PML‑N: A Reluctant Convert to Federalism?

While the osten­si­bly inex­orable slump of Pak­istan crick­et con­tin­ues, it has increas­ing­ly come to resem­ble and reflect the broad­er social and polit­i­cal behav­iour­al pat­terns. One of the more recent woes of Pak­istani bat­ting line up is the ‘con­ver­sion prob­lem’ – bats­men make impres­sive starts but fail to con­vert them into big scores. They get off to a decent start, show pos­i­tive intent and then play an ill-advised shot just at the oppor­tune moment. The result is often a dra­mat­ic bat­ting col­lapse. The refusal to learn from pre­vi­ous mis­takes is the only con­sis­tent fea­ture of this bat­ting line up.

The sto­ry of Pak­istani pol­i­tics is not very dif­fer­ent. Take the style of pol­i­tics of the Prime Min­is­ter, Nawaz Sharif. His pre­vi­ous tenure as PM was marred by con­fronta­tion with the army and the judi­cia­ry, thanks to his brash and ill-judged polit­i­cal moves. He did not believe in engag­ing polit­i­cal oppo­nents and was par­tic­u­lar­ly indif­fer­ent to the con­cerns of the small­er provinces. The end result was a mil­i­tary coup, Sharif broth­ers’ incar­cer­a­tion and then exile to Sau­di Ara­bia. Nawaz Sharif had to wait for more than 13 years to return to pow­er.

When he took charge for the third term as Pak­istan Prime Min­is­ter, many polit­i­cal pun­dits and observers hoped that Nawaz Sharif was a “changed man” and had learnt from the past. This opti­mism was not mis­placed giv­en the matu­ri­ty demon­strat­ed by the PML(N) in the oppo­si­tion bench­es dur­ing the PPP regime. The PML(N) played a key role in devel­op­ing ‘civil­ian con­sen­sus’ on pro­tect­ing the country’s demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­pen­sa­tion against uncon­sti­tu­tion­al moves, thus in effect dis­avow­ing any direct or indi­rect mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in pol­i­tics. In addi­tion to con­tribut­ing to demo­c­ra­t­ic con­sol­i­da­tion, the PML(N) also showed some signs of hav­ing shunned its tra­di­tion­al Pun­jab-cen­tric approach to pol­i­tics and put on fed­er­al­ist cloaks. Punjab’s role in the pass­ing of the 7th NFC Award and Nawaz Sharif’s friend­ly over­tures to the eth­no-nation­al­ists of Balochis­tan and Sindh before 2013 elec­tions gave one suf­fi­cient rea­sons to believe in the more demo­c­ra­t­ic and fed­er­al­ist out­look of the erst­while ‘cen­tral­ist’ PML(N). This per­cep­tion was rein­forced in the wake of the 2013 elec­tions when Nawaz Sharif respect­ed the man­date of the nation­al­ists and the PTI in Balochis­tan and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa respec­tive­ly.

How­ev­er, ever since the PML(N) has come into pow­er, it seems intent on spoil­ing the good­will it has labo­ri­ous­ly earned over the past few years. In con­tra­dic­tion to its ear­li­er pro-fed­er­a­tion ges­tures, the PML(N) has emerged as a “cen­tral­ist” par­ty with lit­tle regard for the rights and pros­per­i­ty of small­er provinces. To begin with, the party’s stance on ter­ror­ism has main­ly been deter­mined by a con­cern to ensure the secu­ri­ty of Pun­jab. It has shown high pain thresh­old for ter­ror­ist vio­lence affect­ing oth­er provinces. Sec­ond­ly, the PML(N) has seri­ous­ly under­mined the polit­i­cal and fis­cal decen­tral­iza­tion intro­duced by the 18th amend­ment. It has cre­at­ed new fed­er­al min­istries to car­ry out respon­si­bil­i­ties in fields that were devolved to the provinces in the 18th amend­ment. Sim­i­lar­ly, a num­ber of fed­er­al bod­ies that now fall with­in the exclu­sive juris­dic­tion of provinces have not been devolved (e.g. Employ­ees Old-Age Ben­e­fits Insti­tu­tion (EOBI) and the Work­ers Wel­fare Fund). Addi­tion­al­ly, the rule that the Coun­cil of Com­mon Inter­ests (CCI) should meet at least once every 90 days has not been fol­lowed.

Final­ly, the rul­ing par­ty has ignored the view­points of small­er provinces, espe­cial­ly Balochis­tan and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa, on vital issues relat­ed to the much-tout­ed Chi­na Pak­istan Eco­nom­ic Cor­ri­dor (CPEC). First off, there is an acute lack of trans­paren­cy about the actu­al route of the cor­ri­dor, the devel­op­ment projects and the loca­tion of eco­nom­ic zones to be set along the route. The Min­istry of Plan­ning and Devel­op­ment web­site does not pro­vide any detail of the pro­posed route and agree­ments and Mem­o­ran­da of Under­stand­ing (MOUs) signed between the two gov­ern­ments. Sec­ond­ly, the chief min­is­ters of Balochis­tan, Sindh and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa, who were con­spic­u­ous­ly absent dur­ing the vis­it of the Chi­nese Pres­i­dent, were not con­sult­ed. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, law­mak­ers from these provinces, espe­cial­ly Balochis­tan, have expressed seri­ous reser­va­tions regard­ing the cor­ri­dor.

A map giv­en by the Wall Street Jour­nal shows the pro­posed route of the cor­ri­dor and loca­tion of ener­gy projects. The CPEC con­sists of mul­ti­ple routes, two of which pass through Pun­jab and one through Balochis­tan and KPK, with the lat­er being the short­est of all routes. The Min­is­ter for plan­ning main­tains that work is under­way on the west­ern (Gwadar-Quet­ta-Peshawar) route and that it will become func­tion­al once it is ready. How­ev­er, the hon­ourable min­is­ter has giv­en no time frame for the com­ple­tion of the west­ern route. There are mul­ti­ple issues with this mul­ti-route eco­nom­ic cor­ri­dor.

First, there is no cred­i­ble com­mit­ment that the west­ern route will be devel­oped quick­ly and made func­tion­al. Sec­ond­ly, even if the com­mit­ment prob­lem is some­how resolved, the west­ern route is unlike­ly to become the main route upon its com­ple­tion. Since the two east­ern routes pass­ing through Pun­jab will become func­tion­al way ear­li­er, huge invest­ments would be made and eco­nom­ic zones estab­lished along these routes by the time the work on the west­ern route is com­plete. Con­se­quent­ly, it will be near impos­si­ble to relo­cate resources and invest­ment to the west­ern route pass­ing through the bar­ren and rel­a­tive­ly inse­cure land of Balochis­tan and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa.

Third­ly, the pro­posed $46bn infra­struc­ture and ener­gy spend­ing plan is con­trary to the prin­ci­ples of inclu­sive eco­nom­ic growth and equi­table devel­op­ment. A mere glance at the map gives one the impres­sion as if the ter­ri­to­ries west of Indus are not a part of the plan. Out of the ten odd pow­er plants and ener­gy-relat­ed projects, only one is locat­ed in the provinces of Balochis­tan and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa each. The pro­posed rail­way track is also like­ly to pass through Pun­jab. More­over, while funds have been ear­marked for the upgra­da­tion of Karako­rum High­way (Havelian to Thakot) and Karachi-Lahore Motor­way (Mul­tan to Sukkur) and estab­lish­ment of Lahore Metro Train project, no funds have been allo­cat­ed for infra­struc­tur­al devel­op­ment in Balochis­tan (bar­ring Gwadar). The only invest­ment promised in Balochis­tan is in Gwadar and that too is aimed at aug­ment­ing the extrac­tive capac­i­ty of Islam­abad. As far Balochis­tan is con­cerned, the cor­ri­dor and the con­comi­tant invest­ment will only build extrac­tive insti­tu­tions ben­e­fit­ing a tiny elite. This focus on extrac­tive rather than inclu­sive insti­tu­tion build­ing is like­ly to accen­tu­ate income inequal­i­ties and region­al dis­par­i­ties.

The CPEC offers Islam­abad an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reverse its neo-colo­nial poli­cies in Balochis­tan, FATA and parts of Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa and help them come out of the con­flict and pover­ty traps. The gov­ern­ments of Balochis­tan and KPK should mobilise the Coun­cil of Com­mon Inter­ests to get their reser­va­tions heard. The rul­ing par­ty should use this pro­pi­tious moment to bridge gaps in region­al pros­per­i­ty lev­els and embark on a path of inclu­sive eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. Most impor­tant­ly, it should learn from the past and cap­i­talise on this oppor­tu­ni­ty to estab­lish its cre­den­tials as a gen­uine fed­er­al­ist par­ty. Oth­er­wise, its fate is unlike­ly to be any dif­fer­ent from that of Pak­istan Crick­et.