Saudi-Iran thaw - Newspaper - DAWN.

COM
dawn.com/news/1728271/saudi-iran-thaw

December 26, 2022

WHERE geopolitics is concerned, Saudi Arabia and Iran are poles

apart. The former is a steady ally of the US, though there has
been some recent turbulence in that relationship, while the latter
is a staunch enemy of America. Moreover, ever since the events
of 1979, both states have sought to position themselves as leaders
of the Muslim world. These diverging positions have resulted in
immense dissonance, as both Riyadh and Tehran have fought
each other in proxy wars across the Middle East. An extension of
the Saudi-Iran rivalry has also affected Pakistan, influencing
Shia-Sunni relations in this country. Therefore, whatever
happens between Riyadh and Tehran has an impact on the
Middle East, as well as the Muslim world in general. Hence, it is
welcome that the decidedly cool relations between the Saudis
and Iranians have warmed up a notch, with the Iranian foreign
minister saying there have been “friendly” contacts with his
Saudi counterpart. Both men recently attended a conference on
Iraq in Jordan, where Iran’s Hossein Amirabdollahian said Saudi
Arabia’s Faisal bin Farhan assured him of his country’s
willingness to continue dialogue. Both sides have already been
holding talks brokered by Iraq, though there has been a months-
long gap since the last time representatives met.

The Saudi-Iran talks should continue, and the peace process

could move forward considerably if both re-established
diplomatic ties, snapped since 2016 when Riyadh executed vocal
Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr. The UAE and Kuwait, which
usually work in tandem with the Saudis where Iran is concerned,
have earlier this year already re-established diplomatic relations.
 The fact is that Saudi Arabia and Iran cannot change their status
as regional neighbours, and need to work out a way of living
with each other, and respecting each other’s red lines. A Saudi-
Iranian détente can also bring peace to Yemen, along with
helping stabilise Lebanon and Iraq, as both states exercise
in uence in these countries, while intra-Muslim relations will
fl
also bene t greatly from improved ties between the two.
fi
Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022

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Flood victims - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1728272/flood-victims

December 26, 2022

REPORTS from flood-hit areas across the country paint a bleak

picture that shows the suffering and vulnerability of the affected
population. A UN report last week said a harsh winter lies ahead
for those living in some 35 districts in the country. Alarmingly,
there is stagnant water, reports of damaged shelters as well as
lack of winter clothing and safe heating supplies. Not only do
these factors threaten to put millions at risk of disease, they also
increase the probability of gender-based violence. The study
estimates that more than 14m people need food assistance, with
half that number requiring immediate access to nutrition. A
second report, supplemental to the Post-Disaster Needs
Assessment, highlights that the shortage of food and the spread
of disease, because of lack of safe drinking water and sanitation,
will have a serious impact on stunting rates. The summer’s
devastating floods have pushed an additional 2m households into
poverty and destroyed crops and livestock that provided a source
of income for hundreds of thousands of families.

The details contained in these reports regarding the scale of

destruction and hardship faced by those affected by the floods
are hair-raising, and must lead to greater action and support
from both our authorities and the international community. After
a string of natural disasters, such as the 2005 earthquake and
2010 floods, our disaster management authorities and
government have a framework for the mitigation of the impact
of disasters. They must review examples from the past, and draw
the world’s attention to the continuing threat to the affected
population. Resources must be focused on addressing
humanitarian needs, security, nutrition, public health and
poverty. Failing to do so would push millions more Pakistanis
into desperation, which would have long-term consequences for
both individuals and society at large. The flood disaster is by no
means over. Though the floodwaters began to recede in
September, the vulnerability of those living with inadequate
protection in extreme weather is higher than ever. It is most
unfortunate that the flood calamity is largely absent from the
national conversation, which seems to be solely focused on
politics, scandals and power games. Our leaders cannot afford to
ignore those affected by this crisis. As the country hurtles from
one predicament to another, a large segment of the population in
the throes of extreme poverty and deprived of shelter and safety
continues to wait for its fundamental rights.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022

Opinion

IMF negotiations - Newspaper - DAWN.COM

dawn.com/news/1728273/imf-negotiations

December 26, 2022

WITH the country’s foreign exchange reserves depleting to

dangerous levels, all eyes are on the government to see how its
negotiations with the IMF pan out. Friday’s pages carried a
concerning report on the State Bank’s forex holdings, which
stood at just $6.1bn after the week that ended Dec 16.

The central bank cited continuing repayments of external debt as

the reason behind the sustained decline in its forex reserves.
Those repayments are likely to get more and more difficult
without new inflows, which is why satisfying the IMF and
securing another tranche from the ongoing bailout programme
has become so critical for maintaining the economy’s health.

It is worth recalling that the ninth review of the IMF’s bailout

programme had earlier been put off for two months due to the
PML-N-led government’s unwillingness to accept certain
conditions placed before it by the Fund, and the disagreements
have yet to be resolved.

Apparently, instead of acknowledging the ground realities and

taking action accordingly, the people tasked with managing the
country’s finances expended that time pleading with friendly
countries to roll over maturing loans, make fresh deposits and
provide some concessions, such as deferred oil payments.

However, while those friends have made assurances, the needed

assistance has yet to materialise, and the window for the
government to take action has narrowed considerably in that
period.
Reports in some sections of the local media suggest that the IMF
has given Islamabad another few weeks to get its act together
and make progress on the prescribed action points if it wants to
clear the ninth and tenth reviews satisfactorily. Otherwise, there
is little hope for the release of the held-up funds.

The imposition of about Rs800bn in new taxes, which the IMF

insists Pakistan needs to do in order to keep afloat, is a key
hurdle. However, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has been resisting
the requirement strongly due to the political costs it is likely to
extract from the ruling coalition.

Foreign lenders are unlikely to look on Islamabad very

favourably as long as the IMF remains dissatisfied with the
overall direction the economy is being steered in. Given the
amount of energy the ruling coalition is expending on ensuring
that it stays in power till August at least, the stasis in
policymaking defies logic.

Whatever the political costs of taking difficult measures, the

hammering the PDM is likely to receive if the economy continues
to be run aground is going to be far worse. With time rapidly
running out, Mr Dar must decide whether his party’s political
standing is dearer to him or the country’s economic future.

He ought to have understood by now that the PDM’s decision to

keep its government was going to come with political costs,
especially during a time when the country is wracked by multiple
crises.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022



Without shelter - Newspaper - DAWN.COM

dawn.com/news/1728277/without-shelter

December 26, 2022

EVICTIONS in Karachi are the new norm. Whether it is the

widening of a carriageway, the cleaning of a nullah or the
clandestine facilitation of real-estate enterprises, the homes of
the underprivileged are the usual target of demolition.

In a recent episode, residents of Mujahid Colony in the

Nazimabad/North Nazimabad precincts faced the
administration’s wrath. Civil society organisations said that over
600 houses were destroyed. About 400 more will be razed. Over
2,000 families will be affected. The so-called development
projects in the city are likely to impact more low-income
settlements. Disappointingly, apart from Jamaat-i-Islami, no
political party has supported the right to shelter for the poor.
Land supply to benefit the urban poor has long since ceased to
exist.

According to reports, 62 per cent of Karachi’s population resides

in informal settlements. This situation evolved after the state
apparatus failed to provide affordable shelter options to the
urban poor. True, the Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority Act, 1987,
had created a legal option for an institutionalised process of
regularising squatter settlements. The 1990s saw a robust process
of surveying, targeting and regularising settlements which
fulfilled the laid-down criteria. Many pilot initiatives helped
provide technical guidance to this useful enterprise. However,
this pro-poor policy experienced a blow after the decade ended.

In the 2000s, provincial and federal governments began to see

land as a transactable commodity for generating revenue and
profits. Land supply as a public service venture for benefiting the
poor was stopped. The survey and regularisation of katchi abadis
was impeded. Today, attempts to transact the land along
Karachi’s coastline (including Karachi’s islands), all-out non-
transparent support to real estate ventures along the M-9
Motorway, inflicting damage on katchi abadis under the garb of
nullah-cleaning or transit-way developments, and the expansion
of the establishment’s real estate footprint are the order of the
day.
Democracy has not helped Karachi’s poor families.

Invaluable ecological assets on the city’s peripheries are

continuously usurped by dubious land development enterprises.
Local people have been uprooted and their livelihood systems —
mostly livestock rearing and farming — have been lost. The
options of shelter, housing and spaces for livelihoods are
virtually nil.

Previously, there was a clear demarcation of urban and rural

areas in Karachi. The city proper was surrounded by an
agricultural and livestock belt that offered livelihoods to the local
population and good-quality, cheap agri-products to the
residents. With the rapid expansion of real estate, the local
people have been suddenly deprived of livelihood and shelter
options. Many try to relocate within the city depending on social
and clan associations. Sadly, while the authorities have allowed
hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the peripheries to be
swallowed up by private real estate ventures, they have failed to
serve the urban poor who have legitimate need of shelter
options.

Democracy at the federal and provincial level has not helped the
urban poor in Karachi. Every five years, elected representatives
are sent to the assemblies. But the provincial and national
legislatures have failed to safeguard the right to basic shelter for
millions. Powerful interest groups influence land grant decisions
in a completely opaque manner for private gains. The urban
poor become the biggest losers.

At present, the possibilities of shelter for the urban poor are

extremely limited. This cross section of society, which comprises
more than one-third of the population of Karachi, struggles to
maintain a normal life. For many single males who earn Rs20,000
per month or less, ‘shelter’ options include sleeping on footpaths,
green belts, open public spaces, the edge of nullahs, in front of
shops and similar spaces. Eating from local welfare outlets often
saves them some cash but it is not enough to enable them to
accumulate enough to access a proper shelter in time.

For families earning the same amount, living with a relative on

rent-free or rent-sharing basis or squatting along invisible
locations are ‘choices’. Despite their hard work, households
cannot save enough to own a formally supplied parcel of land or
unit of built housing. One wonders how these people can be
expected to survive when the city completely shuns the options
of land and housing. Over 5.5m folks in the city brave this
challenge.

Many donor agencies are supporting development work in the

province. One of the essential guidelines followed in such
ventures is to ensure the provision of alternative shelters to
those evicted. Our government would do well to do the same in
the case of thousands of evicted families that are in dire straits
after losing shelter, assets and the hope to access these essentials.

The writer is an academic and researcher based in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022

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The TTP threat - Newspaper

dawn.com/news/1728279/the-ttp-threat

December 26, 2022

THE TTP’s return to the capital last week should not come as a
surprise. The warning signs have been growing in intensity since
the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Through political
statements, protests and popular movements such as the PTM,
the people of KP have been ringing alarm bells, demanding
action, and rejecting the group’s potential resurgence. The fact
that these calls have gone largely unheeded indicates Pakistan
urgently needs to revisit its centre-periphery dynamic.

The centre-periphery model is used to conceptualise networks,

hierarchies and power dynamics in fields ranging from
economics to philosophy to politics. Centres are where power,
money, industry and dynamic possibility are concentrated; in an
economic context, goods and capital accumulate in centres
before trickling down to peripheries. But across most disciplines,
understandings of centres and peripheries are routinely
critiqued and re-evaluated.

There is a growing recognition that the centre-periphery model is

often flawed, underestimating the contributions, vitality and
necessity of so-called peripheries. Most obviously, in a
postcolonial context, it is now widely accepted that the
peripheries (ie the colonies) were the key centres of wealth
generation, the wings that held aloft the centres of imperial
power.

Why is this relevant when it comes to the TTP? Because once

again, the group is back in news headlines and subject to strong
condemnation because its activities have affected the centre. The
suicide attack in Islamabad on Friday was terrifying, but not
unexpected.
And so here we are, back to the future.

The so-called peripheries have been increasingly subject to the

TTP’s brutality for almost two years. The number of civilian and
law-enforcement casualties at the hands of the TTP have more
than doubled since the Afghan Taliban came to power in August
2021. KP has been the worst hit: the TTP and its affiliates have
carried out 148 attacks against the province’s police since the
start of this year.

The peripheries have been appealing to the centre to take action.

The calls for a counterterrorist response have come in various
guises: in the form of PTM’s demands for dignity, justice and the
right to be differentiated from militants that truly threaten
Pakistan; in the form of Mohsin Dawar’s warnings that
negotiations with the TTP were futile, and would only embolden
the group; and in the form of mass anti-militancy protests in
Swat.

That these fears, opinions, experiences and demands were

largely disregarded in both political and security contexts is
largely due to the fact that those opposing the TTP in recent years
— particularly from the erstwhile tribal areas — are perceived to
be tangential, rather than an intrinsic part of the national whole.
As long as problems such as death threats, extortionate demands,
and murderous attacks by the TTP were restricted to the
peripheries, there was little motivation to act decisively, let alone
pre-emptively, among political and military power centres.

And so here we are, back to the future. Earlier this month, the
TTP claimed that it now occupies a “vast portion” of the former
tribal areas. Unconfirmed reports are also circulating of some
Baloch separatist leaders joining hands with the TTP, highlighting
again how neglect of the so-called peripheries can lead to
unmanageable challenges. These developments are a throwback
to the mid-2000s, when domestic militant groups were able to
consolidate, leading Pakistan into its arguably darkest decade.

It does not have to be this way. Pakistan has previously

demonstrated the potential to reframe its centre-periphery
model. The 18th Constitutional Amendment provided a roadmap
for emp­o­wering all provin­ces, undermining policies that might
conceptualise any part of the country as peripheral. And going by
media reports, the security establishment this summer did not
concede to the TTP’s demand to reverse the Fata merger,
indicating little appetite to treat certain parts of Pakistan, and
certain Pakistani citizens, as expendable.
But there is a long way to go. In the counterterrorism context,
lessons should be learned by ensuring that the revitalised Nacta
and future efforts by provincial CT departments are well
coordinated, with information access and strategic decision-
making flowing across all parts of the country. More importantly,
a top-down, centralised approach should be made subservient to
the learnings and preferences of areas most affected by the TTP.

Beyond the security realm, a dramatic reframing of Pakistan’s

centre and its peripheries is required, with a greater effort made
by key stakeholders to value all parts of the country, and all its
citizens, as central. This approach would tackle the structural
drivers — such as unequal access to education, justice,
employment, opportunity — that fuel militancy in the first place,
and reiterate that all Pakistanis are deserving of security and
prosperity.

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.

Twitter: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022

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Ignoring the state?

dawn.com/news/1728281/ignoring-the-state

December 26, 2022

THE notion that state institutions have a part to play in economic

and social development is beyond any debate. One can take the
minimalist position, where states simply create rules for a
private market to function, or a more maximalist one, where the
state actively produces goods and delivers services. In either
case, certain functions need to be to carried out effectively by the
state.

Over the duration of the 20th and now in the 21st century, the
importance of the state in delivering human capability expansion
stands well-establi­shed. Writing in 2015, development theorists
Patrick Heller and Peter Evans argued that the mandate of the
state is no longer confined to the delivery of higher economic
growth via greater productivity and industrialisation. Delivering
basic social services such as health and education are now
central to any vision of development, since they help expand
human capabilities, feed into economic growth, and allow
citizens to access more opportunities.

Facilitating accumulation of wealth in mostly private hands and

facilitating the delivery of healthcare and learning to the public
at large are two key tasks. As Evans and Heller argued, the
former requires government functionaries to forge close ties
with a small section of business owners, provide selective
incentives and punishments, and ensure that key inputs to the
production process are readily available through an effective
bureaucracy.

Similarly, delivering quality healthcare and education to millions

requires technical capacity to know what type of interventions
are needed. It requires establishing relations with large swathes
of the citizenry, and in particular, with civil society to understand
what type of improvements are needed and how they can be
delivered. It also requires the state to discipline and override the
interests of those groups who are against such interventions.
The Pakistani state is proving itself to be incapable of delivering order or
development in any meaningful way.

The case of Pakistan is troubling on all accounts. In the recently

concluded Pathways for Development conference, which
gathered over 70 academics and policy practitioners working on
the country’s various developmental issues at Lums, panellists
identified numerous constraints related to state capacity.
Economic dynamism and delivery of basic social services have
both faltered in the past few decades, in light of state institutions
that are simply unable to coordinate or deliver effectively. As one
senior researcher described, Pakistan’s current human capital
conditions look similar to Afghanistan, a country with 40 years of
near-constant warfare, than other countries in the region.

Therein lies the central problem. The state is a central answer to

questions of order and development. The Pakistani state is
proving itself to be incapable of delivering order or development
in any meaningful way. Do we then chart out an entirely
different answer, one that bypasses the state altogether?

That is a favoured answer among some. For instance, a case has

recently been made for the privatisation of school education
through outsourcing to private school entities and establishing a
voucher system. This is a relatively straightforward suggestion
given the decrepit condition of public schooling. But it has its
own set of issues. Outsourcing and voucher systems don’t
perform as well on equity considerations (leaking kids from the
poorest households). They require extensive regulatory
monitoring from state institutions, given risks of collusion
between education businesses and state officials. And they’re
only a solution in areas where private-sector capacity actually
exists.

But more than that, they communicate a dangerous resignation:

if we cannot fix the state to deliver education and health
effectively even in well-resourced, well-funded, densely
populated conditions like Lahore, Karachi, Sialkot and
Faisalabad, what chance do we have of fixing it in the geographic
and economic peripheries where it is definitely the only option?
What chance do we have of ensuring effective public sector
ability to coordinate and regulate all the other domains outside
of health and education?
Whatever way you cut it, there is no bypassing the state and no
choice but to think of a way of improving its capacity. The latter
has been deliberated upon endlessly by scholars of development.
Some prefer technological fixes, such as streamlining and
automating processes that remove human discretion, and human
resource fixes, such as recruiting more skilled public officials and
offering better incentives. Overall though, the consensus is that
accountability and effective oversight by the people keeps public
officials — politicians and bureaucrats alike — on their toes and
improves capacity.

Some states, such as China and increasingly Viet­nam, operate a

high-capacity system that features accountability and oversight
outside of electoral democracy. But the origins of their system lie
in re­­volutionary upheaval led by a well-organised, mass-
membership party. Pakistan does not have those base
ingredients, nor, I suspect, the stomach for such a recipe. Our
best bet is to improve accountability and oversight within the
system that we have.

The simplest path involves changing administrative

arrangements to offer more scope for the average citizen to
participate and obtain a voice in decision-making, and the surest
option we have is effective devolution. If the central problem is
of limited state capacity, and that, in turn, is an outcome of
limited accountability and oversight, then devolution offers an
institutional solution to this mess. It does not take much to
conclude that a bureaucrat and politician accountable to 500
households actually reliant on public education and public
healthcare versus one lording over a city of 11 million will face
different types of pressures, and thus different incentives to
actually do their job.
There are encouraging noises within civil society gathering
volume in support of devolution. There are politicians in every
party that understand what is at stake and what needs to be
done. There is a judiciary that has previously backed a
constitutional mandate for local governments. This pressure
needs to be maintained and the agenda of effective devolution
made a central plank for the next general election.

The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022

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Samir Zara
Dec 26, 2022 07:14am

What we need is a strong, dedicated and capable leader!

Nothing
else matters.
Pity that we don't have such a person anywhere in
our political landscape.

Reply
Recommend
0


Playing by the rules

dawn.com/news/1728282/playing-by-the-rules

December 26, 2022

PAKISTAN’S largest province and political heartland continues to

be in the throes of a crisis with the coalition government at the
centre and the PTI-backed chief minister locked in fierce
confrontation.

The latest act in this political drama began with opposition leader
Imran Khan’s announcement that he would ask his ally in Punjab
and government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to dissolve the two
provincial assemblies to force PDM into holding early elections
— his long-standing demand. He also announced a date for this,
Dec 23.
Chief Minister Parvez Elahi went along grudgingly with this
decision even though in a subsequent press conference he
claimed 99 per cent of people in the country were opposed to
dissolution and the ‘establishment’ wanted the present political
process to continue.

In his presser, Elahi assailed Khan for his public criticism of his
one-time benefactor, former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
He recalled what Bajwa had done to aid PTI’s ascent to power
and said it did not behoove Khan to be ungrateful.

This open criticism of Khan and expression of reservations about

dissolution conveyed the impression that there could be a
parting of ways between the two allies. That, of course, didn’t
happen. Elahi’s posturing may have had more to do with
bargaining for a better deal with PTI for ‘seat adjustment’ for the
next election.

Meanwhile, the PDM government launched a series of moves to

avert the possibility of dissolution. Their members in the
provincial assembly moved a motion for a no-trust vote while the
governor asked the chief minister to seek a vote of confidence.

Sure enough, the speaker ruled the governor’s order

unconstitutional and Punjab descended into political and
constitutional chaos. The governor ‘denotified’ the CM and
Punjab cabinet and the dispute inevitably landed up in the
Lahore High Court, which restored Elahi till the next hearing.

These developments in Punjab, which has been in an unsettled

state for the past eight months, have destabilised not just the
province but also the country. They have paralysed the most
populous province and plunged Pakistan into uncharted
territory.
More significantly, the uncertainty that has been unleashed is
having an adverse impact on the economy, already teetering on
the brink of insolvency. More political turmoil will exact an even
heavier price on the economy.

The question then is whether calling general elections can be a

way out of the political crisis and bring an end to the instability
being witnessed today, especially in the midst of a deteriorating
economic situation.
Will early elections end the country’s political crisis?

For elections to resolve the present crisis and establish political

stability, several things will need to happen. It is by no means
clear whether this will be the case. First and foremost, there
would have to be agreement between the principal political
rivals on an interim government, at the federal and provincial
levels.

Agreement on who should head a neutral caretaker government

to oversee elections is a constitutional requirement under Article
224. In the absence of consensus between the government and
opposition on an interim set-up, the matter would go for decision
to a parliamentary committee. If that fails to reach agreement,
the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will have to make that
call, under the constitutionally prescribed procedure (Article 224-
A).

Second, political leaders would have to accept the ECP as

constituted at present and show confidence in its ability to hold
free and fair elections. The ECP is an independent constitutional
body responsible for organising and conducting elections. The
problem arises because Imran Khan has constantly attacked the
chief election commissioner and the ECP, accusing them of being
biased against him and partial towards his opponents. This
without producing a shred of evidence to back his charge and
despite a series of decisive victories by his party in successive by-
elections.

Khan clearly cannot have a CEC — a constitutional office — of his

own choice. Therefore, he or anyone else who questions the ECP
or the CEC’s neutrality, would have to set aside their objections
and accept the present electoral set-up and arrangements for
elections to go ahead.

Three, political leaders and parties have to accept prevailing

election laws and rules and code of conduct and also agree on the
rules of the road leading up to polls. These are explicit,
constitutionally mandated, codified and amended over time to
define how elections are to be held. This obliges candidates to
abide by them to ensure peaceful, free and fair elections.

Four and most important, for elections to be a stabilising factor

for the country, major political parties and political contenders
must be ready to accept the outcome, whatever it turns out to be.
Unfortunately, the past is not encouraging on this count as just
about every election result has been disputed in Pakistan’s
chequered political history. In 2013, when Khan’s PTI lost to the
PML-N, he alleged vote rigging and called the general election the
“biggest fraud” in the country’s history.

He demanded an investigation into the alleged ballot fraud, held

protests and a prolonged dharna in the capital for over four
months. Eventually, a judicial commission was appointed after
agreement between the PML-N government and PTI to
investigate the allegations. Its report found no evidence of
systematic rigging, only local irregularities, which Khan was
forced to reluctantly accept.

When Khan won the 2018 elections, both the PML-N and PPP
accused his party, aided by the establishment, of widespread
rigging. Throughout the 1990s, the PML-N and PPP took turns to
accuse each other of winning by fraudulent means. This troubled
history throws up an unanswered question — will all political
competitors accept the outcome of future elections?

Finally, given the perilous state of the economy political leaders

should be ready to accept and support rather than stoke
controversy over urgent steps an interim government may need
to take during its brief tenure to avert a financial collapse.

Although the caretaker government’s principal responsibility will

be to supervise free and fair elections it may have to take
measures to deal with an economic emergency. After all, unless
the country’s economic survival is assured everything else will be
in vain.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK & UN.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022

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