#PakVote 2013: An analysis of PPP’s manifesto – by Adil Hoodbhoy
Roti, kapra aur makaan
Ilm, sehat sab ko kaam
Dehshat sai mehfooz awam
Ooncha ho jamhur ka naam
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) manifesto (PDF here: manifesto2013) correctly identifies the country’s significant youth population as the major driver for making a better Pakistan and the crisp and succinct manifesto identifies key areas for developing the human resource capital that comprises young Pakistan.
The PPP manifesto focuses on substance. This is in contrast to Pro-Taliban parties like the PML-N and PTI which are heavy on stringent ideology, contradictory to its pompous and unrealistic claims, reactionary and recounting the mythology of a Pakistan that only existed in the minds of establishmentarian propagandists like Nasim Hejazi etc etc.
When talking about the expansion of the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development programme, the manifesto builds its goals on concrete footings such as the internationally acclaimed BISP (Benazir Income Support Programme). In terms of poverty allevation and human resource development, this is the single biggest achievement of the last PPP government. While the government failed to deliver on some crucial grounds, objective analysts should not omit the deleterious effects and the constraints placed by a hyper-activist and severely prejudiced Pro Taliban judiciary.
In its selective and unfounded lynching of former PPP Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the Judiciary damaged the PPP government’s ability to bridge the power shortage facing Pakistan. While adding nearly 4000 MW to the national grid, the former PPP government put in place several projects like the Daimler Basha Dam and Iran pipeline whose positive effects will benefit Pakistan for the next few decades.
However, the judiciary stymied the Rental Power Plants on completely unsubstantiated basis of kickbacks – just like the Judciary’s patron and alleged owner, the PML N scuttled several crucial power projects in the late 1990’s. This included the Keti Bunder Port that would have revolutionized Pakistan’s power inputs by providing a specialty port for coal discharge.
Aside from its controversial and extra-constitutionally petty dismissal of PPP PM Yusuf Raza Gillani, the judiciary also scuttled the LPG imports that went to the lowest French bidder and that would have provided crucial Liquified Gas for power generation.
In spite all this, the PPP has moved ahead. Its manifesto is a dynamic document that has an optimal view of the future. The fortunes of the PPP are directly proportional to the fortunes of the country. When military dictators and right-wing Islamists (Nawaz Sharif) repeatedly land Pakistan in the doldrums, it is the Pakistan Peoples Party that pulls them back from the brink. http://tribune.com.pk/story/542545/the-dole-trap/
Pakistan cannot afford to experiment with Taliban romanticists like Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif and their deluded and selective memories of past leaders like Jinnah and Iqbal. Pakistan needs a progressive party and a progressive future. Pakistan needs PPP.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the former ruling party, has launched its re-election bid around seven core values — ensuring basic needs, empowerment for all, inclusive and equitable growth, infrastructure for the future, social contract reforms, security and foreign policy.
During a seminar on the party’s manifesto organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Friday, former finance minister Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, and Senator Saeed Ghani expanded on the PPP’s promises, which include increasing education and health spending to around five per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each, and to create five million jobs in the next five years if voted back into power.
Mandviwalla said the PPP is most commonly blamed for the energy crisis. He said that when the party came in to power in 2008, it had resolved to deal with the energy sector using a three-pronged strategy — power plants in the short term, changing the fuel mix in the medium term and increasing Pakistan’s hydropower capacity in the long run.
He partly admitted his party’s failure in bringing immediate relief from load shedding but did not accept complete blame. “We were not able to implement the short term plan at all,” Mandviwalla said. “It was shot down from various quarters, which caused us to fail in this attempt.”
In the 2013 manifesto, the party has said it aims to increase energy by 12,000 megawatts through a mix of fuel and $36 billion investment through IPPs, a surprisingly high figure considering the entire federal budget for 2012-2013 was only $32.5 billion.
It also wants to decrease transmission losses below 15 per cent through “prudent policies and vigilant governance.”
Mandviwalla said the party will try to widen the tax net and improve the economy base to create an economic turnaround.
Unlike the previous seminars in the SDPI’s series of discussions on political party manifestos, there were no discussants at the PPP manifesto seminar, which meant the party’s representatives had a relatively easy time compared to the other parties that were scrutinised on the same platform.
But participants did not let the PPP representatives get off scot-free.
Responding to a question about the party’s claim of dividing land holdings among landless peasants, Ghani said state land will be divided. He elaborated that if the Supreme Court favourably decides the fate of a pending petition which argues that land reforms are un-Islamic, the land reforms act will come into place and private land could also be divided.
To ensure labour representation, Ghani said the party has decided to give four reserved seats in the National Assembly and two reserved seats in each provincial assembly to labour leaders.
Responding to a question about government subsidies, Mandviwalla said if the PPP is elected to office again, it will not completely do away with various subsidies but will make an effort to determine which subsidies are proving detrimental for the state’s coffer.
Speakers also raised questions about local governments, the current state of Pakistan’s economy and the environment policy of the PPP, especially its role in approving the timber movement policy for Diamer in Gilgit-Baltistan and the sale of two islands near Karachi, which hold ecological importance for their mangrove forests.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2013.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/538014/ppp-manifesto-after-five-years-ppp-shifts-focus-on-energy-woes/
ISLAMABAD: Two days before the expiry of the term of its government, the Pakistan People’s Party has pledged to do better than during the first term and to ‘protect’ the people of Pakistan from terrorism.
A manifesto of the party unveiled here on Thursday adheres to the old slogan of ‘roti, kapra aur makan’ (food, clothing and shelter).
“As we take Pakistan into its first constitutional transfer of power through elections, we resolve to take the country into a future based on social justice, peace and prosperity for all,” said president of the PPP (Parliamentarians) Makhdoom Amin Fahim at the newly-built Central Secretariat of the party.
Unable to promptly respond to some tough questions of reporters mostly relating to the five-year performance of the government rather than to the manifesto, Mr Fahim was occasionally assisted by former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, information secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira, president’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar and Defence Minister Naveed Qamar.
At one point when Mr Gilani appeared reluctant to respond to a question about the failure of the government during its five-year term to arrest the murderers of Benazir Bhutto, saying “the matter is sub judice,” Mr Kaira intervened and claimed that efforts were being made to arrest one accused who had absconded to another country and another accused had been killed while charge-sheets against others had been presented before a trial court.
“The biggest security is the food security. The PPP has guaranteed the food security” was the response of Mr Gilani to a question regarding the poor law and order situation, resulting in deaths of hundreds of people in terrorist and sectarian incidents.
To a question about failure of the government to end loadshedding, Mr Gilani claimed that the PPP-led government had added 3,400MW of electricity to the national grid. He held the provincial governments responsible for not doing anything in this regard. “Under the Constitution, there is no bar on power generation by the provinces. Have you ever asked a provincial government how many megawatts it has generated?” he said.
On the issue of Balochistan, he said the main demand of the people of the province was provincial autonomy and that had been met.
In response to a question about price-hike, Mr Fahim said inflation and increase in prices of edibles were an international phenomenon and Pakistan faced the same problem.
Mr Kaira said the government had regularised the services of over 250,000 contract and daily-wage employees.
Earlier, announcing the salient features of the manifesto, Mr Fahim presented seven “core priorities” aimed at protecting and empowering the people of Pakistan. He pledged that the PPP would initiate key programmes in the first 100 days after coming into power at the federal and provincial levels to implement these core priorities.
The priorities are “ensuring basic needs of the economically- and socially-disadvantaged people; inclusion and empowerment of all citizens, especially women, minorities, youth and dispossessed; revival of a globally-impacted economy and investment in equitable and inclusive growth through job-creating programmes; investment in infrastructure for the future; spearheading a new social contract for the federation and provinces through parliamentary consensus; security and a guarantee of basic protections; and pursuing the goal of stability and peace-building in the region.
Although the PPP leaders – intentionally or unintentionally – did not talk about the party’s future policy regarding the war on terror, the manifesto has pledged to continue cooperation with the US in the war on terror.
Like the PML-N, the PPP also promised to “make military budgets accountable to parliament, and institutionalise better oversight of defence expenditure”.
The manifesto also promises to “encourage closer working relationship between defence and parliamentary institutions for cooperation as well as oversight”. The PPP claimed the credit of “doubling the salaries of members of the armed forces”.
It pledged to expand the tax net to five million people and increase the tax-to-GDP ratio to 15 per cent by 2018. The party will ensure cheap electricity by combining hydel, coal, gas and renewable energy of up to 12,000 MW by the end of its next term.
Through the next NFC Award, the manifesto says, Sindh will receive a special grant for Karachi as Pakistan’s only mega-city, port and economic capital.
“We will invest in the police and law enforcement agencies for each province to ensure internal security,” Mr Fahim said.
He said the manifesto was based on “ground realities in Pakistan” and added: “We make no promises for which we cannot find resources.”
“We believe that national security is premised on human security first. Anyone governing Pakistan in the next 10 years of a global recession and regional security upheavals will also have to make tough fiscal, economic, security and governance decisions,” he said.
The manifesto pledges complete eradication of polio from the country by 2018. The BISP cash payments will be increased to Rs2,000 per month. A health insurance plan will be launched for the poor through Waseela-i-Sehat and employment will be provided to youths through Waseela-i-Rozgar. Enrolment through Waseela-i-Taleem programmes will be increased. The party commits to spending more than 4.5 per cent of the GDP on education by the end of its next term in the government.
It also proposes to set up a national education standards council, seeking to bridge the gap between private and public schooling.
The manifesto promises to increase the minimum wages to Rs18,000 per month by 2018. It plans to reserve four seats for labour representatives in the National Assembly and two seats in each of the provincial assemblies and two seats for women from Fata.
The party also plans to set up a national commission on minorities with statutory status.
http://dawn.com/2013/03/15/ppp-pledges-improved-performance-next-time/
Jiyalay Teer Chala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=320RZFUShGE
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzj07c_pppp-paid-content-jiyalay-teer-chala_news#.UYkrT7WG2Sr