Back in 2013, Pakistan underwent an unusual military to civil transition, beginning with the appointment of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in democratic elections in June. In November of that year, General Ashfaq Kayani handed the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) baton to General Raheel Sharif. And in December, Iftikhar Chaudhry — the iconic yet controversial chief justice — also retired. In November 2016, General Qamar Hayat Bajwa was appointed the new COAS and in December Sharif picked Lieutenant-General Naveed Mukhtar as the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.
These new appointments were a huge step forward in Pakistan’s troubled journey to becoming a civilian-led government. They also meant that the country saw the backs of three generals in a span of just eight years. During this period the army’s control over certain issues — such as terrorism — increased, as the federal and provincial civilian governments kept ceding space to the army due to the government’s own disunity and weakness. On several occasions General Sharif cautioned the government against corruption and poor governance as his power and popularity grew.
Beyond domestic political transition, Pakistan also negotiated a difficult international environment in 2016. In terms of Pakistan–Afghanistan relations, General Sharif began discussions with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani in earnest as he was determined to drag the Taliban to the table. But he was thwarted on all sides by various vested interests within the two countries’ intelligence agencies. By November 2016, relations between the two countries were at rock bottom and some of the dreaded Pakistan Taliban factions embodied by the Tehreeke Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had begun morphing into the so-called Islamic State (IS) and were undertaking attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s relations with India also hit unprecedented lows, with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi bringing alleged human rights abuses in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province into bilateral discourse in response to Islamabad’s continued support for the independence of Indian-administered Kashmir. The dispute was inflamed again on 8 July 2016 after Indian forces killed the young militant Burhan Wani — condemned by most Indians as a terrorist yet hailed by most Kashmiris as a freedom fighter.
On a more positive note, 2016 marked a huge step forward in Pakistan’s counter-terrorism campaign, beginning with the anti-terror Operation Zarb-e-Azb. The operation targets those terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda and IS in the Waziristan region, with security forces managing to take out hundreds of hard-core terrorists and bust sleeper cells across the country. Terror related deaths fell from an average of 633 fatalities in January 2013 to 245 fatalities in September 2016. But in a recent report, the US Commander of international forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, revealed that the Pakistan–Afghanistan region still had the highest ratio of terrorists in the world.
Pakistan’s economy received a boost in 2016 with the promise of US$46 billion worth of comprehensive infrastructure investment and development through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Chinese funding for infrastructure and energy projects makes up some of the much needed foreign investments, which dried up over a decade ago because of Pakistan’s security crises and the controversial US-led ‘war on terror’.
CPEC has galvanised most Pakistanis despite some reservations about transparency and lack of accountability. The ruling civilian and military elites deem it a God-sent opportunity as it comes with the potential for cheap Chinese loans, infrastructure investment into accessing the Arabian Sea, export-oriented production facilities and a possible permanent naval base. According to most Pakistanis these opportunities have turned CPEC into a game-changer for Pakistan.
During 2016, Pakistanis remained preoccupied with the corrupt practices of the ruling elites, including the family of Prime Minister Sharif. The controversy erupted in April when the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca mentioned Sharif family names in the Panama Papers. Sharif’s advocates initially claimed that the London properties that were called into question had already been cleared in cases brought against Sharif during the early 2000s. They also denied that any laws had been broken, providing explanations about how the property came into his family.
The case eventually landed in the Supreme Court, where Sharif’s lawyers changed their tune by presenting a letter from a Qatari prince, stating that his family had transferred the apartments to Sharif’s children at no cost as part of an old business settlement with his father.
Whatever comes of the legal battle in the Court, this particular case has demonstrated the complexity of the country’s socio-political transition from military rule to a functioning democracy. The larger picture of 2016 is one of a country that has managed to contain repercussions of over a decade of bloody violence and is on the way to economic revival and recovery.
Imtiaz Gul is Executive Director at the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2016 in review and the year ahead.