Pakistan: The missing PM

ANYONE seen him around? Sixty-plus, portly, formerly bald? Won an unexpectedly solid mandate a few weeks ago? Sharif? Nawaz? Where is he? The prime minister has pulled a disappearing act. And left behind is a stuttering, directionless government that, like many before it, seems to think talk is action. It began with the budget. Forget sand, this was a line drawn in water — the government believing it could invent whatever numbers it wanted because the IMF wouldn’t push very hard in the end. And as if to reinforce the belief that the IMF wouldn’t push very hard in the end, the Taliban got their office in Doha and the boys here broke out the halal champagne to celebrate their triumph. Five, ten, fifteen billion to prop up an ailing Pakistani economy in return for bringing the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table? Surely, yes. So Dar gave us the ridiculous exercise of a budget of made-up numbers — and it took just 36 hours for the first fiction to manifest itself. Good idea/bad idea, smart move, dumb move, once Dar decided against giving federal employees an increment, he needed to stand his ground. That, after all, was the only way to demonstrate the government is serious about the business of putting its fiscal house in order. But to cave so early on a measure so small in the larger scheme of things — the sharks circling instantly knew what it meant: there is no will for reform. And if the will is lacking, so is the vision: Dar opted to spur growth by pumping money into the usual project-oriented development budget instead of getting the state out of the state of over-regulation it has found itself in. Budget, fail. And through it all, Sharif was missing. (When your multi-million-dollar watch is a bigger talking point than anything you’ve said during your first budget cycle, you know something’s not right, and probably very wrong.) India was supposed to be the big foreign-policy breakthrough Sharif would work on — and work on soon. And that meant dealing with the boys too. The Indians have long wanted two gestures to help them move on from Mumbai: wrap up the trial in the Pindi ATC of those implicated in the Mumbai attacks, and muzzle Hafiz Saeed and ilk a bit. Sharif bought into that idea and suggested speeding up the trial. Sorry, that currently isn’t possible, the boys demurred. And that was that. On the US, the Sharif camp is selling the line that the PM is taking personal interest in sustaining the relationship. Swell idea. But let’s see how that’s working out. SRAP Dobbins visits Pakistan and he’s told he’ll only be seeing Sartaj. Then Sharif decides to join the meeting — something the N-League is bandying as a sign of a hands-on PM. In the world of diplomacy, though, it’s just a sign of no coordination and little preparation. But the real kicker is what happened next: Gen K also decided to join. And it was the government that had to relay to the Americans the second addition to a meeting the government had earlier insisted it wanted to keep one-on-one. Egg, face. Real embarrassment, though, had already been delivered. In the wake of Doha, the Foreign Office put out a smug, self-congratulatory statement that made the eyes water. Why was Sharif’s Foreign Office claiming credit for a long-running process that he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with all these years while sitting in the opposition? Why not just ask the boys to use the ISPR to put out their smug, self-congratulatory message? So much for the PM-as-FM-and-DefMin idea getting off to a good start. Epitomising Sharif not putting a foot wrong between the election and government-formation and not putting a foot right since government-formation is Balochistan. The de facto PM Nisar has been busy snarling and growling about all manner of security and intelligence failures in the province. But where’s the action? Why not sack the IGFC Balochistan or the ISI sector in-charge, the principal operational drivers of security policy in the province? On and on, and on, the list goes. Are we talking to the TTP or preparing to fight them? Is the power sector being fixed at the cost of creating a new class of super rich? How will the country’s drift towards international isolation be slowed, let alone reversed? The one question that Sharif has attempted a half-hearted answer to is Musharraf. But he had little choice: the budget session was ending and the Supreme Court had asked the government what it intends to do with Musharraf. Sharif had to speak. So what has happened to Sharif? When on the rare occasion he has been seen and on the even rarer occasion he has been heard, he looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Never a great orator or particularly animated to begin with, Sharif appears listless and enervated. His own party is worried — and even more worried that they have no real answers to why he’s disappeared on them. Could this be the beginning of a replay of May 2008 to Oct 2011, when the PML-N slept through the first three years of the last assemblies before Khan jolted Sharif into action?Maybe, maybe not. But it’s another reason to want Khan back to his nagging and taunting best — and soon. Khan appears to be only man on earth who can goad Sharif and the PML-N into action.