 All right. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us here at the U.S. Institute of Peace for this event on Pakistan's elections. All of you know, July 25th Pakistan had its second consecutive transition to democratic rule under a civilian, fully civilian administration. This is the first time in Pakistan's history that a decade has been crossed this way, transformative in the sense of the argument that if you let the electoral processes take root over time, you see democratic consolidation. So in that sense, I think it's a clear positive. On the other hand, the elections were under a cloud much before they took place. There were a lot of controversies around whether this was a level playing field or not. After the elections, the EU mission that was present came out saying that election day was okay, but then pre-poll, it was not a level playing field. What they're referring to, of course, is the then incumbent Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the time, of course, now in jail on corruption charges, and the allegation there was that his party was systematically disrupted in terms of their ability to campaign and to have their candidates off their free will, et cetera. There are also question marks on what role the judiciary and the military in Pakistan played. So those questions have remained, and if you follow the coverage in the US and most of the West, I would argue that's been the real focus. The real question marks on this have been about the fairness of the election. I tune into Pakistan and the conversation is very different, and I would say it's net optimistic in terms of new government, what happens to governance, where does Pakistan go? So there's a bit of a dichotomy there in terms of how we are coming at this. There have been other events around town on Pakistani elections in the past week or so, as you would expect. And as we thought through this at USIP, we thought there was one missing element, and the missing element was to actually hear from Pakistan's largest parties, including the invading government, on how they see the situation, both in terms of elections, but more importantly, going forward. What is the future of democracy for Pakistan, US-Pakistan relationship? And so what we've done here is brought together representatives from the Pakistan Tariq-e-Nsaaf, the government-in-waiting, the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party, and then the Pakistan People's Party led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of the slain former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. We will tie that up with a stellar panel here. To my left, Dan Maki from SAIS, Johns Hopkins, and Arun Jumaina Siddiqi from USIP to have a conversation about what we hear from the political representatives. I've been suitably warned and I know that this is going to be a bit complicated. For those of you who know me, you know my deep lack of love for technology, but today it's all technology. We've got three Pakistani senior politicians tuning in through something like Skype. I don't know what it is, but you will be able to see them and they will talk to you. Magic, exactly right for me. We have requested them to speak for about 10 minutes each. We're going to have them one at a time. They won't be, all three won't be together. Otherwise we risk making it a Pakistani TV talk show. They'll be there for 10 minutes. They'll speak and then we'll be able to ask them questions for about 10 minutes. I'll ask my panel. I'll ask you. We'll move to the second party and then the third. In the order of the Pakistan People's Party, the Muslim League Nawaz and then the PTI. And then once that is done, we'll turn to our panel and then open it up for questions and we hope to end by 11.30 or so. Let me take this opportunity to introduce my panel and then I'll introduce our guests from political parties as they speak. Dan Maki, to my left, senior research professor at Johns Hopkins SICE. As I mentioned, before this for eight years, he was at the Council on Foreign Relations as a senior fellow on South Asia. His book No Exit from Pakistan, America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad is a must read if you follow US-Pakistan relations. And before that, Dan was at the State Department with the policy planning staff. He's taught at Princeton and much else. And thank you for being here. It's also a great honor and privilege to be introducing Jumaina Siddiqi, who's at USIP as senior program officer, leads a lot of our work on Pakistan and is an election specialist spent a number of years at the National Democratic Institute and is well versed with election technicalities and elections in Pakistan also has led a lot of USIP's work on elections since she's been here. Jumaina and I continue to debate because I'm, again, not a technical person, so I keep looking at the big picture and she keeps telling me you don't understand elections. With that first test of technology, we should have our first honorable guest from the Pakistan People's Party, Sayyed Naveed Kamar. Honorable Naveed Kamar is a renowned politician in Pakistan from a well-known political family of the province of Sindh. His grandfather was the first speaker of the Sindh Assembly after Pakistan was created. He also holds the record of contesting elections continuously since 1990 and basically winning every time that he contests and has been a regular member of the National Assembly in Pakistan, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Pakistan People's Party. But most importantly, I think nobody comes close to him in terms of the number of ministers portfolios that he's held, defense, finance, water, power, petroleum, natural resources and privatization over time. So if you want to get somebody who understands how Pakistan operates and how decisions are made, he is probably the best one around. So Naveed sir, can you hear me? I can hear you. I hope you can hear me. I can. This is lovely. Before this, either one of us fails to say that, let's go. Thank you very much for joining us. We have the audience here and we're waiting to hear from you. Okay. Are you going to ask the questions and do a response? No, I think what I would like to do is if you want to give an opening statement, so how does the PPP see the elections? How do you see sort of the future democracy in Pakistan? And then we'll come to a panel and audience to ask you a few questions if that's okay. Okay. Basically, as you know, Pakistan is going through the third consecutive transition from one civilian government to another. So in that sense, I think we can start with the positive note that there is a lot of optimism in terms of survival of parliamentary democracy in Pakistan. However, obviously, the way the elections have been conducted leaves a lot to be desired in terms of the expectation that will be a completely free and fair election after all the election reforms that we went through new laws were in place. But unfortunately, what came out in the end was a process which was questioned by almost all in summary. It did not matter if you won the election or you lost the election. The fact remains that Pakistan has almost a century old tradition of holding elections. So some of the things which are taken as the almost the gospel truth in terms of having polling agents who sit through the election process, I'm talking of the polling day, and the polling takes place in front of them, and then the counting takes place and ultimately the results are transmitted has always been done. This is the first time that there were serious questions about polling agents of the candidates not being present during the counting process, and therefore a black mark on how many votes were actually cast or counted in that period. On top of it, there was such a long delay in the way the election results were transmitted. It almost took in a lot of cases up to 48 hours to go from the start of the polling till the polling results came out. This of course, and a number of things, the RTS system, the results transmission system that broke down in the middle of the whole process. This on top of what was considered the pre-poll rigging process, which was that people were being pressurized to join or at least support certain political parties which were being patronized, and others that were not patronized were in some ways, they were hurdles for the candidates or the parties themselves. All in all, having said that, the fact remains that today we do have a parliament, elections have been held, and the Pakistan People's Party along with the other opposition parties intend to go into parliament rather than to buy the parliament as was being already suggested. And then all these issues will be raised within parliament along with all the other national issues that do come up there. The numbers game is almost complete, if not entirely. So it seems clear that the PTIs would be forming the next government, but will be facing a fairly formidable opposition, probably the largest in numerical terms in Pakistan's history. So we need to see how the government operates, how much do they live up to the promises that they have made, and believe me they have made very tall promises. And obviously the opposition will be there to keep an eye and a check on all the things, all the benchmarks that have been set by the winning party, the PTI itself. And certainly the PPP is coming into the parliament this time with its top leadership, both Bilal Bhutto Zardari and his father, the former president, Asif Ali Zardari, are both in parliament for the first time. So in that sense, we will be well led and well represented in this entire process. And we hope that the various political parties that are there will play their positive role in this whole. Thank you. Thank you very much for that introduction. So let me ask Jumaina, Dan, if you want to start with any questions for Mr. Kama, and then we'll ask the audience if there are a couple. Yeah, I have one question. This is Jumaina Sticky. Now that the polling station level data has been released today, is PPP planning on tracking where party agents have said that there were irregularities, they weren't allowed to witness the count, and we'll be going through the technical legal processes to dispute those results. And what's the game plan moving forward, what will PPP be doing next? Yes, we've already started the process. All the candidates that had complained during the entire day of polling have been asked now to compile the various issues that came up on that particular day, along with the names of not only the polling station, the polling staff, and whatever else was the complaint. And we intend to come through with a compiled, we may call it white paper or at least a comprehensive report. And other parties are doing the same. And now hopefully that when the website, the ECP website has been provided with the results, we may check it. However, there are skeptics who do say that the entire idea of giving the results on the day of the polling is that you know that these are the votes that have been counted, these are votes that have come out of the box. Giving those about almost 10 and 12 days later, you never know how, what kind of a manipulation may have taken place. Nevertheless, it's still something to work with. I do have a question, and I'll go back to some of Moeid's broader points, and less technical. And it has to do with this observation at the outset that you made that this election should be considered as success because it means the survival of the parliament and at some level a consolidation of Pakistani democracy. But I think a different way of interpreting it, a much more skeptical way would be to say that we've seen a steady deterioration of civilian control over Pakistan since 2008. And I wonder how you would interpret that. In other words, over a decade, in terms of civilian control and democracy in Pakistan, have things gotten better or have things gotten worse? I would agree with you to the extent that while we can take solace in the fact that the process goes on, because there were a lot of skeptics even on that, whether we will have elections or not, whether there will be a military coup, whether there will be a complete overthrow of the system that did not take place. We did have elections. We did have people taking part in that, and so on. So, and hopefully within the next few days, we'll see a transition to a new government. So, at least the entire outer veneer is very nice, and one can be grateful for that. However, yes, the amount of interference both in the process of selecting a new government and as one can presume in the running of the government will still be under the cloud, both because of the way it has been, the process has taken place, as well as some of the things that were happening, at least in the later half of the government of Myanmar-Sharif, where there was a constant institutional clash between the executive, the judiciary, and the military establishment. Okay, let's see if we have any questions here in the audience. We have a mic right at the back. For those of you who don't know that's my boss, I've got it allowing to ask a question. Go for it. I get the first question. Keep it short. Andrew Wilder, USIP. I wanted to maybe follow up on Dan's comment and ask a little bit about the Charter of Democracy, which of course was signed in 2006 between Benazir Abutto and Noa Shreef as an effort to, again, how do we strengthen the civilian side and rectify the civil military imbalance in politics? I have to say we didn't see much evidence of PPP or PMLN collaboration in the lead up to this election when it didn't always appear that the playing field was completely level. I guess my question is, is the Charter of Democracy dead? Do you see any possibility of reviving it and perhaps even including the PTI in that process? Well, no, in my opinion, Charter of Democracy is not dead. In fact, a lot of it has already been implemented in terms of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and some of the other reforms that have come in. However, there's a long ways to go and every time the civilians do come up with the method of doing things, there are always ways to counter it. So yes, there is a need for revitalizing the Charter of Democracy and include all political parties including the PTI in the process because there's no point having a Charter between only certain parties and others being kept out of it. However, I must clarify that the Charter was not a document to be partners in any government or for that matter opposition, but certain ground rules were laid out under which it was hoped that if these are followed, then we will have fairly strong parliamentary democracy going on in the country. So yes, some of it was followed and some of it definitely, it still needs to be implemented. You have a question here, but while the mic comes, Dan, you had another question. Yeah, just very quickly, what do you anticipate are the likely first moves of this PTI government and if you could impress upon them your perspective, what should be their first moves as they come into power? Well, obviously, as I said, they made very tall promises and they are coming in to handle a very difficult situation, particularly on the economic side. Pakistan has got a very serious current account deficit and we are running out of our dollar reserves. A lot of people are suggesting including perhaps their anticipated finance minister that Pakistan may have to go to IMF almost immediately upon taking over of the new government. Of course, the IMF program never comes without heavy conditionalities and especially if it is not in good books with the US or the European Union. Sorry, you cut out a little bit the last minute or so if you want to just repeat the last part of your answer. I think the government will have to take some very tough decisions, as I was saying, because the IMF program may come with some very strict conditionalities both on the political side as well as the economic side and any new government going in has to be honest and both right with its people to say that this is a bit of a pill that they all will have to swallow. So the initial days will not be, yeah, it will be a honeymoon but it will be a very rocky honeymoon. Doesn't sound good. So we'll take two questions here, right here, and then we'll let Mr. Kamar go because we promise we'll let him go at 10 a.m. Mr. Naveel Kamar, I'm Sufi Lagari. I'm from your own constituency, Hyderabad, Baksha Lagari, you know that. So I have a question about the- My former constituency, yes, but my question is enforced disappearances are very big issue in SIND. Hundreds and hundreds of people are disappear in SIND, writers, journalists, even teachers and innocent people. Your third time your party is actually come out in the power, haven't done anything and corruption and education issues and land reform. I see even because of the- your party is a landlord party, that's why they win the election. What the issue is, I don't know what are you going to do during this 10 years. Thank you. Well obviously there are things that we have done which have enabled the electorate to vote for us one more time, but still there is a lot that needs to be done. Obviously, yes, there are certain things with the priorities of the present government or the party I should say and we want to deliver to the people in general. There are certain things that people also realize are within the ambit of any civilian government like for example the issue of missing persons has been dealt with by different parties as well as the different judicial fora and yet there is a lot that is desired on that account. So yes, the entire society, both the civil government as well as the civil society has to keep on pushing on this agenda so that we can come to some desirable conclusion on that issue. Go. Polly? Yes. I'm Polly Nayak and I have a question that concerns the opposition including you to the government we all expect to be seated and assuming that goes forward, where do you come out on your party supporting an economic effort by the new government that would include asking for IMF help? Are you inclined to, do you believe that for the good of Pakistan that is what your party should do or is this an opportunity to hold the new government hostage on economic issues? I think any new government coming in always gets some leeway, both from the people as well as from the opposition. So to that extent I think they will be cooperating but a lot will depend on the program that the government itself comes out with and how it's presented and how it's sold. Certainly, as I said, we all Pakistanis, we have the national interest at our heart. Nevertheless, it's also our job as opposition to keep a check on what the government intends to do and how it goes about proving it. There's a lot of cosmetic things that the government has started talking about. However, what we need to look at is what is the meat of it and once the meat comes out then only can we comment on whether they will get the support of the opposition or not. Mr. Gamath, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a pleasure and I want to thank you especially because I know we've been working the past few hours to make sure that technology and everything works out and it worked out perfectly. So, great start. But thank you so much for joining us and giving your perspective and we will now continue with the rest of the program. Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I'm right on time, my friend. So we will now move on to the Pakistan-Muslim League Nawaz representative. I just want to clarify for those of you who may not have seen the change announcement because it came out late and I should have mentioned this earlier. We did have a change in line-up from the original sort of list that we had put out. As you can imagine, this is a time of great political interest and activity in Pakistan. Ambassador Senator Sherry Rahman who was originally slated to speak, apparently the Senate has a vote today and so she had to move to that and asked Navid Kamar to join us and then for the Terikein Saaf, we had Shah Mahmood Qureshi listed who requested Mr. Asadumar, the minister in waiting on finance to join because I think part of the understanding was that there will be a lot of interest in questions around what we just heard, IMF, etc. So I think he'd be a better place to answer that. So he'll be joining us from the PTI in about 20 minutes or so. Also while we're waiting, I just wanted to give you a sense, I'm sure all of you know this, of where the political landscape in Pakistan has ended up. Now some of these numbers will change a little bit as the election commission finalizes results but at this point this is how things look. The National Assembly, the Pakistan Terikein Saaf has 116 seats, the Muslim League Nawaz 64 and the People's Party 43. Of course the total is larger but these are the top three parties and that's why the PTI is in as the frontrunner as the party that's going to form government. The largest province of Punjab was actually neck to neck between the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and the PTI. The jury is still out. I think from everything I am picking up PTI is probably more likely to be able to form a coalition government but I think the Nawaz League has not sort of given up the effort to try and see if they can cobble together some of the independence and other smaller parties to form government. The KP province is absolutely clear. I mean the PTI had a sweep. They were in government, in a coalition government for the last five years and now actually they do not need a coalition in the province. They can form a government by themselves. In Sindh it's the Pakistan People's Party. We just heard from Sayed Naveed Kamar. Again it's pretty much a sweep and there isn't a need for any coalition. Balochistan is always historically been a coalition sort of government arrangement. It's always provincial parties that take the lead usually and so you have the Balochistan Awami Party with 15 seats and then the Religious Alliance, the Alliance of Religious Parties with eight and then another Baloch Party with six. And here I hear that it's going to be a coalition government probably with one of the larger parties but with these parties in the lead. So that's how sort of the election has turned up. Of course all of you know that Pakistan after the 18th Amendment to the Constitution is a federated unit in spirit which means that a lot of the powers now lie with the provinces not with the central government. So it's as important for whoever is forming government in the center to try and get as many provinces under its control as possible Punjab being the largest prize. So we now have, I understand Sayed Tariq Fatmi online from the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz. Mr. Fatmi was the special assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the time on Foreign Affairs with a rank of Minister of State. He before that has a distinguished diplomatic career in the Pakistan Foreign Service to his credit of about 35 years and served in Moscow, Beijing and Washington. And if you're in the Pakistani Foreign Service these are the three capitals to hit if you want to make a successful career out of it and he did. He was also the additional foreign secretary in the Prime Minister's office back in the day when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in office in the 1990s. And somebody who I've known for years respectfully has also been a good friend of the Institute here and has been here multiple times before. Fatmi Sahib, can you hear me? Please say yes. Silence is not good. Fatmi Sahib, can you hear me? If you speak just a little louder. Okay, am I audible? Yep, fine. Lovely and we can hear you loud and clear. So again, before I fail to say that, why don't I turn it over to you for a rundown on the elections and where you think things are and then we'll have our audience on our panel ask a few questions if that's okay. Okay, so you want me to first focus on the elections, is that right? It's your time, elections, foreign policy, I mean, you know. Okay, well as far as elections go, virtually everybody has commented on it and there's not much of a track record because we have had so few elections. In fact, we have had more military interventions than general elections. Yes, in the weeks and months prior to the elections, some of the actions taken by the various government departments and agencies did cause a lot of concern. Major journalists were taken off the air, TV programs were shut down, large number of party MNAs belonging to the PMLN were asked to abandon the party and join the independence. So there was a common impression all over the country that some of the state agencies were actually trying to assist the PTI in its election campaign. And then finally, I think the last straw was when the judgment was passed on Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law just days before the election and when they came back, their bail applications were not accepted. So anyway, the PTI has won and I think it's a good sign, maturity on the part of the opposition that while they will protest, they will join the parliament, they'll participate in its proceedings and that is a helpful sign. PTI's majority in the National Assembly will be very thin and they will not be present in the Senate either. So in both houses, I expect them to have considerable problems in enacting major legislation, unless the legislation is of a nature in which they are able to gain the support of the other political parties. Particularly when it comes to major enactment that goes against the wishes of the other parties, I don't see that taking place. Now as regards the foreign policy issues, first of all, there is no doubt that Pakistan's relations with the USA will remain the most important, uppermost in our minds. The US will remain a very important player for Pakistan because of its strong interest in the region. For the foreseeable future, I see the US and NATO troops staying on in Afghanistan. I see the US continuing with this present policy of bolstering India as a potential counterweight to China. I continue to see Washington's relations with Iran remaining in a very difficult stage and for all these reasons and many more which I will list, I think the US interest in this part of the world will remain very strong. But whether that interest can be translated into something positive and meaningful for Pakistan is a question that continues to trouble me because A, the divided and somewhat confused nature of the administration in Washington and their inability to focus on anything positive or constructive with any country. If allies are being dumped, if NATO is being trashed and trade war initiated with China, I don't see much of a positive initiative being taken by Washington to improve its relations with Pakistan. So the troubled areas will continue to be the ones that we know for sure. A, American complains regarding Pakistan's policy on Afghanistan that Pakistan is not doing enough. That Pakistan is not promoting reconciliation in Afghanistan as much as it should. Then second point which will continue to be raised is the US complain that Pakistan continues to harbor the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani network, other non-state actors. Now, how does the government of Mr. Imran Khan handle these challenges because Mr. Nawaz Sharif tried his level best to convince the other stakeholders in Pakistan that it was no longer of advantage to Pakistan to permit these characters to stay on and use Pakistan's territory. So that's a troubled area. Then of course, I see him, Mr. Imran Khan, facing major crisis in the next few weeks on FATF, the American anti-terrorism funding organization having placed Pakistan in the gray list. And Pakistan has been responding, and I'm told has sent some responses and answers to the questioner submitted to them. But whether it will suffice with the United States, I have my serious doubts. Then I see the problems for Mr. Imran Khan in relations with India. He has made all the right noises, very positive comments in his victory speech. But Mr. Nawaz Sharif, and for that matter, even the government before him, Mr. Ali's government and Prime Minister Jirani, they did try to improve relations with India. But when it comes to resolving the core problems with India, there is no response from the Indian side. If anything, Mr. Modi has adopted an extremely intransigent hostile attitude towards Pakistan. He has rejected all offers of dialogue between the two countries. He has sabotaged the SARC summit, the only organization that relates to economic growth and cooperation in South Asia. And the rhetoric within India, and the Indian government's policies towards the minorities in India, and its repressive actions in Kashmir make it that much more difficult for Mr. Imran Khan to get the kind of opening that he needs to have in order to carry the other important stakeholders in Pakistan on a policy that could improve relations with India. Finally, Secretary Pompeo's statement a few days ago intrigued me. I thought it was totally unnecessary, inappropriate, and not helpful at all for him to step in and warn Pakistan not to seek assistance from the IMF and to warn the IMF that the United States would monitor its decisions, doesn't speak well of the manner in which a great power like the United States should be conducting its foreign policy, but that is for Secretary Pompeo to decide. But nevertheless, we in Pakistan were surprised and deeply disappointed because there is no doubt that with a very small foreign exchange available, with decreasing exports, with rising inflation, and with a budget deficit that will multiply the day, there is no way that Mr. Imran Khan can do without a massive infusion of assistance from the IMF. The lightly finance minister has indicated that he too is working on a plan to approach the IMF. Now, the IMF assistance as well as continued assistance from China would be absolutely essential for the government of Pakistan to maintain even the normal working of the various government agencies as well as continuing the projects that have been started in the last 3-4 years, and while one hears that the Chinese are prepared to be helpful, but they will be helpful to only a certain extent. So therefore, I see a host of problems for Mr. Imran Khan and his team in the coming months and years, both as far as domestic front issues are concerned as well as foreign policy issues. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this introduction and your remarks. Let me ask Jumaina and Dan. We have Dan Maki here and Jumaina Siddiqui with us. If you have any questions, I'll kick it off. Thanks for your opener. Really very useful. I guess my core question would be to pick up at the end of what you were talking about with respect to China and to ask whether you anticipate that the PTI government might take a somewhat different approach in its relationship with China than the PMLN government did. Of course, this was a core issue for PMLN and CPEC has been a dominant part of Pakistan's foreign policy over the past several years. So I wonder if you anticipate any changes there, because there have been a number of criticisms of CPEC and of the handling of that, and in particular of the contracting and some lack of transparency, questions related to that over the past several years. How do you expect the PTI might manage that going forward? Is that question for me? It is. You are the only speaker, sir. Yes. No. It is for you, sir. Okay. Dan, first of all, good evening and good morning to you there. Good to see you and to hear you. I do not think that there will be any change in the PTI government's approach and attitude to China. The Chinese ambassador has been one of the first visitors to call on Mr. Imran Khan and from what I hear from both quarters, there has been a very powerful reiteration on the part of both sides to not merely maintain the relationship but to further strengthen and fortify. Yes, it is true that Mr. Nawaz Sharif, through his very personal involvement and interest in CPEC projects, managed to raise the profile of Pakistan-China relations to unprecedented heights. But there is no doubt that they're notwithstanding a few voices of dissent. Overall, these projects have been very well received. All the political parties are on board. The PTI was only critical about it because they felt, or rather they allished, that most of that aid was going to Punjab and less to frontier. And in one of the last meetings that the two sides had, the two countries had at the level of ministers which was participated by all the four chief ministers. In fact, the KP chief minister was the one who was asking for far greater assistance and far greater involvement of China in the establishment of projects in his province and especially establishing the industrial zone that is later on to be established in all the four provinces as well as Kashmir and will be Pakistan. Great, thank you. Jumain? Yes, Fatemi Sahib, you had mentioned that PTI's majority in parliament is a slim majority and that they will have difficulty getting major legislation passed. And they have ruled on an ambitious 100-day plan. Do you have a sense in your conversations what, as PM Elena in the opposition would push back on based on the rhetoric that PTI said that they wanted to do in the first 100 days? Well, both you and I have witnessed many elections and other than FDR doing something in 100 days. I'm not aware of anyone else having a cheat done. And here they have not been able to decide who the chief minister of KP should be because the last incumbent refuses to leave and Mr. Imran wants to bring somebody else. They are unable to decide who the chief minister of Punjab should be. There is a battle royal going on as regards to distribution of portfolios. So I think the 100-day plan will remain that, a rhetoric and not anything substantial. What I meant to say was that with a very small majority in the lower house and a majority based on the support of a large number of independents as well as very small injections from parties such as the PMLNQ, the MQM and today the Baluchistan group, it will be very difficult for them to agree internally before they can actually present the legislation to the National Assembly Point 1. Point 2 in our system, the Senate exercise is also considerably way other than on the money bill and therefore I expect the Senate which is firmly in the hands of the opposition to be very watchful and to keep a vigilant eye on what the government proposes. So it will be tough going for them. Thank you. Let's see if there's a question from the audience. Dana? It's Dana Marshall with Transnational Strategy Group Ambassador Fatimi. It's very nice to see you again. Thank you for those comments. I wonder if you could describe a little bit what you think is in Mr. Imran Khan's mind when he looks at China and considers the value of the China model for Pakistan's development. What features of the China model does he have in mind on the political side and on the economic side? Well, China has gone through many phases and the current phase which was introduced by Thang Xiaoping after the third plenum of the Communist Party in early 1979 is actually a hybrid system whereby the state monitors and very carefully regulates the functioning of the private sector industries but even the private sector is largely owned by the government agency. Now, that cannot be replicated in Pakistan. In fact, our own experience of government owning major enterprises has been a very poor one and in fact, one of the efforts made by the PML and did not succeed was to privatize things like the steel mill and the PIA. So the China model is more of a political slogan because China is seen as a success story and it sells very well that if the Chinese could do it, if the Chinese could maintain a high growth rate for 30 years going, maybe we can do the same. I think the Imran Khan government will want the package that was finalized between the two countries when President Xi Jinping visited Islamabad in April 2015. They will ask it to be expanded and one of the elements that the PML and government could not do because it came in very late is there is an agreement between the two countries that China will assist in establishing very large industrial zones in all the provinces of Pakistan to which they will encourage their own industries which wish to move because of the high wages in China and because of the proximity of Pakistan to the Gulf and to Central Asia. So those are the kinds of things that the Imran Khan government could do. The other thing they could consider and likely to consider is to get massive Chinese assistance for the construction of dams and water reservoirs. That is something also that we had been considering and had raised but not at sufficiently with sufficient figure and at a high level. So other than that, I don't see. But yes, Imran Khan will continue as I stated to bank on China, to depend on China and to continue to further fortify and strengthen those ties. Do you have a question here? Yes, Ambassador, thank you. Howard LaFranque with the Christian Science Monitor. You mentioned disappointment in Pakistan at Secretary Pompeo's statement on seeking an IMF package. But I'm wondering how is it interpreted in Pakistan? How is that statement interpreted and what is thought to be behind it and what does it portend for US-Pakistan relations? Well, thank you very much. The charitable view is that this is an administration which loves to speak without new preparation. But the more serious observers were surprised as I stated and disappointed because whatever package Pakistan does get from the IMF will come at the end of a long and torturous process of negotiations in which the IMF will impose very stringent terms and conditions. So it's not as if the IMF is giving us a gift basket of 5 or 10 or 15 billion dollars and we'll be permitted to do with it whatever we want. Which is why, as I stated, this remark was unnecessary and really did not serve any purpose other than to provide additional ammunition to those who wish to see the United States always in a negative light. Fatimid Sahib, if I may ask one last question and then we'd promise to let you go at this time. And this is something that I think we have, Mr. Asadoumar, you mentioned the finance minister in waiting also talked to us in a couple of minutes. You mentioned the FATF and the problems that will arise because of that, you mentioned the IMF, of course we've talked about that. Could there not be a case made by the PTI that actually that's the mess the PMLN government has left for them rather than something that they have created of course? When in politics you can make any claim and one does. But we had worked very hard and we had actually managed to come out of the gray list in 2015. Subsequently, I think the momentum was lost and things happened. I was no longer in government, so I'm not aware of the details. But I'm told that after the last meeting the organization has given them a paper and asked them to do certain things in terms of the banks, in terms of the lending institutions, in terms of the transfer of money from outside into Pakistan from Pakistan to other countries. And the finance ministry, the foreign ministry and the Federal Board of Revenue, they have all been working on it and I think their responses have gone or are about to go. So the government of Pakistan does recognize that it has to do certain things that are essential if you want to come out of the gray list. So that is there. Now as far as the IMF package is concerned, the things actually started collapsing after Mr. Nawaz Sharif was constrained to leave office after the Supreme Court judgment in July 2017, I think, yes, 2017 and things started drifting. Otherwise, the situation was much better at that point than it is now. In 2013, when the PML came to power, the situation was equally bad and Mr. Saqqar had to negotiate a package from the IMF as well as we managed to get some assistance from both China and Saudi Arabia. I think the new government will follow more or less the same part. Fadmi Sahib, thank you so much for joining us and giving us your and PMLN's perspective. We'll continue the program here and we'll catch up of course. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you more. Then please convey my thanks and good wishes to all your participants. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Okay, so we have our next guest online. We've talked about the question of the hour, which is what will the new government do? How will they manage the situation they have? We've also heard a mention of the finance minister in waiting. So we have none other than that gentleman, Mr. Asaduma, who is joining us again via technology. Asad, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, so very quickly just to introduce Mr. Omar and then turn it over to you. As I said, he's probably the only one whose portfolio has been known for a long time, even before the elections. He is the person who will be dealing with much of what we talked about in terms of the economic crisis. And I think I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that the new government's short-term legacy will probably be determined by what he's able to do in the next three months or so in terms of the economy. Mr. Omar comes from a private sector background. I believe he's one of the youngest, if not the youngest CEOs of a major private sector conglomerate, the Enggro Corporation. He worked with them for 27 years. And if you are in Pakistan and in the private sector, no matter which angle, you can't miss his name. Again, somebody who we've known for a while and is a good friend of the Institute, has spoken here before. Also is the recipient of the Sitara Imtiaz, which is one of the highest civilian awards that the Pakistani state provides or gives its citizens for public service. Mr. Omar, we've heard from Sayed Naveed Kamar Sahib from the PPP, from Sayed Tariq Fatmi Sahib from the PMLN talking about the elections. And we're very keen to hear from you in terms of the PTI's outlook, perhaps the elections itself, but where do we go from here? Of course, you will have the task of managing the economy, but there's also the question of relations with the US. I will just put on the table that the coverage that we've heard in the US, there's been a lot of discussion about the elections themselves, about Mr. Khan's previous stances on some of the issues that matter to the US. So I think our audience would be very interested in hearing your views. So with that, it's over to you. I guess I should be saying good morning. Yes, 10.30 in the morning. So I'll keep my opening remarks brief because I'd rather talk about what people have on their minds there rather than talk about what is important for me. In terms of a quick comment about the election, is a country of weak institutions. Democratic practices are not established. So the mere fact that after an election, there are allegations of wrongdoing is more than norm rather than exception. I guess the only exception is the response that we have made to these allegations of wrongdoing, of rigging. And that stance was first stated, actually, the mind of the election itself. Mr. Shibhaj, the president of PMLN, the media talk, where he said there were serious irregularities. And then on behalf of the party, I responded. And that response of mine is the stance which we are still continuing to hold on to, which is any and every opportunity should be given to investigate, to review any wrongdoing that has happened. What is popularly known in Pakistan is opening the ballot boxes. If there is need to do that, please go ahead and do that. Just a reminder to the audience there that the interim government which conducted the election was overall in charge of the country. It was put in place by the PMLN and the PPP. The election commission appointments were done by the PMLN and the PPP. And therefore, PTI had no role to play in any of the people who were conducting the elections this time around. Anyway, having said that, let me talk about the challenges. And I'll stay focused on really a couple of related issues. And then as I said, then I'll stop my initial comments there. And that is, we are facing a significant external account crisis. And that external account crisis is well known, it's well documented. There has been a very severe deterioration of our external account from a time when the PMLN government came in five years back of an external current account deficit of $2 billion a year to a situation where in the last three months, we have been running current account deficits of $2 billion a month. So it's gone up 24 and clearly this is not sustainable. So given that the most urgent action required of the government will be to deal with this external crisis. In that, obviously we'll try and explore all opportunities available to us for the decision has been left so near that you will have to look at all options available on the table. And I've been saying this using the exact same line even before the elections. No, we would not give you the most likely option also. But I'm not in a position right now until we have official access to data until we can open discussions with bilateral multilateral institutions to be able to make a call on that. So that's the most immediate crisis that is being faced. At the same time, and there is something which in a way is linked to that, there's also something impending which is a potential opportunity. And if you've heard Mr. Khan's speech the day after the election, he talked about the importance of peace in Afghanistan through Pakistan and his hope for peace. And if you asked me in the last one week, since the 11 or 10 days or whatever it's been, what are some of the highlights of the messages that have come through, then one of them is there seems to be widespread hope for a breakthrough in Afghanistan. And obviously this is not going to happen overnight and we're not going to have peace in Afghanistan starting next month. But a real sense of opportunity where all factors are coming together and there is a possibility of Afghanistan moving towards a permanent peace and reconciliation. And the two, as I said, the issues are linked because Pakistan's economic prospects are weighed down by what's happening in Afghanistan and the region. Pakistan's relationship with the world and in particular with the US are seen, if not largely, then to a great extent through the prism of the Afghan situation. So obviously it's a vital issue for Pakistan, both in the immediate future as well as in the long term. So that there is sense of optimism at least on that front. The acting ambassador of the US had just come to call on the Prime Minister-elect and that actually coming and we shared the same views that that's our sense. And his response was that they also believe that the US administration also believe that there might be positive possibilities opening up. So in that context it's a bit unfortunate that Mr. Pompeo decided to make the statement that he did even before we decided to go and formally get into a discussion of the IMF program. Those are his views. We would obviously be looking at the future foreign policy relationships both east and west and are able to play a positive role in contributing towards peace in the region. We are very cognizing of the fact that Pakistan's economic potential and what is most, for most of the minds of Imran Khan, he keeps on talking about and I heard what Imran Khan learned from China and specifically what he keeps on talking about is we must learn from China how to bring such a large number of people out of poverty in such a time. So with that desire to lift people out of poverty in Pakistan, we are cognizing of the fact that regional trade and peace in the region is absolutely vital for making that happen. So with that desire that's what's going to drive the foreign policy choices that are made. And we look forward to constructive relationship on important countries in particular and of course the US is and remains and will continue to be one of the most important if not the most important country in the world. So we look forward to constructive relationship with the US as well. So those are my opening comments and I am open for questions. Thank you. Thank you very much for providing us that perspective. Let me turn to our panel. We have Jomina Siddiqui here and Dan Markey and then we'll also ask the audience to ask you a few questions before we let you go. Asasad, thank you. So PTI rolled out an ambitious 100-day plan and other speakers have said that they will remain just that a plan. But if you could comment besides the economy what would be the first set of initiatives that the government would want to roll out legislatively? And my second question is on FATA integration because for the first time an incumbent government in KP has won again the provincial assembly FATA integration I think it will be a major hurdle and activity of the provincial assembly in KP. What are PTI's plans? What is the roadmap for FATA integration? So we won't have to wait very long. In a matter of 100 days after the government takes over, we'll know whether it just remained a plan on paper or not. It was a living document we tried to implement and I think it would be fair to say that much of our legacy will begin to be established within that 100-day period. So we are hoping that there will be progress along the lines as outlined in the 100-day plan. In terms of the legislative action that you're talking about, the current structure of the parliament as such that we have a majority in the national assembly, we will be in the opposition in the Senate or in the minority in the Senate. So the legislative ability of the PTI government to make significant changes is going to be limited. It will have to be brokered. It's kind of like a US administration which has the opposition party in the lead in the Congress and Senate. That's the kind of situation that we'll be facing. But most of the stuff that we've talked about in the 100-day plan and which are the priorities of PTI, most of those things do not require any legislative changes. There is the laws that are in place. It's a matter of going and changing priorities, putting focus on implementation and making things happen. Therefore, this relative constraint on legislative capacity should not mean impediment for making most of the agenda happen. FATA, the reform that FATA is absolutely vital for the lasting peace in Pakistan. I would say that it also has some kind of effects to peace in Afghanistan also. PTI championed this cause and when the expiry of the previous assembly FATA bill was being brought in which in our opinion was inadequate. We are the ones who took up a stance against it. Finally, everybody agreed to what we were saying. So we will be moving full speed ahead on the integration. There is an administrative vacuum there. There is a political vacuum in FATA. So a lot of military or security success has been achieved in operations in FATA. But if you don't very, very quickly move in and fill that political and economic and administrative gap, then you can see a rollback of the situation in a scenario which nobody would want to see. So FATA integration will be one of the priority areas for the PTI government. Thanks also for your opening remarks. Really very useful and I'm curious though to step back and since this is mainly an American audience listening to try to get a sense as to how different a PTI led government, a government led by someone who hasn't enjoyed national level positions of leadership, unlike the other two parties that have alternated in power in Pakistan for now decades, what are we looking at here? Could you put a name to it or describe the model of governance and leadership that you anticipate seeing because it's happening all the time in the popular media? Is this the Donald Trump of Pakistan or the Erdogan of Pakistan or who is Imran Khan? How should Americans interpret him as best as we can? Okay, I'll be polite and I won't even ask you whether that was a compliment or not. He certainly can't tweet as interestingly as Mr. Imran does. Okay, first let's understand what the PTI phenomena is. How has PTI suddenly found itself to be in power after a situation that pretty much Pakistan was faced with a two-party system? This is the result of an increasing clout of a growing middle class and the middle class aspirations are now getting expressed in the political mainstream and starting to dominate the political narrative of the country. It is governance, it is reforms in the economy, it is a fight against corruption, it is strengthening of institutions. So that's what PTI has been talking about, that's what found traction and that's what made PTI the force that it is at this point in time in Pakistan, the total politics and therefore the natural extrapolation from that is that those are the kind of things that you will see which will be the priorities of the PTI government. So you'll see a lot of emphasis on creation of transparency, strengthening of institutions, reducing political interference in these institutions, changing the priorities and the resources from trophy projects to investing in humans, the kind of things which resonate with the middle class, I mean to put it very simply. That's if you want to understand how a PTI government might function and what its thought processes might be, you should talk to somebody who really understands the Pakistani middle class and the way they think which in my opinion is not very different from middle classes in any of the emerging countries. So that's how I would frame it and in terms of Ibram Khan, what would be different? I think Ibram Khan has the ability to take positions which are politically, what should I use, dangerous is too strong a word, but which entail political risk and if he believes that that's what will result in the long-term good then he has done that in the past, he has done that as an opposition leader, he has done that in KP in governance, the kind of reforms that got pushed through in the health system there, he quite serious political will and that's the one quality I think that you can look forward to in terms of the comparison with Donald Trump with lack of significant administrative experience although now he has had not directly but indirectly the failure experience of KP, so he understands the governance system much better than he did, but still he'll obviously be going through a learning curve and therefore you might see adjustments in his stance or adjustments in how he operates as we go through the first 12-18 month period as opposed to a Navashree who we know exactly what he would do once he's in power. Thank you. Let me turn to the audience and have a few questions and we'll keep you keep you for another 10 minutes if that's okay. The lady there in the middle. Hi, I'm Jessica Donati with the Wall Street Journal. I was interested to hear you were saying that Afghanistan piece is one of the important things for Pakistan to move forward so I was wondering what is it that Pakistan can do to help bring peace to Afghanistan and what is this government going to do different because all the previous governments have said that they are working to help so I was just wondering how this one is going to be achieved different results. One as I said is simply a question of emphasis because it's so central to the thinking of our view of what Pakistan needs to do to go forward so you'd probably see a lot more emphasis on the foreign policy than you did earlier and if I may say so you might see much greater political environment in the foreign policy as opposed to the security establishment on much of the responsibility of that relationship. We have a prime minister or prime minister elect who is very familiar with the terrain which sits next to Afghanistan. His mother comes from a tribe which is from the belt right next to Afghanistan. It's something which is close to his heart emotionally as well so not just the view of Pakistan as a country and the geo strategic considerations of Pakistan but also at a personal emotional level this is an area and what shot in Nantan to governance in the political system in Pakistan was FATA so it's much more central to his politics to his person than it was to the previous leaders so apart from any specific policy stance just that emphasis is in my opinion going to be a very very significant difference. In terms of specific policy actions the road going forward if the US Taliban a one national government dialogue proceeds then obviously there is a lot of political support that is brought in with the grand plan as prime minister because it was his stance that there is no military solution that you would have to get into a dialogue which got him labelled as Taliban Khan which is one of the most absurd momentarily ever heard but that's what he strongly believes in and that's why the fact that the US one national government in Taliban are getting closer to a initiation of the dialogue process than has been the case in the past puts the policy stance of the US completely in alignment with the fundamental ethos of the Khan as a person not just as a party position so I think there is as I said earlier room problem. Hi this is Verda Khalil from voice of America. PTI's government is going to establish a government in a few days I wanted to ask you what are the challenges domestic challenges you see are more most difficult to handle at this moment and one thing another thing is that corruption has been so I would just say that how are you planning to handle the corruption in all the financial departments or all the government departments which is facing now. We have a quick comment on your first question because if I start answering that I won't have time for your second one and that's what's most urgent is the economy and I've already talked about it so I would make further comments about it but the continuing fight against extremism and terrorism in the country is a continuing challenge and so that will be one of the major priorities. There are two which have put off a restructuring of the structure of Pakistan through the 18th amendment and the 7th NFC award which needs revisiting so that's another thing that needs to be handled. The different federating units of Pakistan have made progress but there are still actions that need to be taken to strengthen the federation and those are specifically identified in our 100 day action plan also so those are some of the highlights which will take most of the government's time in the initial few months of the administration. In terms of corruption there are like two different aspects to it one as I said is creating transparency in the government system strengthening the institution and creating political installation for them so that political interference is stopped and putting in structures which are robust which are which create empowerment but at the same time accountability of those institutions and the people who are heading those institutions so that is one aspect of it. The second aspect is the steady institution the National Accountability Bureau and putting the full power of the executive behind that bureau so very often in the in the recent past it's seen that the executive is at loggerheads with the accountability bureau and changing that into a partnership and strengthening the institution and providing whatever support needs to be done. The final aspect of fighting the corruption are the international actions that we will be pursuing primarily out of the the consequences of the war on terror. There have been a lot of changes in global financing laws in terms of transparency requirements etc. There is the OECD mutual monetary mutual exchange of information treaty there is the unexplained wealth order in the UK there are changes in the device real estate and banking system the Swiss banking laws that change and so on and so on and we want to take advantage of all these changes which have happened in terms of increased transparency requirements and pursue the ill-gotten wealth of Pakistanis which is sitting in these international domains and tax havens and in frankly in the public view in the real estate market in the property market of London as well. So that is going to be a major part of the of the anti-corruption effort because what's happening is the nexus is you put corruption in Pakistan you do money laundering and you go park your assets abroad so that your illicit wealth is not visible in the country so that's going to be a major drive and a major initiative which will be started in the very first hundred days. Thank you we'll take two more questions and then we let our guest go. I'm going to try and get to people who haven't asked questions before just just in the interest of fairness. So the gentleman here. Hello my name is Rowan Reed from Internews. One of the areas where the previous government was fairly active was to gradually reduce the ability of international NGOs to operate in that country by introducing the NGO registration laws. What's the PTI's view in terms of allowing international NGOs to operate within Pakistan? In terms of having foreign NGOs operating in Pakistan the need for registration and good close review is important. We support that because a lot of the activities which have taken place in Pakistan over the last 15-20 years and that's from various different sources which have created problems for the country have come in in the shape of charity financing. So there is we fully support and endorse the need for regulation but at the same time what you don't want to do is create obstruction in the path of those who are trying to preserve the country and other citizens so while regulation should be there but it has to be streamlined it has to be effectively implemented so that it achieves the purpose of ensuring that that there is no entry into the country of participants who will cause any kind of problems but at the same time does not become an obstruction to those who want to do good. Okay and we'll take the last question here. Hi this is like a more economics related question but you've briefly mentioned the idea of reforming the direct taxation plan so I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that and also kind of the timeline. I know you've also mentioned like changing the bond system and some other economics related things I was wondering if yeah you could just elaborate on direct taxation and how that might play in. You want to introduce yourself? Oh yeah I'm Saira Malik I'm with the Department of State but this is a personal question. Mohit the internet connection is. Sorry I said that again. Mohit can you repeat the question the internet connection was. I see the question is you've talked about the economy you've talked about changing sort of the bond structure perhaps you've talked about direct taxation can you elaborate on what that really entails and what you're looking at in terms of how you're going to implement that. Okay the two or three big things that we've talked about one is there are a large number of state-owned enterprises which operate under the domain of different ministries and we have said that we will take all of these out of the domain of the online ministries with data wealth fund the sovereign wealth fund and we place all of them under that wealth fund have professionals who have business expertise and corporate background to run those institutions rather than have bureaucrats and politicians who know nothing about this and running them into the ground and they should then decide which of these are ready for privatization and need to be privatized which for the time being we're going to be kept in control and so on and so forth. So that's one structural change that we are making the bond that I refer to as a diaspora bond there is a lot of interest right now in overseas Pakistanis the PTI is massively popular amongst the educated overseas Pakistani diaspora and they're born to and obviously Pakistan is facing a current crisis so we want to match the two and create investment opportunities investment instruments where the overseas Pakistanis can make investments back into the country and the first instruments that we will be using are a bond or a support which is like an Islamic bond which are data instruments but we will then be working on some equity instruments also which can be made available to the overseas Pakistanis to invest back into the country. Okay thank you very much we are out of time but I will use my privilege if I may Mr. Umar to ask you a twin question which is raised here often nobody's I'm surprised nobody's asked it but I am asked this question often and I'm basically guessing and pretending so I want you to answer this both are things that are close to the hearts of people who work on Pakistan in this town both are controversial but I do want to put it to you one is the question of China versus US for Pakistan there is a question here increasingly whether CPEC and and sort of Pakistan's engagement really means it is now China and not the US or whether it is still the US and China and how that how that squares up the second one is you've talked about Afghanistan you've talked about the US but one of the questions I get often is how much control does the PTI government or any civilian government ultimately have over those accounts so even if you want to do what you're saying are you able to okay as far as the first one is concerned the USA is the the sole superpower in the world right now China is the emerging superpower these are the two largest economies of the world so for any country in the world it it makes sense to try and have positive constructive relationships with both of them so from Pakistan's point of view clearly it would not be in Pakistan's interest if it became a neither or relationship at this point in time unfortunately let's look at the narrative which people of Pakistan hear when they hear China they hear power plants so road networks ports when you when we hear about the US it's about Pakistan harboring terrorists so if you if you listen to the public narrative right now in the public narrative I haven't seen any of the latest research service which asked this question but I would not be surprised if people in Pakistan are started to form an opinion that China is a friend of Pakistan where the US is not that's not how strategic decisions by nation should be taken and that's not the way we would we would hope that the relationship unforced as we go forward the US and Pakistan has had a long relationship the second relationship no doubt but by and large a good relationship and clearly it would be in Pakistan's interest to build on that relationship and for it not to become a relationship where in Pakistan in any way is now starting to become an ally of China against the US interests so so we certainly hope and that's why we have been troubled by the latest the trade war which is erupted between China and the US and anything it is not just in Pakistan and everybody's interest that there are better relationship between the China and US also so that's my take on the Pakistan China and the US thing the also by the way just before I go off the US I hope at some point in time in our in our relationship with bilateral relationship we will be able to develop a non-hyphenated relationship we've gone from one hyphenated relationship to another from Indo-Pak to Africa and hopefully at some point in time it will just become a Pakistan-US relationship as far as what was the second question we are getting old I forget that's a convenient one to forget it's it's about the idea no I mean that comes up here which is even if the PTI government says it's going to do certain things on Afghanistan or India or US do you actually have that account are you able to okay my my I'll give you my non-professional personal reaction to this one sure in my senses that at least some if not a large part of this narrative is has actually been used by our political governments to to find excuses for for their content I have one thing which I am absolutely sure of and I hope I've never proven wrong with this one is that Imran Khan in particular and PTI in general will stand by the decisions we take we will not even if let's assume for a minute that in a closed room we try to sell a policy and we're not able to sell it and in the end we adopt a policy which is not what we thought was ideal we would still never come and sit with foreigners and tell them we actually wanted to do something here so stand in front of the nation and say but we don't have control if Imran Khan does not have control Imran Khan will want to go home I'm pretty sure of that I know that man I think where Pakistan stands right now it is in Pakistan's interest for there to be strong positive partnership between the civilian and military relations institutions the military is is a strong institution in Pakistan it's called institutional capacity I was called in the morning to speak at the staff college the premier training ground in Quetta and on the topic of civil military relations and I did an analysis of why the relationship has been the problem and one of the reasons that I stated was an asymmetry of capacity the the military has significant institutional capacity in terms of policy development on national security issues and foreign policy issues and this and this policy capacity is increased over the period of time and the civilian capacity is eroded over a period of time so it makes sense for a Pakistani leadership to make full use of that institutional capacity but in the end the decisions are political decisions and the political leadership has to stand up and take those decisions the US establishment plays an important role in the formulation of US national security strategy in foreign policy decisions Donald Trump ran an election campaign on the promise of a complete exit from Afghanistan ended up increasing 2% and that is and that change almost certainly happened as a result of input from the military establishment the security establishment the US nothing wrong with that so it should be a strong partnership it should draw upon the strength which is there with the military it should not be an adversary relationship but in the end the but stock at the table of the prime minister and he should not make excuses for the decision he thinks thank you this has been wonderful I know you have an economy to manage and you've taken more time than I asked for thank you very much for joining us and the very best of luck with your portfolio thanks a lot thanks thank you thank you wow I don't think I've managed technology for 90 minutes that hasn't failed he gave a bit few jitters but it worked it worked so thank you to our it team and Emily at the back of the room let me quickly switch to the panel now because I do want to leave time for for the audience to ask questions of you I have two basic questions which I'm going to put for you one where do you come out on this question of the positive democratic consolidation sort of the movement you know second so 10 years et cetera versus the question you raised with Navid Kamar which is is this a regression at the end of the day I quite frankly can see both sides of the argument but but I think it'll be interesting to get your take and the second question I wanted to ask you was exactly what Mr. Omar raised at the end the civil military conversation and and I'll be honest I'm increasingly picking up a total disconnect between the conversation about Pakistan in the US and the conversation about Pakistan in Pakistan and Pakistan is I think have begun I mean the conversation is not about Afghanistan it's not about India anymore it's really about internal issues which are pressing and the US-Pakistan relationship as you know has gotten to a bit of a one-point agenda for the past year or so it's only Afghanistan so is there even a conversation to be had even if the PTI government puts its foot forward to say you know we want to have a bilateral conversation is there one to have or is it really still this question of Afghanistan and then whether it's a civil or military because I think you know there's an interesting point here there's a government the competency of the civilians is low I'm going to use where the capacity is from the US perspective on the outside it seems like it's a domination of the military again so how does that square I can I can kick it off in terms of response you know to me and we've had this conversation before and other settings this idea of consolidation and progression versus regression and kind of the hollowing out of Pakistan's democratic governance is a central one so every time Pakistan has an election to be clear there are two things going on here and it's sometimes difficult to disentangle them one is the natural competition the partisan competition which is perfectly healthy and happens everywhere and should happen in Pakistan as well the howling and kicking and screaming and everything like that that's normal democratic politics and that's not a sign necessarily of unhealthiness even howling over process is not necessarily a problem because it's only through the howling that you have any potential possibility of improving it but in Pakistan unlike I would say in a fully consolidated democracy you have this underlying concern that in fact democracy is not healthy and that it's withering away and that's something different and there you know I think we should look at a couple of things as we go forward one of them is governance style and process of governance so you know if Assad Umar is correct in his interpretation of the trajectory going forward and there's more transparency more accountability things function in Pakistan including in the parliament the way that more like how they were designed to function than we're seeing consolidation but what we've seen in the past and part of my concern for instance with the PMLN government certainly when Nawaz Sharif was in charge is that you didn't see a parliament that was acting in any way that came close to you know legislation what showing up to parliament and actually having votes that passed legislation and ran the country forget it what you had was a kind of a full consolidation under a big man rule that looked entirely undemocratic in terms of the way that it actually functioned in the country and when you see that and you see the perpetuation of that you do have to ask you know is this just that really thin veneer at the top where you have elections every so often the transfer of power to some new figure who governs in that same deeply undemocratic way so that's what I'll be looking for and you know that feeds naturally into this next question of you know the subsequent issue is how do they govern but then also what do they control and do they in fact control their foreign and defense policy do they control budgets do they control who gets what and the answer has been a pretty clear no particularly on the budgetary side of things for the past decade and so when the question is you know okay so Imran Khan might be very much more inclined to see the world through a lens that looks more like the one that the military tends to use but when it's a guns versus butter issue which is very much what they're facing right now just how much leeway does he have to make those decisions that's another kind of way to calibrate democratic consolidation and civilian control over government that always we have to watch closely. So I'll take the first part of it and dive into some of the technical issues so I'm contrary to what Dharik Bhatami Sahib said I have only been tracking elections actively since 2008 not as many as he has seen but we've seen at least a growth in the understanding of the technical nature of how elections are being held in Pakistan whether the conversations are on what party agents are saying this is the first time the party agents have actually come out and actively said we were prevented from witnessing the count because they knew what forms to ask for they knew what the processes were and I think that's important and it's a step in the right direction for democratic for democracy in Pakistan the other issue is that as parties have matured that there is now this third party PTI has taken a huge stance and become a third party that has come into power I think it's important for a Pakistani democracy the thing the real question which very there's very few conversations no one's really commented is a shrinking space for dialogue open dialogue without the free or retribution and that has been closing since 2008 under the Michelle of government there was a freer media civil society was able to be more active but as we've seen with progressive you know democratic elections and democratic governments coming into power we're seeing the reduction of civil society space and dialogue and discussion and debate people are more worried about what they'll say openly in cafes at events and panel discussions in Pakistan than ever before I think so there's a that's the thing that the negative aspect of this growing democracy and I agree completely Dan that this is you know you see the process of elections happening and that's great but then how they're actually governing after they get into power and what instruments that they're passing in legislation wise to allow for more freer dialogue and discussion in Pakistan that's I think the worrisome thing and it'll be remains to be seen how PTI will then take move forward I was with allowing for more debate and discussion help you debate and discussion whether it's on the floor of the National Assembly or within civil society organizations and and the media okay yes sure pulling I thought these these by the way these this Skyping or whatever magic we used worked really well and it's really great to hear from Pakistan and the people that you selected were excellent so so thanks personally for that I just wanted to make an observation maybe useful which is that it seemed particularly from hearing from the PTI that there's a possibility that you could get a convergence of a lot of good things going together and and this is where I'll be watching to see if that can actually materialize so particularly on the IMF one could imagine a situation you hinted at this as well Moid where you have the new government comes in and blames the old government for making a lot of errors casts political blame on them and therefore is somewhat freer to go ahead with an IMF package in doing so it also is eager to be more transparent about its dealings with China and open up the books on some of these things because it can say hey those are the last guys that wasn't us so that's what they've said they will do exactly so there's an openness there the Chinese have said by the way that they wouldn't mind that at least some of the Chinese have said that and we'll see if that's true too another good thing that we would be looking for the US would be inclined to support or more inclined to support an IMF package if all that transparency is in place because then the concern that we through the IMF would be bailing out the Chinese loans would be reduced and the PTI could come out at least a near term relative winner in all of this because politically it would again have cast the blame elsewhere so that's all the good things going together the bad part is IMF also has other conditions which include probably some austerity kind of measures which will be deeply unpopular and run very much counter to what the PTI at a populist level would be preaching one other and I'll be very quick on this Assad-Umar has a very appealing voice and and kind of presence certainly from an American perspective the presumptive or potential defense minister Shirin Mazzari has a very different perspective and makes very different claims about the nature and the proposed nature of the relationship with the United States so which PTI is going to come to play is is a big question here and I'm glad you got this voice for our session but you know we'll all be watching to see which one actually holds the cards as we move forward sure sure we will let me turn to the audience and see if there are any questions for our panel and then we'll come back here we are really threatening to be on time which is a shocker when I moderate but great Andrew you have to wait the gentleman here hi Andrew Crane from international Christian concern Pakistan has been a tier one country on the United States Commission for international religious freedom on their report for a while now and I was just wondering with the PTI control government do you see them doing anything about the blasphemy laws which is a large reason for them being a tier one country on CPC so the blasphemy law all honestly it's a very touchy subject you know they're going they're the fact that there have been discussions and debates on you know the protection of minorities throughout this election and what or calling out minorities is something new that we've seen in this in this election period I remains to be seen what PTI will do their members of their party have come out against some of the minority groups and have said some very slanderous statements against minorities but Imran Khan will on a positive note in his speech after the election has said that protection of minorities and working across ethnic sectarian religious groups is something that is of importance to us as a party as a national wanting to be a national party so you know I think the weeks and days ahead we'll see what Imran Khan will say and do and the party will do to address these issues but again the blasphemy is the kind of like Medicare here it's a third rail of Pakistani politics and for that reason my answer would be much simpler I don't anticipate any positive change whatsoever it's not politically it's it is radioactive there is no upside there can be and probably should be voices from the outside raised on this issue to make it clear that people care and that Pakistanis ought to care and I think this is a fight that will continue to rage in Pakistan but positive progress by this government out of the gate is the last thing they'd want to pick up this gentleman here thank you folks ready for retired international healthcare worker afghanistan there was some optimistic optimism expressed about reaching some kind of understanding with Taliban and so on who could this possibly be because when you had your conference on Afghanistan before it was the United States was not perceived to have any real despite the meeting of the ambassador with the Taliban there's very little likelihood given how we pour the rug from up with outside under the Iranians and we seem to be dominated by military thinking what other country could work with Pakistan to bring some kind of understanding there I mean look I think first of all I would step back and say over the past weeks and months there has been if not a sense of likely progress at least some significant effort by us diplomats by the government in Kabul and it seems and some opening by the Taliban to have these conversations I don't want to oversell that as a breakthrough everybody ought to be skeptical and even if this worked as best as it possibly could it would take years and years but keeping that in mind we shouldn't overlook it and then the question is so who else could kind of get Pakistan to advance that agenda and there the answer over the past almost decade now has been China there hasn't been that hasn't worked terribly well and China has been less willing and able maybe to carry our water on this issue than I think some American policymakers might have hoped that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying and the question is you know will the Trump administration continue to place kind of a coercive pressure on Pakistan first couple that perhaps with its IMF agenda and try to tie all of these things up together and I think as much as Pompeo's remarks are seen as unhelpful and unfriendly in Pakistan that's what they're intended to signal all these things go together when Washington and certainly the White House looks at Pakistan it sees these all these issues together and through an Afghan lens whether that's healthy or not that continues to be the reality and this administration does seem to be dedicated to both fighting the war in Afghanistan and pushing ahead with these talks so that's how it's seeing this agenda you know we'll see if you know that'll pay off at the best it'll take time yeah lady here hi this is Nishmaab each other um dan you mentioned a very thin veneer of democracy since 2008 what are the factors you're looking for to change in the next five years to show that democracy is deepened within the country I think I got at this just a little bit before a parliamentary procedure is one control over budgets transparency with respect to that which might have made a point about public debate I think that's a very important one and media was raised before as well the quality of media debate a sense of openness and accountability these kinds of things those are steps toward progress now you know many of them are difficult to measure and that's part of our challenge but they're not impossible to see and I think in a lot of ways what I have perceived has been backsliding on a number of these issues I'm not sure I would go so far as to say it was better I'm sure of but I would certainly say that we haven't lived up to the promise and the hope of 2008 by almost any measure and and that's part of what actually has motivated the campaign and those who have supported the PTI which is anti-corruption agenda as was said before a kind of a middle-class agenda reform accountability and so on these would be positive steps I think to that I would also add strengthening of local government these are the first elections that were held after local government level seven pass and local government elections had been held so it remains to be seen a PTI has and a good job of supporting and developing robust local governments in KP and whether they can deliver that to the rest of the country and provide the same type of support across the other provinces would also be I think a positive step towards you know ensuring democracy but the capacity of local governments and even provincial governments is still weak and it's still needs support whether that's in the form of how you manage the relationship between the central government and the local government or whether it's international donors coming in and providing technical assistance and support to help strengthen how local governments and provincial governments function I think this is a really important question you know in in consolidation of democracy you have legitimacy components and effectiveness components legitimacy I think can that is the kind of area where more public accountability more public debate will reinforce legitimacy if it's handled well that doesn't necessarily always go hand-in-hand with effectiveness that is if I'm in Ron Khan and I'm coming into power and I've got a thin majority you bear governing coalition in parliament do I want to take every issue to parliament to be debated and hounded and and taken forever through that process probably not if I'm looking for efficiency so managing that balance is also going to be a critical component and and you know that's not easy and as somebody said to me yesterday you know it's kind of like Barack Obama when he came into office he must have been asking himself did I really want this job and I think he's going to feel the same way he's a he's a man who enters office in an economic crisis that needs to be handled almost immediately living up to promises going to be very difficult every state leader asked this question and the answer is always yes no matter what so I think the answer is yes so we have Andrew then we have the gentleman here we have five or six questions why don't we actually take three here and then give you a chance and then three more and then we'll end at that all right uh vince on fossil one affiliated um you know talking to town in washington has always been Pakistan funding terrorist groups but and the u.s. Pakistan relationship is there another elephant in the room in afghanistan in terms of india pakistan relations um bohid i've heard you a lot i'm not here to speak today and um you know i i've always heard that argument um coming from a lot of south asia analysts and um just briefly um how about indian public opinion of imran khan um is this a break from tradition in pakistan is this is the break away from the past attracted pakistani voters okay you have a question yeah right here right here yeah uh the vexivram from the international public institute um i wanted to ask a little bit more about the china pakistan relationship um specifically about what the current um sort of calculus of the security establishment is towards that relationship and you know given that pti in the past has criticized aspects of the cpec deal particularly around the opaqueness of it um do you see any friction between um the security establishment's view towards china and that of a pti government and then andrew at the back and then we'll come back and then go thanks thanks for giving me two questions moeed um tom securing my friend go for it uh i said umar you know tried to position you know i mean pti is the party of the middle class and certainly i think that did play an important role in pti's performance um obviously i think for me the perception of who's going to win election in pakistan is a very strong determinant of voting behavior because why waste your vote for losing party in a patronage based system so i think the perception of establishment support also played a significant role um in that process but of course also pti did better especially in punjab because of i think giving a lot of seats to non pti elect quote unquote electables um and i guess my question is now what do you see is the pti doing in terms of party development we really haven't talked about that now i mean to me there's a real opportunity for the pti um to maybe be the first prominent democratic party that's not a dynasty um i don't i think his children are a little young still um and will the pti is there any evidence that they're starting to think about you know strengthening the party institutions at the grassroots level really trying to build a political party in pakistan which i think could really be an opportunity for it to consolidate power and perhaps win another election um rather than again just be a passing phenomenon all right i can take the last one i'm happy to start with that so in 2012 prior to the 2013 elections there was issues with whether pti could be it had the necessary infrastructure and grassroots support to win the election there was the popular opinion that iran khan and his pti way was going to take over and they fell short but they took the opportunity in kp to develop the party um and and develop structures or more transparent and open elections within the party so they have made steps i think there's still a lot that needs to be done and i think over the last five years between 2013 and 2018 that they have made strides but um and this is something i had asked prior to the elections as well with the pti folks what are you doing how are you playing what is your grassroots game you can't just sit from islamabad and run a party and attempt to win seats so yes getting non pti folks in these you know these electables and these independents on board has been a positive but whether they can manage to hold them together especially as these independents who have won seats will they be able to help them govern within the national assembly again his remains to be seen um and uh yeah i think the perception of it being a middle class party like if you talk to people from the middle class in bogglesland they have been supporting they said that he needs a fair chance he understands and needs and our issues but again running a campaign and then governing are two totally different things and so over the next you know 12 to 18 months the i i'm interested in what the rhetoric will be coming from pti if they're still going to cater to the middle class or will they have to face the reality of actually governing and making tough decisions like the imf austerity measures that will probably be put into place and how that will impact the middle class and whether that will range their support uh moving forward especially in local government elections as they come up uh in about a year and a half to two years just to add one more line under i think we should also start looking at the changes in terms of how party structures are developed i mean pti actually did emit romney in some ways they developed applications technology basically to get voter base without having to reach out in terms of patronage like the status quo parties do it's going to be very interesting to see how they pull it off with that app uh apparently played a big role in getting pti to know who their voter was going to be but yeah i would just picking up briefly on that point um this looks like uh what you might call new populism more than old machine politics uh it's something that i think we're seeing globally and it's partly technology and not just social media but broader communications telecommunications outreach potential big data these kinds of things and it doesn't have to so pakistan doesn't have to have another pmln uh going forward doesn't have to be dynastic in that way uh if you look at modi in india you would also raise similar questions is this uh any longer a kind of a broad machine politics in india yeah there's some of that uh but it's also this kind of um new thing which is individual charismatic leaders able to reach out through a variety of means directly to the voter or almost directly to the voter less mediated through local politicians than historically that's a big change in the in the development of party structures it doesn't necessarily bode well for good governance um and uh or the management of um democratic governance in the way that we might have hoped to see it uh not just in pakistan but elsewhere or even here right um india pakistan china right so um let me pick up the china pakistan one you know i think this is a really fascinating question you know pti has been somewhat critical of uh cpac others have been critical um and so how do you reconcile that criticism with the apparent also backing or at least comfort level of the military with uh pti my brief answer would be i think these things are going to be harmonized very quickly in other words i think pti uh was opportunistic in its criticism of cpac i think it'll come on board very rapidly uh both for good political reasons that is uh there are resources to be had and there are gains to be made and there are wins in terms of building things and providing things to pakistani people uh that are available to the party that they will not want to uh forfeit i think the chinese are willing to play uh and so i think that that will be something that they can mend relatively quickly and take uh responsibility or be rewarded for fixing what was broken about the way the pmln did it um and so i think there's a lot of upside there and it's all easily in line with what the military presumably would want as well so those things go together um so i think that friction will be smoothed over with respect to india and afghanistan um yes of course uh pakistan we do we do ourselves a disservice by discounting the extent to which many pakistanis see india as uh the concern in afghanistan you know if we don't understand that we're missing a big piece of the story at the same time objectively from an american washington centric perspective india is not the problem in afghanistan or it's not the only problem and it's certainly not the main problem and so we also do ourselves a disservice if we hold i believe our strategies and our policies hostage to pakistan's perspective of india in afghanistan so how do you reconcile those two things well that's the problem um but uh but so we need to we need to hold those two realities in our heads at the same time uh and move forward with a policy based on on that so we're on time um but i did if if it's okay take a couple more questions very quickly with brief answers and you end there uh the lady here and dana and then we'll end please keep it short so that we can give speakers a chance to wrap it up uh samira daniel this is for daniel in light of what you just said about uh the perception by pakistanis that india is the problem the the reality is that india and pakistan have problems with each other for so if you were imran khan what would be the uh maybe the first the in rank order the two or three steps you would take uh to uh ease some of the conflict situation and dana very quickly uh i wanted to see if i could uh have the panel drill down a little bit about what mr umar said in a very optimistic point regarding um the uh alice well's conversations taliban and cutter happy at the same time as uh imran khan has got his own contacts there uh can each side take yes for an answer at this point yes for an answer at this point um yes uh you know i i guess look i would just say hold on um be prepared for a a long process and this to me looks like um a bit of fresh air that is uh some dialogue being had between parties that were up until now having it only very infrequently uh ambassador raffles in the room you can talk to her about how uh some of the backstory here i gather from what i read but um and i and i think uh this is all to be welcomed um but this is a much i guess i just want to impress on everybody this the need for patience and being a long term process um means that even if we could get yes from everybody there's going to be a lot of steps along the way um and on this other point if i were imran khan um what would i do with respect to india i would hold on and try to not have any problems with india until india gets through its elections because nothing good is going to happen between now and uh the end of those uh and pakistan has a whole bunch of other problems and we heard about them that really needs to focus on first that is it needs to figure out a way to get out of this current economic crisis so don't anticipate that and i think uh one of uh this may be uh ambassador fatemi was saying uh that india has been very difficult to deal with don't anticipate that india will be a whole lot easier to deal with just because pakistan has a new leader um india is inclined not to be terribly patient with pakistan for lots of reasonable reasons um and so don't expect that to change just hold on and just don't make waves and i think that his initial messages to india campaigning notwithstanding but his post election message was intended to do exactly that not to say anything terribly negative and try to look for opportunities to at least smooth things over that's about the best that we can hope for for the near term which man last week good well uh thank you very much you will agree that uh we did pull off a technology miracle so i want to thank our it team at usip for for doing this emily ashwaj at the back of the room who actually manages all of this and i take all the credit thank you emily um thanks to our speakers from the political parties our panel all of you i'll just end by saying that i think it's a fascinating moment for pakistan analysts because pakistan is in the midst of a real political science experiment because if you talk to pakistan is about democracy what you find are two views one view that says well we've allowed elections to continue but it's patronage bears these parties are corrupt they're dynastic they don't they're not interested in governance and thus this is not going to improve pakistan has also tried military rule doesn't seem to fix the problem we've also had a government in the pakistan people's party 2008 to 13 who were fairly remarkable at legislating brought in very very active parliamentary politics we have a pmln government that's just left that didn't care about the parliament but did a lot of big infrastructure development all of that um compromised by this idea that their politicians are corrupt they're weak etc here you have a government outside of the system nobody challenges the the prime minister-elect on corruption at least uh you've got a government that is not beholden to traditional patronage lobbies so technically doesn't have that excuse uh and the flip side of what we've been discussing in terms of the uh elections and and so the pre pre poll situation is that there isn't the kind of disconnect starting off that that we saw in the previous government so to my mind when people ask me what do you think i always tell them i worry because this to me is the last political science experiment left in that sense you've got all the indicators that pakistanis say are not present in this particular uh situation and and so we'll we'll wait and see uh where we end up it's going to be a very interesting uh five years ahead of us thank you very much and please join me in thanking the panel