Pakistan: Disaster Relief and Political Disarray

Daud Khattak writes in Foreign Policy that in the midst of the flood crisis in Pakistan, fears of targeted killings by the Taliban have not only sent key secular leaders into hiding, but also contributed to a lack of leadership in the Peshawar province, providing “an opening for religious and pro-Taliban elements to win the hearts and minds of the hundreds of thousands in the area.” Pointing out the ineffectiveness of local and central governments in assisting the victims of the flood, Khattak argues that Islamists have stepped in and “used their relief efforts as a propaganda opportunity,” instructing locals that the flood “occurred because Pakistanis have not obeyed God or implemented sharia.” With the secular parties under threat from the Taliban, Khattar writes that “not a single elected government in Pakistan has completed its five-year term since 1988,” adding that “religious movements that keep secular parties from providing services to their constituents will only help ensure that after the next elections it will be the religious parties governing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.”