LAHORE: Political parties are now being run through a remote-control mechanism as one cannot talk against the security establishment even in internal discourse, says the Awami National Party leader Afrasiab Khattak.

He was speaking on ‘Progressive Politics in Pakistan’ at ThinkFest here on Sunday.

Terming the prevailing judicial activism a ‘judicial martial law’, he alleged that the Supreme Court chief justice was usurping the executive’s authority.

He called for signing of a document by all political parties like the Charter of Democracy (CoD) to regain the space lost to undemocratic forces. He also talked of lack of democracy within the parties and urged their leaders to rectify the situation to be on a high moral ground in the struggle against undemocratic forces.

Awami Workers’ Party’s Tooba Syed held the “catharsis” of activists through social media responsible for their reluctance to join actual political movements.

The Friday Times editor Aima Khosa didn’t see any progressive movement in the country for the time being, blaming it on a lack of tradition and contemporary difficult conditions. She said the activists needed cadre organisation and political training for becoming part of such organizations.

Akbar S Zaidi, who conducted the session, didn’t agree with Ms Khosa and said in fact difficult conditions enhanced the role and even gave birth to such movements and organisations.

Responding to queries from the audience, Mr Khattak admitted political parties suffered because of not embracing new classes like youth and the urban middle class, while these could not adjust themselves to the changes in political discourse and issues that emerged in the post-Zia period.

In the session on ‘Growth, IMF and Pakistan Economy’, former finance minister Salman Shah called for improving agriculture productivity through better water management, diverting Chinese investment, special economic zones, renegotiating free trade agreement with China to check its tilt towards Beijing, introducing public-private partnership concept in infrastructure development.

Miftah Ismael, who was financial advisor during PML-N government, downplayed the fears of Pakistan being put on black list by the FATF saying the country had earlier been on the list (without any serious harm) in 2008-09.

He said Islamabad could not substitute imports with exports for want of costly raw material used in many industries. Talking of lack of foreign visitors, he said at Dhaka more foreign airliners landed than Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore combined.

Ex-finance minister Hafeez Pasha advised the rulers not to (negatively) touch the National Finance Commission award issues and called for reducing the size of bureaucratic setup in Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2019