Pakistan's Institutions and Civil Society

Political Organizations

Pakistan has more than ninety registered political parties covering a broad spectrum, from ethnic-based to religious to secular. The major parties are:

• Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Founded by former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1967, the PPP was headed by his daughter Benazir Bhutto until her assassination on December 27, 2007. The Party is now cochaired by Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari and their son Bilawal Zardari Bhutto. The PPP has been in power three times before. Benazir Bhutto's government was removed twice on charges of corruption and mismanagement. To avoid arrest on corruption charges filed by her successor Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto went into exile in 1999 and returned to Pakistan in October 2007 as part of an amnesty deal signed with Musharraf. In February 2008 elections, the PPP emerged as the dominant party in the new ruling coalition.
• Pakistan's Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). PML inherited the legacy of the Muslim League, the party which dominated the pre-1947 struggle for the creation of Pakistan on the basis of a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. It split into several branches, the most prominent being PML-Nawaz and PML-Quaid-e-Azam. PML-N is headed by a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and represents the business, industrial, and feudal interests in the country. Sharif, like his rival Bhutto, faced charges of corruption. After winning the second-largest number of votes in February elections, PML-N, in an unprecedented move, formed a coalition with the PPP. But following disagreements with the PPP, Sharif pulled out of the coalition in August 2008.
• Pakistan's Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q).This faction emerged after Sharif was forced into exile in 2000 to avoid being tried under corruption charges. The party was seen as the most powerful PML faction until Sharif's return in 2007. PML-Q supported Musharraf's government when he was in power.
• Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM).The most influential ethnic party, MQM represents the muhajirs, or those who migrated from India to Pakistan in 1947. Founded in 1978 and originally called the Muhajir Qaumi Movement, the party renamed itself the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in the 1990s. MQM remains a powerful political force in the major urban centre of Sindh.
• Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).A coalition of religious parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Maulana Fazlur Rahman's faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan. The MMA ran the government in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and was part of a coalition in Balochistan with PML-Q until February 2008. The party is strongly opposed to the "war on terror" and has deep ties with the Taliban both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, the MMA did, at times, reach accomodations with Musharraf's government. The party fared poorly in February 2008 elections, losing to the Awami National Party in the NWFP.
• Awami National Party (ANP). A Pashtun nationalist party, it was formed in 1986 by the merger of several left-leaning parties. It is led by Asfandyar Wali Khan, son of the party's first president Khan Abdul Wali Khan, and grandson of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Ghaffar Khan, also known as "Frontier Gandhi" due to his close association with India's leader Mahatma Gandhi, was opposed to the creation of Pakistan. The party believes in nonviolence and its political base mainly comprises the Pashtuns of the NWFP and northern Balochistan. After winning the maximum number of seats in the NWFP in February's elections, the party leads the province's ruling coalition. It also won seats in the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh.

Even though there are a huge number of political parties in the country, the class base for most parties has failed to move beyond the traditional elite. CFR Senior Fellow Daniel Markey says Pakistan is still a very top-down society "where a small elite sits above a massive base, and the inequalities of power and opportunities are extreme."

Internal power struggles in the absence of party elections have frequently led to the fragmentation of political parties, adding to the increasing number of political groups in the country. Moreover, "in terms of ideology," writes the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, "the major political parties have been moving closer towards each other, and generally steering away from agendas advocating radical social change."

Media Organizations

Pakistan has a history of vibrant, private, and independent print media such as English language newspapers, Dawn, The Frontier Post, Daily Times, The Friday Times, The News, and Urdu language newspapers like the Jang and Daily Khabrain. But print media cannot serve as mass media in a country where more than half the population is illiterate. With only 47 percent literacy (PDF), compared to an average of 60 percent in South Asia, Pakistan's newspapers fail to reach a significant segment of population, especially in the rural areas. While newspapers inform the educated in urban areas, in rural Pakistan, people have long depended on radio and state-run telelvision channels for information in the absence of any private broadcast media in the country.

When Musharraf assumed power, he changed the landscape for private broadcast media in the country. A range of television, and radio outlets, as well as Internet sites, opened up as more and more private players won licenses to operate. Now Geo TV network, ARY-TV, and AAJ TV compete with state-run news channels.

On The Media, a weekly National Public Radio program, described the changes Musharraf wrought as a cultural breakthrough. Freelance journalist Shahan Mufti told On The Media that until Musharraf opened up the media, "Pakistanis were used to being told things through the state media." But now after private news channels started operating, "it allowed all sorts of voices of all political persuasion to appear on TV." But the new and young broadcast media came into conflict with its creator in March 2007. The media showed live coverage of events as they unfolded when Musharraf tried to sack former Chief Justice Chaudhry, stirring up such public outcry against the decision that the president had to reinstate the judge.

The year that followed was the worst ever for the media in Pakistan in the country's sixty-one-year history, states a May 2008 report (PDF) by the journalism watchdog group Internews Pakistan. According to the report, fifteen journalists got killed between May 2007 and May 2008, the highest number in any one year. After Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November 2007, he ordered a media blackout and new laws were imposed to curb the media. The report says government authorities arrested and abducted journalists attacked media properties, and Islamabad emerged as the "media threat capital" of Pakistan. Yet "the media has emerged as one of the key stakeholders on the political scene," it asserts.

Stock Market and the Economy

After seizing power in a coup in 1999, Musharraf undertook economic reforms, including fiscal adjustment; privatization of energy, telecommunications, and production; banking sector reform; and trade reform. According to economists, these have played a key role in the country's economic recovery. The World Bank says that external factors -- such as low interest rates, increased external assistance, and debt restructuring -- also played a role. After 9/11, increased remittances and additional support from the United States helped increase the country's external reserves. Since 2003, the economy has grown by more than 6.5 percent per year and poverty has declined significantly.

The main stock index rose more than 1,000 percent between the end of 2001 and 2007. Despite some of the worst unrest in years, the economy continued to hum through 2007. The United States is the largest investor in Pakistan, accounting for nearly one-third of the country's foreign direct investment from July 2007 to September 2007, according to Pakistan's ministry of finance. CFR's Markey says the success of the financial markets and the expansion of the economy under Musharraf had been fundamental to his staying power. By keeping their money in Pakistan, investors -- both domestic and international -- continued to prop up the government.

But political uncertainty and a deteriorating security environment in the past year have affected capital inflows and curtailed investment. The economy has been on the decline as Pakistanis suffer frequent blackouts and spiraling food and oil prices. In July 2008, inflation was over 24 percent, the highest in thirty years. The Economist Intelligence Unit paints a bleak outlook for the country in 2008-09. According to its estimate, real GDP growth (by expenditure) slowed to 3.6 percent in 2007-08, down from 6.4 percent the previous year.

The Asian Development Bank says Pakistan faces issues of long-term sustainability (PDF), especially in the context of high global oil and commodity prices and domestic political uncertainties. According to its report, Pakistan's current account deficit in the first seven months of fiscal year 2008 worsened by 47 percent compared with the same period in 2007. It says the deficit is under pressure because of a higher oil import bill and deteriorating income and services accounts.