Nawaz Sharif to face 'staggering challenges' as Pak PM: Editorial

Pakistan's newly elected premier Nawaz Sharif will face a number of staggering challenges, an editorial in an American daily has said.

The editorial in the New York Times said Sharif is a fiscal conservative who favours free-market economics. His tasks are to reduce a bloated public sector, end energy shortages and persuade Pakistanis to pay taxes, without which the government cannot hope to stabilize the economy. Making peace and fostering trade with India would advance that goal, it added.

Sharif's decision to invite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India to his inauguration was an inspired beginning. But a major obstacle to effective civilian rule in Pakistan and peace with India, has been the military, which ousted Sharif in 1999, it stated.

Repairing badly damaged relations with the United States will be another major test for Sharif, who has major differences with the American government, but he has worked with the United States in the past and should try again, the editorial said.

The success of democracies and the politicians they produce depend on good governance, and it is now up to Sharif to prove that strong civilian leadership can turn things around in Pakistan, the editorial concluded.