It was about six years ago, to be more specific, 17th October 1999, that General Pervez Musharraf presented his vision and outlined his agenda to the nation to be pursued during his tenure at the helm of affairs of the country. Taking cognisance of the situation then prevailing, he lamented that "there is despondency and hopelessness surrounding us with no light visible anywhere around.
Today we have reached a stage where our economy has crumbled, our credibility is lost, state institutions lie demolished, provincial disharmony has caused cracks in the federation, and people who were once brothers are now at each other's throat".
In the recent years, Pakistan had experienced a label of democracy and not the essence of it. He promised the people true democracy. Armed forces, it was stressed, had no intention to stay in charge any longer than was absolutely necessary.
The seven aims and objectives listed by the President were: i) to rebuild national confidence and morale ii) to strengthen the federation, remove inter-provincial disharmony and restore national cohesion, iii) to revive the economy and restore investors' confidence, iv) to ensure law and order and dispense speedy justice, v) to depoliticise the state institutions, vi) devolution of power to the grass-roots level and vii) to ensure swift and across the board accountability.
To revitalise the economy, some guidelines were identified. These included rebuilding of investors' confidence through stability and consistency in economic policies, increase in domestic savings, pragmatic tax reforms, turning around the state enterprises towards profitability, and undertaking of strict austerity measures.
The process of accountability and rooting out of corruption was emphasised a number of times in his address. Media was promised freedom and expected to play a positive and constructive role. Exploitation of religion by the vested interests was to be discouraged. Relations with all the countries, particularly with India, were to be improved.
It was stressed that Pakistan would welcome an unconditional, equitable, and result oriented dialogue with India. The government that he promised to institute was to be "headed" by President Tarar; he had stated in the address that "on my request, President Muhammad Rafique Tarar has very kindly agreed to stay".
It is extremely difficult for anybody to precisely judge the developments during the past six years against the objectives spelled out by the President and then arrive at a definite conclusion because of the very nature of the exercise. To begin with, some rhetoric cannot be ruled out in the initial stages to claim legitimacy for throwing out an elected government. Besides, ground realities continue to change and, therefore, goalposts cannot remain static.
More important is perhaps the fact that most of the aims and objectives cannot be judged in quantitative terms and the conclusion would in most cases depend on the attitude of the person making the judgement.
For instance, while the supporters of the President make tall claims about his achievements, opponents are not prepared to give him any credit in any field. Some of the aims are particularly difficult to evaluate.
You can have a shouting match about the increase or decrease in corruption in society and the progress on good governance but the outcome would still be uncertain. Nobody can possibly keep reliable statistics about such unreported and indeterminate activities.
An overall analysis, therefore, can only be made on the basis a mix of perceptions and reality. It is pretty obvious to most of the people that national confidence and morale has not been rebuilt, provincial disharmony has not decreased and national cohesion has not been restored. In fact, what happened after the Dr Shazia Khalid case in Balochistan and the hostility of Sardars against mega projects in that province should be an eye opener for the rulers.
The controversy on the NFC award and Kalabagh dam has also not so far been resolved despite Musharraf's personal intervention. It would, therefore, be correct to say that no progress was made on this account. No boosting of confidence or morale is visible either. Alienation and general despondency still seem to be prevalent in most sections of the society.
Similar is the case with the promise of dispensing speedy justice and ensuring law and order. Robberies, car and mobile snatching, etc are the order of the day. One indication of losing hope in justice is the tendency of the victims not to report such cases to the law enforcing authorities due to fear that they may be further humiliated.
The politicisation of the state institutions is perceived at the same level. NAB had a very promising start so far as swift and across the board accountability was concerned but lost the way subsequently and is now perceived as an instrument to keep the political opponents and bureaucrats in line. Devolution of power to the grass-roots level has made an uneven progress.
It continues to remain a very good idea to empower the people to solve their own problems at local level, but, of late, there have been so many compromises on its working framework that not much can be expected from this initiative. Under the new arrangement, only yes-men of the Chief Ministers can hope to complete their tenures as Nazims.
The widespread irregularities in the recent local bodies' elections are also not a good omen for the system to take roots and survive. Restoration of full-fledged democracy in the real sense of the word still looks like a distant dream.
Positive developments include some very bold decisions on foreign policy, particularly great improvement in relations with India and a timely policy shift after 9/11 to join the fight against terrorism. Had the President not taken these decisions, the country would have been in much dire straits and probably been declared a pariah state.
Opening of the dialogue with Israel could also be beneficial in a number of ways. The media has been given unprecedented freedom despite scathing criticism on the government and the President at times.
The coverage of private television and radio channels is almost unrestricted. Sometimes one feels that now the ball is in the court of the press and electronic media to project a balanced image of the government.
Success on the economic front has been projected as the most outstanding achievement by the policymakers of the government. Economy, if seen by the rate of growth, has of course been revived and the twin deficits of budget and external sector have been narrowed to a great extent. This has reduced debt-servicing liability and improved credit rating of the country.
The exchange rate is, more or less, stable, foreign currency reserves are at a comfortable level, there is no imminent threat of default and the IMF is no more breathing down our neck. Pragmatic tax reforms as promised by the Musharraf government have been carried out wherever possible. The fiscal Responsibility Law is now in place to check profligacy of the government.
Investors' confidence has been slightly restored. However, there is no real increase in domestic savings as a percentage of GDP, performance of state enterprises continues to be poor and there are no strict austerity measures in place.
In the last one-year or so, the external sector has again gone into deficit and an inflationary threat is emerging on the scene. These negative developments apart, the real challenge now before the government is to sustain the path of high growth rate and ensure that the fruits of growth are also passed on to the deprived sections of society.
Looking at the totality of the situation, the performance of President Pervez Musharraf and his government appears to be mixed. However, while making such a judgement, we must not forget that during his tenure so far he has had to face some unusual circumstances. Terrorism threat in the wake of 9/11 events had to be dealt with on a priority basis. No country was more vulnerable than Pakistan to such a threat.
The case of Dr A.Q. Khan and linking his name to proliferation of nuclear weapons was another huge challenge that had to be faced and dealt with. An abnormal increase in the international oil prices was another big headache which had and continues to have a severe impact on the economy. It is quite possible that the President and his government would have done better if the country had not encountered these unexpected challenges.