'Shaukat Aziz, Har Dil Aziz' proclaim the banners on the streets of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. This is one perception of Shaukat Aziz, shared by the 'masses', as he ascends the high office of the Prime Minister of Pakistan after winning two safe by-elections to accommodate constitutional niceties.
Nicknamed the 'short-cut', a politico with no political base and popular mandate, this is how the cynical, high-browed elite in Pakistan view this latest addition to the long line of hapless premierships since the country's independence in 1947.
But Shaukat Aziz will be a prime minister with a difference. For the first time in the country's history, the President and the newly-elected Prime Minister hail from urban middle class backgrounds and espouse values that represent the mainstream Pakistan-a nation of essentially God-fearing, deeply religious, and hospitable people, who in their actions and fundamental beliefs remain tolerant and forbearing, despite the maelstrom of extremism that surrounds them.
This gives Pakistan a chance to make a clean break from its feudal past and its recent entanglement with religious extremism and sectarian violence.
Aziz's 30-year career as an international banker and more recently as the architect of Pakistan's recent economic resurgence-what The Economist has dubbed as 'the Aziz phenomenon,' will bring credibility to any reform agenda that he chooses to champion.
Unencumbered by political debts, except the one to his President, his debut on Pakistan's political scene bodes well for the country's future.
For once, Pakistan's head of government is independently wealthy such that he will not even draw a salary.
Unlike many of his predecessors , his financial independence does not come from family fortune or feudal inheritance but from hard work and enterprise as a non-resident Pakistani.
He comes as Mr Clean to this high office and there is every reason to believe that he will not allow venality to shadow his private and public dealings.
Despite his charismatic personality, Shaukat Aziz's passage will not be an easy one. He has already been a target of an assassin's attempt on his life; he will head a dysfunctional coalition forged on the basis of political convenience, not a shared political vision; he will come under pressure to reward his fundamentally unreliable party 'faithfuls'; and he will have to abide by what his President dictates to him.
Despite these constraints, Shaukat Aziz has that rare, once in a lifetime opportunity, to fundamentally change the course of his nation. His suave urbanity and composure and his eloquent communication skills, especially in Urdu, are personal assets that he can put to good use to win the confidence and trust of his people.
Aziz should remain focused on the fundamentals, the few critical issues that are at the heart of the malaise that grips the country.
Improving national security must be his highest priority. And today, national security is no longer a question of external threat-- the enemy within is much more potent, resourceful, and violent.
Budgetary resources available for national security need a careful re-examination and prioritisation.
While military expenditures need to be maintained, funding for reform and modernisation of the police and paramilitary units must receive the highest priority and a several fold increase.
The commonly held view that police is corrupt, inefficient, and out of control (especially after the separation of magisterial and administrative functions at the district level) is not acceptable in a functioning democracy.
We know that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' and police powers in Pakistan know few limits. Combine this with a recently-coined aphorism by C.K. Lal from Nepal, that 'absolute poverty corrupts absolutely', and we get a better understanding of why police functions the way it does in Pakistan.
This also explains why the Motorway Police ( whose constables and sergeants earn salaries above the poverty line) is considered a highly reputable law-enforcing agency by any standard, and respected by the motoring public.
Better salaries and equipment would go a long way to improve the image and performance of the police. Add competitive recruitment, high quality training, and merit-based promotion-- and the key ingredients would be in place to return respectability, honesty, and efficiency to the police.
And all this requires political will and organisation, not just financial resources. Police reforms are now urgently needed to complement the administrative reforms associated with decentralisation of powers to local elected officials.
It would be instructive to assess why the Azad Kashmir Police (locally recruited and answerable to elected officials) is perceived by the 'masses' to be less corrupt, less repressive, and more responsive to public needs.
His second most important challenge is to address the growing inequality in Pakistan. In the past decade, the inequality of income and access to opportunity has not simply widened the gap between the rich and the poor but it has severely squeezed the middle classes, who live mainly in urban areas.
Combine this growing inequality with underemployment , especially of the youth, and you have the fiery tinder to light the flames of economic and social discontent.
Within his first 100 days in office, Shaukat Aziz must clearly articulate an incomes and employment policy that aims to restore social equilibrium and helps open new avenues of employment.
Such policies should steer away from creating jobs in the public sector but should emphasise enterprise development (including changes in the curricula of primary and secondary schools to foster a culture of entrepreneur-ship and private business), practical and marketable skills development (such as plumbers, carpenters, computer technicians, and so on), improving access of small businesses to credit and other financial services, and outsourcing the provision of public goods and services-such as maintenance and operation of public buildings and roads, running of basic health clinics, and provision of myriad other services to small enterprises.
There should be an audit of every publicly managed facility and service as to why these cannot be unbundled into service contracts for small businesses and enterprises. In addition, social nets to protect the very poor, the infirm, and the aged ( especially pensioners) need urgent attention.
With his roots and upbringing in the urban middle class, Shaukat Aziz should take a hard-nosed look at the neglect of cities and urban areas in Pakistan. Pakistan's future is not in the rural economy but in a vibrant, well-functioning, and secure urban sector.
Manufacturing and services will dominate the country's future growth, partly to cater to the needs of an urbanising economy, as is happening in China and India. Were the economy to grow at a steady clip of 8 percent or more annually, the contribution of agriculture to GDP may dwindle to less than 20 percent within a decade.
It is not inconceivable that by 2050, 75 percent or more of the country's population will live in urbanised settlements. Pakistan is woefully ill-prepared to meet its urbanisation challenge.
Housing and infrastructure shortages ( especially power and communications) could stifle the country's growth prospects. Urban dwellers in Pakistan, as in other developing countries, have a high willingness to pay for public services provided they are reliable and efficient.
Furthermore, investment in cities yield high social and economic returns because of scale economies. Well-functioning urban land markets, benefit taxation and value capture related to urban infrastructure investments, economic pricing of urban services, and targeted subsidies could help to ease the urbanisation pressures.
There is a symbiotic relationship between cities and higher education. The returns to public investment in quality higher education have been grossly underestimated in Pakistan.
Private investors, however, are not oblivious to these high returns, as indicated by the mushrooming of private institutions catering to this market. But such private institutions are not accessible to poor and lower middle income families.
Shaukat Aziz would do a great service to his nation by rationalising the structure and proliferation of sub-standard public institutions of higher education, creating incentives for professors -- research grants, consulting opportunities, performance bonuses-- so that they can have access to decent incomes, and running these institutions on a commercial basis, with targeted Government grants for specific programs such as tuition and work-study subsidies for deserving poor students, research grants tied to output, and general budget support related to performance of professors and students.
The challenges Shaukat Aziz faces are indeed formidable, but equally impressive are the skills, experience, and knowledge that he brings to his high office. At the start of his tenure, he must embrace the faceless and voiceless 'masses' of his country.
He must identify with them and their problems, and in the process integrate the 'masses' into the national fabric, so that this unfortunate term invented by the South Asian elite disappears from the Pakistani diction. In this venture, he must be particularly sensitive to the needs of the smaller provinces and the linguistic minorities.
This is not a simple challenge and will strain Aziz's ingenuity to the limit. He must not become an armchair prime minister operating out of the confines of the palatial Prime Minister's secretariat in Islamabad but a true representative of the people who reaches out and listens to the people.
Given his international background, he will be tempted like some of his predecessors to solve the world's problems and to become an international luminary. But his mission should be to look inwards and start the renewal process that his nation has awaited for nearly sixty years.
(The writer is Lala Faiz is a freelance journalist and a development practitioner by profession.)
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