Malgovernance: Pakistan's hallmark?

In my column last week, I had expressed doubts about success of 'negotiations' between the PML-N regime and the PTI-PAT combine. These negotiations were bound to fail; large-scale arrests of PTI-PAT supporters ensured this unfortunate end, and also proved that if the Sharif brothers stay in power, integrity of any corrective effort cannot be guaranteed.
In spite of the month-long protest in Islamabad, PML-N leadership made no amends to its conduct. The party's culture of patronage was proved yet again by the fact that on July 19, Khurrianwala police station didn't register an FIR citing the party's MPA Rana Shoaib Idrees as the mob leader; it blamed a mob led by a 'political personality' attacking the police station.
The MPA was named in the FIR next day after three SPs and SHO Khurrianwala police station convinced the City Police Officer Dr Haider Ashraf that MPA Rana Shoaib Idrees led that attack; TV footage of the incident telecast by several TV channels showed the MPA thrashing the police station staff - facts the police officers refused to cover-up.
But under PML-N's pressure, now the amended FIR cites the MPA's uncle (already nominated as an attacker) as the culprit 'political personality'. Faisalabad district police absolved the MPA who the police initially declared guilty of attacking the Khurrianwala police station, thrashing SHO, and policemen present there. Some confidence building event!
This incident further damaged the party image. So did the decision to appeal before the Supreme Judicial Council against the judge who headed the JIT investigating the Model Town tragedy and rejection of the inquiry report about the causes of the 2010 floods. These events prove that inquiries that accuse the PML-N will be defied by its leadership.
What is worse is the fact that this defiance continues despite the revelations by the Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, and the recently-released Institute for Policy Reforms (IPR) report on the state of governance in Pakistan that cites political patronage as the disease destroying state institutions and thus undermining inclusive development.
According to the IPR report, centralised administration limits participation and accountability. Political parties lack vision, and the evolving media and civil society aren't yet in a position to check misuse of executive power. Consequently, Pakistan's state institutions lack the integrity imperative for becoming credible agents of change and the drivers of urgently needed growth.
Also, poor governance is alienating the masses, which is evident in many ways: from a precarious law and order scenario to serious social deficit and poor infrastructure, especially electricity shortage. What people see in their daily lives is a 'disinterested' government and state institutions that don't perform. But the PML-N can't see any of these trends.
According to this report, Pakistan has one of the lowest tax and public spending to GDP ratios due to paltry contribution of direct taxes. Consequently, the number of federal employees per capita too is among the lowest. Pakistan has 2 civil servants per thousand citizens, whereas India and the US, both federations, have 2.6 and 8.5 workers, respectively.
These reports comprehensively condemn the state of governance since 2008, and its worsening after PML-N came into power, courtesy the controversial 2013 elections. Pakistanis worry about the consequences of the 2014 floods on the economy because the state's demonstrated administrative abilities don't promise a situation-specific remedial strategy.
The huge damage to the physical infrastructure in villages, towns and cities delaying, whose repair could cause prolonged disruption of life and social disorder, must commence immediately. But will the requisite resources be there? Besides, the loss of rice and other crops planted over thousands of acres holds out the prospects of even higher food inflation.
The government's response is amazing; instead of asking its MPs (who preferred to adore the parliament) to rush to their flood-hit constituencies, its demand was that protestors of the PTI and PAT (never more than 3,500 as per PML-N leadership's estimate) should rush to these areas. What on earth can they do compared to the in-power government?
Armed forces are the only state institution that acted responsibly and saved thousands from drowning or dying from starvation. But on the TV screens, you rarely saw the (supposedly responsible) MPs visiting their flood-hit constituencies, organising rescue and relief teams, and working alongside them to save their electorate. Yet they all want to be admired.
Sadly, Pakistan's legislature, administration, and judiciary portray conflicting stances. What confuses the people most are the differing stances of the judiciary on the protests launched by PTI and PAT. While the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (SC) is rightly of the view that protesting peacefully is peoples' constitutional right, the Lahore High Court (LHC) thinks otherwise.
On September 12, Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan of the LHC took exception to the government's failure to stop the Azadi and Inqilab marches of the PTI and PAT, and hinted at issuing contempt notices to the authorities because, in its order of August 14, the LHC had ruled that the demands raised by the PTI and the PAT were unconstitutional.
While Justice Khan's remarks that the court wasn't concerned with political implications for the government (of implementing the LHC order), the view expressed by Justice Shahid Hameed Dar that it seems that the government had failed in maintaining the writ of the state, was more meaningful because, in the current political crisis, it hinted at the government's failure.
Perhaps the government knows that because public reactions that Sharif brothers faced during their visits to flood-hit areas were visibly anti-PML-N. Large-scale arrests of PTI and PAT workers (not just in Islamabad but in other cities as well) suggest that PML-N intends to crush the peaceful protests. Arresting Imran Khan and Dr Qadri is now on the cards - a response that could lead to serious consequences (countrywide chaos?).
That said no 'pillar' of the state seems to realise where we are headed - the biggest of the tragedies confronting Pakistan. With the economy in dire straits, continuing internal and external threats to security, and escalating (though shamelessly denied) poverty and the social unrest it is fanning require an immediate change of order. But that's nowhere in sight.
The worst part is that the US - Pakistan's 'strategic' ally - is against a change of order in Pakistan. That's hardly surprising. The US always backed corrupt regimes in its allied states; post-WW II Asian and Middle Eastern history proves that. The world's biggest tragedy is that the Americas want to "do themselves in"; they need no enemies to do that. This disease - self-inflicted suicide - has, seemingly, infected Pakistan's establishment which appears to have opted to act on the lethal US advice to become mere spectators.