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11. Reforming Pakistan's Electoral System

Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Electoral rigging has hampered Pakistan's democratic development, eroded political stability and contributed to the breakdown of the rule of law. Facing domestic pressure for democracy, successive military governments rigged national, provincial and local polls to ensure regime survival. These elections yielded unrepresentative parliaments that have rubber-stamped extensive constitutional and political reforms to centralise power with the military and to empower its civilian allies. Undemocratic rule has also suppressed other civilian institutions, including the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which is responsible for holding elections to the national and four provincial assemblies, and local governments. With the next general election in 2013 – if the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government completes its full five-year term – the ruling party and its parliamentary opposition, as well as the international community, should focus on ensuring a transparent, orderly political transition through free, fair and transparent elections.
Topic:
Corruption, Democratization, and Government
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and Asia

12. Reforming Pakistan's Civil Service

Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Decades of mismanagement, political manipulation and corruption have rendered Pakistan's civil service incapable of providing effective governance and basic public services. In public perceptions, the country's 2.4 million civil servants are widely seen as unresponsive and corrupt, and bureaucratic procedures cumbersome and exploitative. Bureaucratic dysfunction and low capacity undermine governance, providing opportunities to the military to subvert the democratic transition and to extremists to destabilise the state. The civilian government should prioritise reforms that transform this key institution into a leaner, more effective and accountable body.
Topic:
Corruption, Islam, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

13. Pakistan: The Worsening IDP Crisis

Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The monsoon floods in Pakistan have caused massive de- struction and turned a displacement crisis in the insecure western borderlands into a national disaster of mammoth proportions. When the floods hit, almost all those displaced from Malakand had returned hom e and were struggling to rebuild lives in a region where much of the infrastructure had been destroyed in fighting; 1.4 million more displaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province. The disaster would have proved challenging under any circum- stance. The fragile civilian government, already tackling an insurgency, and its institutions, neglected during nine years of military rule, lack the capacity and the means to provide sufficient food, shelter, health and sanitation without international assistance. The Pakistan govern- ment and international actors should ensure those in the flood-devastated conflict zones are urgently granted the assistance they need to surv ive and to rebuild lives and livelihoods. If military objectives dictate rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts, a population exhausted by con- flict could become a soft target for militants, making sta- bility in the northwest even more elusive.
Topic:
Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Natural Disasters, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

14. Steps Towards Peace: Putting Kashmiris First

Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
India and Pakistan have consistently subjected Kashmiri interests to their own national security agendas and silenced calls for greater autonomy. With the start of their composite dialogue – comprehensive negotiations to resolve all contentious bilateral issues, including Kashmir, launched in February 2004 – both appeared willing to allow more interaction across the Line of Control (LOC) but failed to engage Kashmiris in the process. As a result, they did not take full advantage of opportunities to enhance cross-LOC cooperation by identifying the most appropriate Kashmir-specific confidence-building measures (CBMs), and bureaucratic resistance in both capitals resulted in uneven implementation of even those that had been agreed. India has suspended the composite dialogue since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks by Pakistan based militants, but neither New Delhi nor Islamabad has backtracked on these CBMs. Nevertheless, the CBM process will only achieve major results if the two sides devolve authority to Kashmir's elected representatives and take other vital steps to win over its alienated public.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Islam, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Pakistan, India, and Asia

15. Pakistan's IDP Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities

Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
In the wake of a conceptually flawed peace agreement, the Taliban takeover of large parts of Malakand division, subsequent military action in the area, almost three million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled to camps, homes, schools and other places of shelter across Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). The challenge for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government and international actors is to make relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts responsive to needs and empower local communities in Malakand Division. Failure to do so will reverse any gains on the battlefield and boost radical Islamist groups.
Topic:
Terrorism, War, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Central Asia, Asia, and Taliban

16. Pakistan: The Militant Jihadi Challenge

Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The recent upsurge of jihadi violence in Punjab, the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan's provincial capital, Quetta, demonstrates the threat extremist Sunni-Deobandi groups pose to the Pakistani citizen and state. These radical Sunni groups are simultaneously fighting internal sectarian jihads, regional jihads in Afghanistan and India and a global jihad against the West. While significant domestic and international attention and resources are understandably devoted to containing Islamist militancy in the tribal belt, that the Pakistani Taliban is an outgrowth of radical Sunni networks in the country's political heartland is too often neglected. A far more concerted effort against Punjab-based Sunni extremist groups is essential to curb the spread of extremism that threatens regional peace and stability. As the international community works with Pakistan to rein in extremist groups, it should also support the democratic transition, in particular by reallocating aid to strengthening civilian law enforcement.
Topic:
Political Violence, Globalization, and Islam
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Asia, and Tribal Areas

17. Afghanistan: What Now for Refugees?

Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
As international efforts focus on the worsening insurgency in Afghanistan, the issues of refugee return and the mobility of Afghans in their country and around the region have been overshadowed. Meeting the needs of returnees and addressing population movements remain an essential part of finding a solution to the conflict. These issues must be better integrated into policymaking. They play a role in many of the sources of discontent that undermine the legitimacy of the government in Kabul – from land disputes to rising crime. Migration has a positive side as well since t hose living abroad sustain much of the economy, but a comprehensive approach to displacement and migration is needed, including better coordination among Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, if the benefits are to start outweighing the risks.
Topic:
Security, War, and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Iran, and Kabul

18. Pakistan: Countering Militancy in FATA

Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The military operation in South Waziristan is unlikely to succeed in curbing the spread of religious militancy in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), unless the Pakistan government implements political reforms in that part of the country. Pakistani Taliban groups have gained significant power in the tribal agencies, seven administrative districts bordering on Afghanistan. While state institutions in FATA are increasingly dysfunctional, the militants have dismantled or assumed control of an already fragile tribal structure. This encroaching Talibanisation is not the product of tribal traditions or resistance. It is the result of short-sighted military policies and a colonial-era body of law that isolates the region from the rest of the country, giving it an ambiguous constitutional status and denying political freedoms and economic opportunity to the population. While the militants' hold over FATA can be broken, the longer the state delays implementing political, administrative, judicial and economic reforms, the more difficult it will be to stabilise the region.
Topic:
Political Violence, Islam, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

19. Reforming Pakistan's Police

Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
After decades of misuse and neglect, Pakistan's police force is incapable of combating crime, upholding the law or protecting citizens and the state against militant violence. With an elected government taking over power after more than eight years of military rule, the importance of reforming this dysfunctional force has assumed new importance. Elected representatives will be held accountable if citizens continue to see the police, the public face of government, as brutal and corrupt. The democratic transition could also falter if deteriorating security gives the military a new opportunity to intervene, using, as it has in the past, the pretext of national security to justify derailing the democratic process on the grounds of good governance. Major reforms and reallocation of resources are required to create an effective and accountable police service.
Topic:
Government and Reform
Political Geography:
Pakistan

20. Reforming the Judiciary in Pakistan

Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Pakistan's return to civilian government after eight years of military rule and the sidelining of the military's religious allies in the February 2008 elections offer an opportunity to restore the rule of law and to review and repeal discriminatory religious laws that restrict fundamental rights, fuel extremism and destabilise the country. Judicial reforms would remove the legal cover under which extremists target their rivals and exploit a culture of violence and impunity. Ensuring judicial independence would also strengthen the transition to democracy at a time when it is being undermined by worsening violence.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Pakistan and Asia