's repayments to China as well as China deepening its claws into Pakistan now I'm saying that we need to be thoughtful okay okay IIF has not we haven't in policymaking circles IMF has been not on the table but we're not thinking about the cost benefits okay we didn't talk go get to talk about Afghanistan and whether we can expect Imran Khan to be more cooperative in American efforts to try and find a peaceful solution or resolution to enable America to come out of Afghanistan in a way in which Pakistan's interests can also be protected but I'm sure that that will come out during the course of questions and answers before we go to the audience let me just say that this has been is somewhat pessimistic view of things there is an optimistic view which all of us do not have to share but should be aware of and that is that Imran Khan will bring a fresh outlook to government not having been entrenched in the ways of patronage and corruption that Pakistan's politics has been mired in that he will have professionals managing various ministries that a lot of overseas Pakistanis will start trusting the government much more and therefore will be willing to send more hard currency into Pakistan as a result there are attempts to try and raise money from overseas pakistanis although the amounts are just staggering I doubt if people can really put together billions of dollars that is it but it will still be a positive that investors might actually come to Pakistan because there will be less corruption and lastly is better civil military relationship will enable the country to actually make decisions on foreign policy issues that it has been reluctant to make so that is the most optimistic scenario my colleagues to my left and right have already laid out the more critical and pessimistic dimensions I now am willing to open the floor to questions I would rather not have comments because they would become long and I would like you to ask short questions and bear in mind that a question usually ends with a question mark and and requires an answer so no speeches please raise your hands and somebody will bring a mic to you after I recognise you and identify you yes right here in the front I wonder if either panelist or moderator would care to address the issue of Imran Khan and his focus on anti-corruption professor Farah brought this up a little bit but didn't pursue it further do you think he will continue to focus on anti-corruption in a limited sense of only against political opponents or will this have a broader mandate to look into the issue of corruption writ large including problems with the military other problems of Pakistan's budget at what dozen doesn't get spent military I'm judiciary Imran Khan's party PTI ruled my home province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the past five years and their previous 2013 campaign was also about the anti-corruption drive and how the old fashioned traditional politicians have robbed the people blind five years on I don't see a single trial conviction or restitution made to the National Exchequer of the provincial Exchequer from any of those people that he blamed there has literally been no accountability process there you talk about the military there have been mega scandals involving the military especially in the rest of Balochistan province where the the top order the Inspector General of different care Corps which is actually a military man usually of a major general rank they have been involved in corruption to the tune of millions and billions of rupees not a word was set by Imran Khan about that and the military's internal audit and internal basically it was just a rap on the knuckles for those those generals nobody actually heard about it some of his own cronies have been convicted so basically you think to answer Alice's question that it'll be more political rather than it's rhetoric there's a great election ret race you agree with that or do you have something else to have okay III would argue that there are many dimensions to the corruption problem one is this political one which we've talked about I think this has been going on for many years each government that was ousted during the 90s was ousted on the grounds of corruption institutions have been created first they were accountability courts then there is the national accountability Bureau etcetera etcetera it always ends up focusing on the politically prominent because that's where the headlines are expanding it is likely to create some kind of social unrest as well I mean forget about the military I let's just not go there let's talk about even expanding it just to make it wider on the civil service etcetera these are the functionaries of state if everybody is paralyzed which has happened for example immediately after Musharraf took over in 1999 I don't know if you remember many industrialists were picked up for not paying back loans and they were put in or put in prison etc then the entire industrial class in investor class got together and said what's going on you can't do this to us if you have specific charges because the third in Pakistan for dealing with corruption is not that you go through the normal channels of prosecution if you do it as a political campaign then your best hope is to find somebody and get him to quote-unquote confess otherwise if they were really capable of bringing good judicial charges then situations like missus or Larry's 11 year imprisonment without conviction would not have occurred similarly whenever Pakistan has taken a case abroad like for example the famous Surrey property of Benazir Bhutto that was very well publicized during the 1990s or the so-called Swiss account of SGS Co Tecna 61 million dollars it was exaggerated people expected millions of dollars to be in the end the cost of filing those cases was the only thing Pakistan ended up with it bore the cost it did not get them so unless mr. Imran Khan is able to put in place a proper system of prosecution and trial I think it will end up becoming a political slogan and if he starts expanding it to try and go for judges and for the military we will have the same political destabilization that we have always had whenever a political leader has attempted to do that so that's my so corruption is baked into the system you know this was even hanging on South Asia for forever so in purchasing power parity your average judge makes less today than they did under the British right look at what your average beat cot makes everyone knows that these folks including a judge can't pay even a modest pay for a modest home and a modest family without taking bribes right everyone knows this so with if you're really gonna address this corruption issue you have to then deal with the public service commission right and structural changes in the in the painting now the question then arises why doesn't this happen well politicians actually like having a corrupt system that they can manipulate I think some of the heroes in South Asia are oddly enough the police the police don't want to be corrupt in Pakistan you know you'll you'll routinely see accounts of someone from the kpk police force unable to stop a suicide bomber with anything else other than his body and they don't shirk they do it so I when I look at corruption there's these this large corruption that everyone focuses on but in fact quotidian corruption is baked in and there needs to be a real discussion corruption doesn't happen to you you choose to participate in corruption right so it's a pain in the in a particular location to get your car register to get your driver's license and so forth you know if you get pulled over the guy's going to write you a ticket and you know that you can just bribe your way out of it if you want to make it a really lousy have him write the ticket but Christine I mean I think the whole discussion of corruption in Pakistan has always been focused on politicians corruption and not about this whole endemic structural you it's all it's it's literally banker to the system yes right here either you shot through the Washington Post just quickly you know we have this sense this is narrative outside of Pakistan in India in particular also in the u.s. that that nothing will change until we break this logic of the Pakistani military controlling the state of some of the indexable logic that governs what the Pakistani military is doing in terms of its if the position versus visa the India its position visa fee of Coniston and militancy there what is happening within the militaries there do you've any sense of internal discussions how a new generation of officers are coming in do they have this are they governed by the same kind of imperatives as the earlier generations is there some kind of are there some sort of divisions or factional questions emerging I'd love to get a sense of what that looks like so I actually have data on this so it's on my website Kristine Farah it was a paper that was published in security studies some years ago it's basically on it's something like Pakistan's military manpower policies so what we do know is that going back to Ayub Khan actually the Pakistan Army understood that if if they're gonna be seen as an equitable merit meritocracy everyone has to have the perception that they have an equal opportunity to loot the government while in a uniform and if you know about Pakistan you know that that's not true right if you're a below church you're Cindy you don't have an equal opportunity and certainly before the break away of East Pakistan Bengalis were certainly locked out of the ability to loot the country so are you kind actually did try to expand the footprint of the army into these others other provinces military manpower is not only driven by demand side considerations like we the army wants it's also driven by supply side and mostly the efforts of Ayub Khan failed because he didn't get the the supply side response so what we have seen the army do in the last several decades is that they have reduced the qualifications to into the army particularly the officer corps and Balochistan and send to try and attenuate the human capital shortfalls they've been building these cadet academies and these Kadena cavities are not only intended to remediate individuals who will be competent to get into the PMA without these reduced standards they're also intended to engender a positive sense right and then these will often the these are not uncontroversial because folks in Balochistan and Sindh also view these as sort of colonial outposts having said this despite the controversy we know that these efforts have been successful we are also fairly confident that these recruits that are coming from Balochistan are not just Punjabis who live in Balochistan so some years ago I did very large survey with my colleagues be interviewed like 14,000 people and it sort of a natural experiment and we asked the question how do you Punjabis outside of the Punjab no no I'm gonna tell them no this is data isn't like making a brownie from a box bank of all these Dana folks no but this is going to your point why does this matter the people who are not in the Punjab do not share critical values that the army espouses about hostility towards India the belief that they have to liberate Kashmir and all of this stuff there are very real differences of opinion all right so does this mean that this is going to overtime there's another really important factors I think you need to consider prior to 2004 the first unit fatality would happen in association with India either on the LOC EC action which you can rationalize frostbite is like the enemy right because why are you there in the first instance but now the first unit fatality is very likely to be actually from a Pakistani right fighting in the the tribal areas so for me is an empiricist we're not gonna see the putative results of this for some decades now I also you know work on military manpower issues in general armies are notorious sausage grinders you can put anything in there and what get is the same sausage so we don't know if these people that have been recruited into Balochistan or send if they're gonna have the same retention profile maybe they'll just you know they litter it out but these are the these are I think some of the important things that are happening endogenously that give me some hope that we might see something different but you know this is a very cautious level of Hope because armies after all try to seek conformity but there's one thing that you know we can all see when these guys are out of uniform they say stuff they would never say in uniform all right so this also means that even if they do think differently you have a coordination problem like the core commanders right it's a signaling problem because if you're the only one who thinks this way and you peep up you're gonna be the one out right so this is very complicated but I think there are some things that we should be watching as analysts as the decades unfold particularly the internal operations so the data fall a man's answer to your question is yes there is going to be changing the Pakistan military is thinking but it's going to be a relatively slow and long drawn process I would like to just quickly add I think some of this has actually been tried and tested we have had military chiefs who were first UN's and the same process went on I'll just throw out a name General Abdul Wahid Cocker it was a purse tune on his watch the Taliban was created and unleashed we had democratic dispensation in place Field Marshal a upon himself was a 13 ethnic costume but from Hazara and purse tunes have made a large chunk of the Pakistani army the the second largest section in the army and over the years like Chris said the sausages it come out it's a melting part the army is loyal to the army itself and some of the things the military thinking that exists some of the genuine concerns one can understand about Afghanistan or India but I usually don't like to throw out doctor analogies but if there is a genuine delusion I can treat it but if someone is faking delusion I cannot treat it August on army fixed that delusion about India and Afghanistan and I don't foresee a change in that delusion anytime soon although although to be fair I mean that is something that is up for debate is it really fake are there genuine concerns etc for which we will have a different panel at some point mr. Fradkin there thank you anything off racket about some Institute thank you for a very fine panel I wanted to just thank dr. fear for putting the IMF issue on a table because I think that will be important my question is this you Hussein and and your colleagues brought up the Islamic issue but did not say too much about it but there is this kind of change in the situation that the respective new prime minister has made that part of his campaign but the religious parties themselves have declined and I didn't I was wondering what's your sense of how that plays out after that which one of you wants to take that there Bhutto afraid of saying this was very ferociously aligned with some of these nasty elements right she went into coalition in the 90s with the SFSP which was a vicious anti-shia organization she elide with Jui she her father and even her son has been going on on about the 10th I was a near war in Kashmir so this is I think for domestic purposes right the army is the one that really calls the shot on these issues where I think Imran is most dangerous is not on issues that quite frankly affect us it's it's on things that affect Pakistani is one of his parting words as the campaign wrapped up was basically very pejorative incendiary things about Emma DS on whom there's already an open season his if you what what I thought was even more appalling about the pre-poll rigging wasn't was the number of not Islamists right Pakistan says Lamas you know that we know who they are you know their histories but we're actually terrorists right individuals associate with terrorist organizations labaik fielded some 600 people the FML the million was something which is the l ET's political wing they fielded 200 a swj which is the you know new acronym for the SSP they feel that another couple hundred that you actually had and then of course who g which is an ally of al qaeda also some of the who g members of allegedly joined PTI so i think this is a watershed right we've always had islamic but actually having terrorists the last century SSP was also always contesting but the sheer number of terrorists in addition to islamic on testing this election i thought that was quite notable i'm glad none of them won but that's really not the point right and this is a by the way remember they did this right after we we toss on that bone of the financial task force we gave them a gray listing and so the black listing that they deserved and what was their response oh yeah we're gonna have like 900 terrorists and test our elections okay you had raised your hand gentleman right here yeah yeah this moisturizer I write for a pox on paper than used this is exactly what she was saying this but do Pakistanis have really fear PTI like a and P in KPK had fear that the PTI might undo the 18th amendment you know so quickly take that don't you have the numbers to and that was the the base yeah it will eventually boil down to the numbers and the Senate situation as it stands this is going to be an uphill task we know that the Pakistani military is upset with elements of the 18th amendment if not those who don't know 18th amendment was a constitutional amendment package after Musharraf the civilian has brought it together to undo many of the amendments that the military had introduced into the Constitution including the presidential power to arbitrarily dismiss governments and and dissolve Parliament and it also increased the the power of the provinces and gave them several subjects that were not previously controlled by them so I I don't foresee that it's gonna be on the chopping block immediately first they have to get their feed get in there and how things actually are maneuvered how things for all we know there could potentially be a change in the Senate where the current Senate Chairman is thrown out by the opposition parties on paper the numbers do exist but politics is actually where rubber meets the road so once we actually get into that we'll see but yes there there are concerns and I think one needs to maintain a watchful eye a very 18th amendment is something that these smaller provinces have to jealously guard okay so I'm going to take three questions together and then get answers to them at the end first right there at the back yes hello Natalie Leo with the voice of America a quick question for all of you perhaps what does Pakistan have going for her going forward and how could the country take the most advantage of what she has going for her thank you okay right here in the front row so Donna knew me from AEI I have a quick question about Pakistani foreign policy I take your point that real power remains with the military no matter who is the civilian in office but nonetheless having a civilian prime minister who is seems to be in lockstep with the military would certainly open up possibilities for what what that foreign policy may be so what is foreign policy Pakistani foreign policy likely to look like and specifically what is Pakistan's policy towards the United States likely to look like and the young lady here so my question would be to I my name is sana Malik and I work I'm a little I'm a tax attorney here my question is for dr. Muhammad Aki and the question is that regarding the accountabilities that we have the NAB in Pakistan under that they have been several convictions against the war Shrieve himself before under the PCO judges and then thereafter they were viewed and set aside do I want to see what do you have on those convictions do you think pre prior to the 2013 elections was he rightly so convicted earlier and then under the PCO judges and later on when those were set aside and having said that the follow-up question on that which every new one can answer is do you think NAB is our NAB ordinance in Pakistan and national accountability per and the courts do you think that system can be revised and put into place and mekin like Imran Khan might be able to revise that and put into place a system that's more workable for barson okay so we're gonna try and do these three and short short short answers what does Pakistan have going for it what's positive foreign policy what direction it could take considering that it there will be no conflict between the civilian in the military or less conflict and national accountability Bureau on national accountability Bureau to permit I will give the short answer it was an institution that was invented by under military dictatorship and therefore by definition it was created in a manner in which its proceedings are not always transparent it give sheriff and it essentially was headed by a military man for the first several years it has been an essentially political process the convictions the reason why they were set aside was exactly that reason so the real system of accountability will have to be what it is in every other country in the world you have prosecutors with prosecutorial authority and discretion you have courts you don't need a special institution made for accountability because that's what judiciary's exists all over the world for and by creating this definite define it narrowly defined accountability system what we keep doing is we keep political corruption or shall we say well advertised corruption as a separate subject then enforcement of law across the country so that was my answer to the third so I have now got to which one wants to take foreign policy which one to answer to take what's great about Pakistan going forward it I'll take what's great go ahead I have a lot of terrorists and they have a lot of nuclear weapon oh I'm actually making an argument that's true because they have the fastest growing nuclear program in the world that will soon overtake France that means that they're going to be able to continue coercing the Americans to keep writing checks irrespective of what our current regime says and they'll also continue to be able to bully India with impunity so I think that that's a good thing they've got an army they can't win a war they've got nuclear weapons I can't use so you know terrorists under a nuclear umbrella cha-chang well I don't think that's what you were looking for let me say it's a nation of 200 million people and Levitas 200 million people half of them below the age of 21 for their sake we need to have a view of how that those people can with their productivity come up with a new direction for their country I've just published an entire book on it called reimagining Pakistan I invite you to read it go ahead I was just going to add to that that I will never dismiss my own country a country of 220 million people very very resilient people my own hometown Peshawar has been bombed pulp over the last 10-15 years people are still standing up they're going to school they're still going to work and a lot of that disaster is the making of our own army so we gotta give credit to the Pakistani people who are still standing up they came out and voted and we still have a vibrant opposition I think all is not lost Chris's books as fighting till the end well if the establishment can fight to the end and their paradigm is that we are not defeated till we are not defeated same thing for the politicians we are not defeated - we are and the people have support foreign policy yes sadhus question right the foreign policy question was that if if if the political and the military establishment ducks in a row whether we can actually float towards the solution or some some sort of a rapprochement with India or Afghanistan I think that that sort of was tried and tested when Musharraf actually held power the executive and military were in the saddle we did not see a whole lot coming out of it because the fundamentals of the Pakistani army is thinking remain unchanged that's why I use the word fake delusion it's feigned insanity I mean if someone is insane they are insane but if they're pretending to be insane that's that's very divided you think why do you think the fake delusion well let's have a let's have an unpacking of that I I think yes let's let's go back I mean we we're a country which inherited one-third of the British Indian Army we have always been top-heavy with the army from day one now we had an army which was short on funds which was short on armaments after our first Kashmir adventure and subsequently a reason had to be invented to actually justify the existence of instead of instead of having an army that matches the size of the thread II have to my eyes of that threat has been created has been exaggerated to match the size the other thing is that over the years the the military itself has become an economic class that's something that Chris pointed out that the recruitment efforts and whatnot and that's why it is a melting part because the Baloch or personal or a sin is in the person once they are past a certain class they are actually part of that economic system and and they're there it's a very very lucrative economic system okay so we are going to be concluding in a few minutes last round of three questions so one two and the gentlemen right at the back go ahead first nevermind my question is about 2019 elections what do you think Markuson would have expectations of the 2019 elections in India and do you think they will want to play a role in it okay okay and the second one was yes the gentleman right here yeah hi oXXO from the Atlantic Council I just want to touch on some of the economic morass that you pointed out with the IMF loans a lot of people in Pakistan talk about CPAC has some economic miracle that will ameliorate all the economic or Wars right now but China gives out cheap loans unlike American aid and based on humble thoughts and are the white elephants what sort of problems you foresee for Pakistan going forward CPAC and if you could touch more upon those okay I think that that was touched upon somewhat but we can do it and then the last question right there at the back yes sir look I'm for eatables and my question was is there any confidence on you side that expects in Ron hunt to be a trusted partner to be a trusted partner of whom the US okay okay go ahead all right so see peplum will certainly go forward because that is what the army sees is a really important project you know we if you look at the economics of it it's not a viable economic order it takes something like six times the cost to move one barrel of crude for imaging giant took water than it does to any other geolock in China this is not an economic quarter also I think when we're interesting things about CPAC is actually not the highways the port and electricity it's actually agricultural what the Chinese are really getting is access to Pakistani land to grow their products right so Mollet Pakistan you don't seem to talk about that so see pep will most certainly go forward it will most certainly be overpriced there's no reason why it would be any different from what we see in Myanmar Sri Lanka or or Djibouti Pakistan will end up in a debt trap yeah and so this is why I think Americans we need we haven't put the IMF on the table what we just sort of we're on autopilot but there are costs to going forward with another IMF package because we actually encourage pocket Nonnie CPEC adventurism right there is no there it's a moral hazard we're basically saying we're gonna subsidize your payments go invest away but if we then don't write those IMF tracts and Pakistan can't service those CPEC loans then we're gonna have a Chinese water right so we don't we don't even talk about this and the same way we'll talk about economic stability for Afghanistan they're just things that are just not on the table but I think we really need to have on the table we really need to discuss is it in our interest to continue an IMF bailout I would argue against that because the IMF bailout is what lubricates the friction that would ordinarily arise between a vibrant civil society and the Praetorian interests of the military and the class that it preys upon right so we we actually subvert Democratic democratization by continuing to buy us out going on the question about elections I don't see how they play a role in the in the elections I do think they're gonna play a very nasty role in the 2019 Afghanistan elections just as they did the 2014 elections those are the actually elections that I think there's gonna be a lot of bloodshed as the Pakistanis use their proxies to do pre-poll rigging just as they did in Pakistan itself cami Moran can be trusted by the United States at this point I think it's it's very early in Ron's rhetoric against the US policies especially in Afghanistan was quite nasty Imran was one of the people who actually took to the roads directly hitting at the u.s. national interest putting the US servicemen in the harm's way a very nasty campaign against the US drone program that was being operated so I think it has to be initially some confidence-building measure if at some point some trust develops I would always advise trust but verify I don't see him as a trustworthy partner but that's my view ultimately governments have to do business with the government's and that will go on one thing I wanted to say about the CPAC how opaque that that that part is it sort of reminds me of the 2008 financial crisis here where we had the toxic assets people were writing loans to people who could not pay you know people were buying houses without the the traditional 20% down payment getting stuff and ultimately you had these assets which nobody could claim and they were sold off and what Chris has alluded to is China is essentially becoming what used to be the East India Company which eventually colonized the subcontinent and we have seen that experiment in in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and I think there's two very horrible examples there and whatever IMF goes through where yes US care is a leverage but certain strings obviously cannot be attached but it has to be very transparent and discussed openly and much more well let me end by thanking both our panelists and conclude by saying that in the most in in in most circumstances Pakistan is a complex and difficult country to talk about this election and its result has made it even more complex and difficult to understand so let's just keep our efforts in trying to figure out what's going on in Pakistan and rest of South Asia thank you all for coming

Channel: Hudson Institute

Views: 165,232

Keywords: Hudson Institute, Pakistan, Husain Haqqani, C. Christine Fair, Mohammad Taqi, Imran Khan

Id: 7wrSSPPg5_E

Length: 80min 59sec (4859 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 07 2018