Election manifesto unveiled: Overcoming outages, terrorism our success: Shahbaz

LAHORE: PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif on Thursday unveiled the manifesto for the 2018 general elections with protection of Pakistan’s water interests through constructing dams, expansion of healthcare and education innovations and reforms in Punjab to rest of the country, agriculture-fuelled industrialised economic growth, socioeconomic security and national security as its key components.

The PML-N manifesto envisages a foreign policy outline which essentially appears to aim for a stronger Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). It proposes even stronger ties with China and further strengthening the recent momentum gained in relationship with Russia.

While the manifesto does propose building ties with the United States, it stresses the need for a relationship being based on equality and mutuality of interest, especially regional peace.

The manifesto assumes a bigger role to play for the Third World nations, not just in the region but that to the extent of South America, and calls for elaborate relationship with the Muslim countries, especially that of GCC. Stressing the need for resolution of the Kashmir issue in accordance with Pakistan's principled stance, the PML-N has also suggested better relationship with India on terms of equality and mutual growth.

An event held at the PML-N’s Model Town secretariat in this connection was attended by senior party leaders Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Mushahidullah Khan, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Saleem Zia, Pervaiz Rashid, Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Hafiz Hafeez-ur Rehman, AJK Prime Minister Farooq Haider, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Ayaz Sadiq, Musadik Malik and others.

At the start of the function, Marriyum Aurangzeb read out a message of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif who the conspiracies by anti-democratic forces against his 1993 and 1999 governments and how he fought back with the power of people’s support. He mentioned how right after coming into power in 2013, the same machinery started working overtime to the point that the sit-ins damaged the Pak-China interests by causing delay in the visit of Chinese President Xi and defiling the image of the country.

““Vote Ko Izzat Do is not just a slogan but an article of faith for me,” said Nawaz and added that the PML-N was the only worthy successor of Jinnah’s Muslim League. The country was created on the basis of elections that lead to supremacy of people and creation of Pakistan and the PML-N had walked the path of national development and public service delivery as envisaged by Quaid.

“I have full confidence that we are on the right side of history and truth will prevail and we shall certainly overcome the challenges, Inshallah,” he noted.

Sharing the details, Shahbaz said all political parties were announcing their manifestos, but he would like to request the people to review the election manifestos of 2013 as well. ”The people of my beloved country should revisit the 2013 election manifestos of all political parties and scrutinise who fulfilled the promises made in their manifestos over the past five years, and who were the ones who only made tall claims and hollow promises. The people should realize how those who didn’t fulfil even a single one of their promises could be trusted with their fresh series of claims,” said the PML-N president.

“The manifesto is not a fiction statement, it is a sacred promise to the nation which needs to be delivered and be evaluated on,” he added.

“Although the PML-N initiated projects led to the creation of millions of jobs, I would not make humongous promises to creating hundreds of millions of jobs like Imran Khan did, but the PML-N government of the future would create an enabling environment for the foreign and local investors to create a breeding ground for employment in the country.”

He said those who really intend to keep their promises are careful about what they promise while those, like Imran, who had no idea or intention of fulfilling their promises, felt free to say whatever came to their mind.

Shahbaz said the PML-N in 2013 had promised to overcome the power crisis and fulfilled that by adding 11,000-MW of electricity to the national grid. He said 3,000-MW of electricity was part of the CPEC and another 5,000-MWhad installed with indigenous resources.

He pointed out the second largest issue of that time and a part of the PML-N 2013 Manifesto was fighting terrorism and said the country was a witness to the fact how the PML-N government fulfilled the promise and “now the streets of the country are safe and secure thanks to an extensive war against terrorism in northern areas, Karachi and other parts of the country”.

The PML-N president said if a single penny of corruption was proved in the 5,000-MW projects he would not grudge for being held accountable. Shahbaz pointed out that those who plundered national wealth at Nandipur and Chiniot were never questioned, but the PML-N leaders were being grilled in courts over and over again.

The PML-N president said he and his associates “do not mind this apparently lopsided accountability as this storm shall pass as well. But if the institutions are interested in true nation building then across-the-board transparent accountability should be practiced without any favouritism”.

“Those who are found guilty as a result of transparent, across-the-board, unbiased accountability should be rightly demonised and those who are not found guilty and have delivered to the people by saving billions of national wealth should be hailed as heroes,” he remarked.

“The system of punishment and reward should be transparent and vocal, the line between performers and plunderers should not be blurred,” stressed the PML-N president.

Shahbaz pointed out that socioeconomic security of the most-impoverished class was at the core of PML-N 2018 manifesto. The PML-N had already expanded the scope of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) from Rs 40 billion to Rs 120 billion and it planned to expand it further to Rs 200 billion. He, however, pointed out that his party was aware of the dangers of creating an entitlement society and, therefore, the PML-N had planned to attach the condition of fixing responsibility on the recipient families of this money with educating their children.

Shahbaz also talked about the health card initiative by Nawaz and said its scope would be expanded to the entire country. He listing the achievements of his party in the health sector and how the PML-N added 60,000 beds to the healthcare system in the province building hospitals in far-flung areas with CT scan machines, pathology labs and other state-of-the-art facilities in addition to massive capacity-building of paramedic staff according to international standards.

Shahbaz criticised the PTI chief and said he laid out healthcare as his top priority in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but had failed to build a single hospital or provide modern equipment at the existing facilities. He said the PTI not only failed to deliver their manifesto promises but also wasted five years of the nation.

He pledged that an initiative similar to the one introduced in Punjab would be implemented across the country with extensive use of IT to interconnect equipment with remote medical expertise to provide quality healthcare in the remote areas.

About the education sector, Shahbaz mentioned that in addition to boosting primary enrolment and sustenance numbers to unprecedented proportions, the PML-N’s Punjab government introduced the education voucher scheme that helped 2 million children get education from their neighbourhood private institutions. He said the programme would be expanded, in addition to technical education sector, adding that providing education to girls would be a priority.

In agriculture sector, he said Nawaz reduced the cost of fertilizers to half and interest-free loans were given to the farmer for the first time in the history of the country. “This programme had proved so successful that it merits expansion,” he added.

Shahbaz said the 2018 Manifesto laid out the premise for agro-based industrial vision. Rs 100 billion were spent on farm-to-market roads which boosted the revenue of the farmers in Punjab during 2013-18. “Expansion of this would also stem the growth of urbanisation,” he noted.

Stressing the need to guard Pakistan’s interests against India’s water aggression, he said there was no use crying over spilt milk and Pakistan needed to look forward to building water reservoirs which would also be source of highly-affordable electricity. He was of the view that regardless of who wins, all the political parties should come together on a single-point agenda of building Diamer-Bhasha Dam and start work on it on war footings.

He told the audience that the manifesto also laid out a framework for fresh legislation to involve banks to do their part with the government to solve the problem of public housing and thus providing homes to hundreds of thousands of families.