Two months into a military offensive against Taliban militants, public opinion is firmly behind the civilian government and the military and it shows no sign of wavering.
Investors in Pakistani stocks have been unnerved by the violence, which has included a string of suicide bombs in cities and attacks on the military across the north.
But investors and the Pakistani people in general wanted to see the offensive prosecuted to the end, and only then would their confidence be restored, said a stock broker.
‘It is absolutely necessary for the government to control and counter these terrorist elements and regain its writ to end the state of despondency among the people who had started to feel there was no one to protect them,’ said Asif Qureshi, director of Invisor Securities.
‘Let alone foreign investors, the success of this operation is essential for the restoration of confidence among local investors as well,’ he said.
The KSE-100 index has gained 23 per cent this year after losing 58.3 per cent in 2008. But the index is trading about 10 per cent lower than its peak of this year, partly because of security worries.
About 10,000 supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party rallied in Karachi on Sunday to protest against US involvement in the region.
But their opposition to the offensive and sympathy for the Taliban was well known and their protest did not signal a strengthening of the argument that Pakistan should not be fighting ‘America’s war’, an analyst said.
‘They’re finding it difficult to dominate the discourse as they have been doing for some time. They’re on the back foot,’ said Rashid Rehman, a former newspaper editor and analyst.
‘The other voices, the dissident voices, the voices who have been arguing for the last 30, 40 years that we’re heading down a suicide path, I think they’re getting stronger,’ he said.
‘It’s an existential threat now to the state. The army, which after all was the creator of this monster, itself has come round to this view,’ Rehman said.
‘It may be partly American pressure but it is certainly also an internal assessment that ‘yes, we’ve lost control of these guys and they’ve gone haywire, something has to be done’.’
The fighting has displaced about two million people and their suffering could incite public anger but despite that, many ordinary Pakistanis agree something has to be done.
‘Everybody wants this filth wiped out,’ said retired school principal Nighat Anis. ‘The operation must be carried on so that no one like Osama (bin Laden) could dare come here.’
‘They aren’t representative of the whole nation ... I don’t believe opinion will shift in the militants’ favour.’
No comments:
Post a Comment