Destination Pakistan

PAKISTAN’S power elite, particularly those within the security structures, has rarely lacked confidence, maintaining an optimism that ground realities seldom justify. Over the decades, the sources of this self-assurance have shifted, from military might to the country’s critical geopolitical location, and now to physical resources, chief among them the critical minerals concentrated in the turbulent province of Balochistan.

What remains constant is not the source of hope, but the elite’s persistent unwillingness to reconcile it with Pakistan’s actual sociological, political and economic indicators, which tell a far less reassuring story.

The power elite might not have been surprised by the European Commission’s latest report on the implementation of the GSP-Plus, which flagged certain compliance issues. This latest assessment comes at a time when Pakistani exporters enjoy preferential access to the European market in return for implementing 27 international conventions covering human rights, labour rights, environmental protection, climate action and good governance.

The European Union, which counts Pakistan among the top beneficiaries of its Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus, emphasised that the country would have to overcome certain shortcomings to qualify under the revised framework.

The EU report will hardly impact the power elite’s attitude towards its record on human rights, the rule of law, justice, freedom of the press, and democracy, as it appears to neither believe in these values nor see democracy as a system that best suits the country. Its sources of inspiration lie elsewhere: China and the Gulf monarchies fascinate Pakistan’s elites far more, and their authoritarian developmentalism seems more viable to them. Against this backdrop, they keep treating the population as subjects rather than citizens with constitutional rights.

For the power elite, compliance with Western frameworks, including GSP-Plus, regimes like FATF, and conditions imposed by the IMF is merely a tool. They believe that through such mechanisms, the West seeks to manoeuvre developing countries and keep them subservient. Consequently, they half-heartedly try to fulfil the minimum compliance requirements to keep the West engaged and to secure their economic, and more importantly, geopolitical and strategic relevance in Western capitals.

Perhaps this arrangement suits the Western nations as well, allowing them to satisfy their own constituencies that, at the very least, the country is trying to adhere to international human rights norms.

The EU report will hardly impact the power elite’s approach to rights and the rule of law.

The power elite’s optimism is the real obstacle to building a functional democracy in Pakistan. They believe the country can score exceptionally well on economic and social indicators while following authoritarian models, and that electoral cycles every four to five years break the momentum of progress. What they fail to realise is that most autocracies fail, succumbing to severe corruption, economic collapse and human flight.

Stable authoritarian states, such as China and Singapore, have built highly professional, well-compensated, and competitive civil services, where public policy is executed by skilled technocrats rather than political appointees, a feature that Pakistan’s own model completely misses.

The power elite does not care about the political, social or security-related apprehensions the international community holds regarding Pakistan, not even those of the autocracies and monarchies it admires most.

Pakistan continues to struggle on the global stage, ranking 91st on the Fragile States Index. Categorised under the ‘Alert’ bracket, the country is wedged between Eritrea and Uganda.

Across major global governance, stability, and human rights indices, Pakistan’s performance reflects a challenging environment marked by heightened security vulnerabilities and political volatility.

The Global Terrorism Index paints an even grimmer picture, placing Pakistan at the very top as the nation most impacted by terrorism globally, followed by Burkina Faso at number two.

Pakistan has been combating terrorism and political violence for the last two and a half decades. This prolonged struggle makes it a unique case; other nations that were once heavily ravaged by similar forms of violence, such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have long since seen relative improvements in their indicators.

Similarly, Pakistan’s standing on the Freedom in the World index is unsurprising, with a low score of 32 out of 100 and further decline expected. In this landscape, civil liberties remain an alien concept. Pakistan ranks worse than Guinea-Bissau (which is also rated ‘Partly Free’ but scores one point higher). Meanwhile, Angola is struggling just to catch up with Pakistan’s failing metrics. Naturally, a country struggling across all major social and political indicators cannot perform well on the rule of law. On the WJP Rule of Law Index, Pakistan ranks a dismal 130th out of 143 nations globally.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, Pakistan recently underwent a significant downgrade, dropping out of the ‘Hybrid Regime’ category to be explicitly classified as an ‘Authoritarian Regime’. While the country has ideologically converged with the authoritarian models its elites idealise, it continues to fail at improving its basic economic and social indicators.

Ultimately, across all major global evaluations, Pakistan shares statistical boundaries with nations undergoing severe structural crises, military-backed administrations, or acute civil conflicts. While its legal, constitutional framework technically grants it slightly better civic space scores, such as a ‘Partly Free’ status in Freedom in the World data, which places it above authoritarian Algeria, the practical realities of high terrorism rates, state fragility and restricted democratic participation place it on par with heavily securitised states.

However, statistics, indicators and warnings by the EU are not going to change the minds of the power elite, as they still live under the illusion that the harder and more authoritarian the state becomes, the more resilient and strong the nation will grow. But what is a nation for them? Should a select segment of the elites or a common citizen too reserve the right to be part of the nation?

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026 ...