Assem El-Kersh, in Islamabad, relays the mood of an upbeat premier Throughout his interview with Egyptian media delegation, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was very upbeat about the prospects of Pakistan's 160 million people arguing the case for a strong middle class if the micro-economic, political, social and security situation is favourable. He boasted that Pakistan is a democracy, the media is free, the parliament is active, with a vocal opposition. He used the words "pride" and "proud" more than a dozen times. His tone during the one hour interview sounded too positive, to the extent that he hardly spoke of any problems unless asked. He is eager to see the repatriation of the four million Afghan refugees. He stressed the strong economy and rising income levels. Insisting that Pakistan wants to be a moderate country, that Islam means moderation. Aziz is worried that the interfaith divide is growing. Here are excerpts: You painted a very rosy picture of Pakistan, But there are some challenges concerning the issue of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. He turned out to be a popular hero in Pakistan. Why did you choose this particular time to exacerbate this problem? And can you say if the charges against him are serious enough to arouse such confrontation and popular protest? The strength of this government, myself, the president, the whole ruling coalition is that we have said nobody is above the law. If somebody stands out then we will take action. I don't want to go into details of the case because it is subjective, but suffice to say that the action is well considered and well researched and our constitution, which is sacred, says that if a judge -- the chief justice is a judge too -- behaves in a way which is not in line then he must be taken on, regardless of who is a hero and who is not. The law is our judge, the law will take its course. Do we reject the law? Do we reject the constitution? Or we don't? Above all the judiciary is looking at the Supreme Judicial Council, so whatever they decide, we will do. It's not a big issue. Don't you think that economic reform should go hand in hand with political reform? Of course. If there is a message you can take back to the world, or to Egypt: Pakistan's reform agenda is regarded as one of the better reform agendas of any developing country in the world. Where were we seven or eight years ago, and where are we today? Politically, economically, socially, in every field. I don't have time here but let me speak about the political reform we have introduced. Local government, elected mayors, elected councillors, reserved seats for women, union ties, labour, technocrats, every sector through affirmative action at the grassroots level, then the national assembly: political party franchising as well as political reform. We are very proud of our press and political reforms. We have a situation which was created seven years ago. The country was nearly bankrupt, it was dysfunctional. President Pervez Musharraf stepped in and saved the situation and then we had our elections a few years ago, we elected the assembly which will complete its term this year, we will go into a general election and elect a leader of the house, who becomes prime minister. I got elected as leader of the house and became prime minister. Presidential elections are also coming in September so there is political reform, economic reform -- it's much more than that, social sector reform, judicial, security and agricultural reform, every aspect. In some areas we have done very well. In some areas there's much more distance to cover, but the Pakistan of today and tomorrow is not the Pakistan of yesterday. We have moved beyond many countries. Goldman-Sachs classified Pakistan with the leading mid-level countries which will influence the future of the world in the next decade. How many countries have doubled their economies in five years, or doubled their income? These are facts, facts can't lie, but the reform is much more, please don't go with the impression that it's just economic reform. We have new hands on management style in the government, to make sure that the reforms will yield results. The man on the street, the family in the village, they can feel the difference. Still, with one out of four living below the poverty line, we are moving but Rome was not built in a day, it takes time. One can't help noticing the tone of optimism in your remarks. Don't you have any problems in Pakistan? No, there are many. Our first challenge is security, law and order, we are working hard. It is improving, but we're subjected to influences from inside and outside which need to be tackled. Secondly, the social sector; we must improve the level of education, healthcare and women's rights. All these issues have to be tackled because there is no point in having prosperity if you have illiterate people. What about the foreign challenges? We do not have any. Well, Afghanistan is a challenge, yes. Improving relations with India is another. But this is not something [you cannot handle]. And pressures by Washington? They are not a challenge. Pakistan is a sovereign country, we are a very proud nation, we want to live in peace with everybody, with small powers with big powers and with our neighbours. We have a lot of conviction, our foreign policy is driven by national interests, we have said so publicly. If our national interests combine we are with you. If not, sorry, we cannot comply. How bad is corruption in Pakistan? Frankly, in this government, after a long time, you have two leaders, president and prime minister who nobody can raise a finger at. I can look you in the eye and talk to you about corruption. We are very proud of that. Why do I say so? Because we had situations where in these very rooms you heard all sorts of stories going on. Today our worst critic will say on integrity and corruption these two leaders are of course unassailable. The way to fight corruption is to change the processes, policies and systems so you don't give people the opportunity. I will give one example, I don't have time for more, we used to have an archaic tax system, one director for every area, where a person would sit there, give a return. The director would say "No", and someone would tell him "Your income is not 100 but 5,000." But now all tax returns are sent to a central place then to the computer, 10 per cent are audited, the rest are accepted. Would you believe that the tax collection has gone up 20-25 per cent a year because we removed this factor. So your international rating on transparency has improved the situation? Yes it did. But we are not happy. We still want to improve it much more. Does this apply to the sale of the steel mill in Karachi at throw-away price to the Russians? Absolutely. So why the fuss? The fuss is because the Supreme Court ruled [against the sale]. We have appealed. There is an appeal pending. And yes, the Russians are very upset because their big company was coming and everybody thought it was something we were selling for nothing but since the subject is in the courts I don't want to say much. But if you have time, get a copy of the judgement and you'll know. Do you see a situation where there will be a return to full civilian rule and an end to the role of the army in the political life? Pakistan is an evolving democracy and as you've seen, compared to other countries look at our press, our media, you can talk to the people, parliamentarians, they are criticised. We are an evolving democracy, we are a country in transition. Why did we go this way? You must understand that the country was imploding, the country was not able to function properly. We are very proud of where we have come from, what we achieved. We are very proud that someone could walk in the street and say I don't like this, nobody will knock at his door at night. We have strength. Everybody makes mistakes. You can, I can make mistakes. Some are in the national interests, it's OK. There are reports that illiteracy in Pakistan is about 70 per cent. It is close to 60 per cent. We still have to meet the millennium development goals. One of the challenges is education, illiterate nations can't develop and our Prophet said that we must seek knowledge even if it is as far away as China. We agreed to channel more money to education. The census will come out in a year or so, the information says that illiteracy is at 60 per cent. It is much better but we are not satisfied. Especially women, women's role is enhancing in our society, now there are military officers who are women, there are pilots of jet fighters, we are trying to get more women everywhere in other services. We believe this is very essential, in terms of development. The salesman? Shaukat Aziz, 58 years old, a former Citibank executive, joined General Musharraf's government shortly after the army chief's 1999 military coup, moving up to finance minister and then prime minister in 2004. Interestingly he only became a member of parliament in a special by- election in 2004 to qualify as PM. While campaigning for the by-election, his driver and eight others died in a suicide bomb attack, which he survived unscathed. Under his tenure, the economy moved from recession to a growth rate of six per cent a year largely due to debt reduction and hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and aid in return for support in the US-led war on terror. He is both credited and criticised for leading a sweeping privatisation programme.
