The new neighbour

India should engage with Mr Sharif, but not without caution

Pakistan's political landscape, famously fragmented, has nevertheless thrown up a clear winner in the recently concluded general elections: the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of Nawaz Sharif, twice former prime minister. The PML(N) is expected to get, once the dust settles, close to 130 of the 270-plus seats being contested; with the support of a reasonable number of independents and a sizable fraction of the 70-odd nominated members of the National Assembly, a relatively stable government seems assured. After five years of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalitions that managed to stay in power but were unable to stop Pakistan's economic slide or to forcefully confront the sectarian and fundamentalist terrorism that is tearing the country apart from within, much is expected from Mr Sharif's government. While his previous two tenures in Islamabad were not marked for their efficiency, his brother Shahbaz Sharif's provincial government in Punjab province has made a reasonably favourable impression, thanks to its pushing large infrastructure works in particular.

Mr Sharif's task as prime minister, however, will be an order of magnitude more difficult than running a province would be. Severe energy shortages resulting in power cuts of over 18-20 hours a day and inflation hovering between 11 and 25 per cent are two major domestic economic challenges, made more difficult by widespread corruption. A prerequisite to getting the economy back on the rails is to tackle the deteriorating security situation, ravaged as it is by insurgency. He will also have to keep an eye out for threats not yet on the horizon - for example, serious challenges to Pakistan's federalism. For all its faults, the PPP was clearly a national party, which could win seats in all four of Pakistan's provinces. In this election, it has been wiped out in Punjab, and reduced to only its pocket boroughs in rural Sindh. The former Northwest Frontier has selected Imran Khan's party; Balochistan, which largely boycotted the election, strongly supports Baloch nationalists. And Mr Sharif will be in the odd position of running a government with practically no seats from outside his province of Punjab.

Mr Sharif's boldly Punjabi identity, however, represents a peculiar danger for India: that the loving legends of unified pre-Partition Punjab will once again take over the relationship between India and Pakistan. New Delhi and Lahore, cities twinned by demography and history, are particularly susceptible to allowing this emotion to ride roughshod over real concerns. Rather than viewing Mr Sharif's ascent with uncritical enthusiasm, it would be well to remember that, first, Mr Sharif was prime minister when the Pakistan army tried to occupy the Kargil heights in 1998 - what he knew about the operation, and when, remains disputed to this day - and second, that he retains close political links to the same fundamentalist parties that support attacks on India. He has emphasised peace and economic relations with India on the campaign trail, true; but history warns against India embracing these statements wholeheartedly.

However, it is also worth noting that much has changed since Kargil; most importantly, a man who once was a protege of General Zia has turned decisively against the army after he was ousted in a coup by Pervez Musharraf. Meddlesome elements in Pakistan's military establishment have limited their interference in the transfer of power to allowing their proxies in the Pakistani Taliban to prevent the more secular parties from campaigning, and through tacit support for the populist Imran Khan. But Mr Sharif is unlikely to continue the cosy arrangement of non-interference in security issues that President Asif Ali Zardari has with the army - he, too, has been burnt once before. India, while remaining cautious, must be prepared to swiftly reward any moves towards greater economic closeness - the one thing that the India-obsessed Pakistan army most justly fears.