It was a dramatic year in Pakistani politics that saw five
prime ministers in quick succession, the forced resignation of the president, a
midterm general election, and the chances of a stable two-party political sys-
tem emerging in the country. The politics showed elements of both con-
tinuity and change, leaving an analyst bewildered about the long-term
prospects of the system’s stability. The political crisis, on the one hand,
again showed the centrality of the civil-military axis in Pakistani politics,
which has been of primary significance in understanding all political changes
in the country since 1953, but on the other hand it also revealed remarkable
restraint by the military in not making an overt intervention, a courageous
and unprecedented assertion of the judiciary against the military-bureaucratic
establishment, and an increasingly mature public opinion that made its weight
felt on the political scene. The economy went through its worst period in
many years, due both to natural forces and political uncertainty. The nation’s
foreign policy underwent a painful readjustment to the post-Cold War era;
decision-makers, having learned tough lessons of the “new world order,”
eventually turned to a vigorous diplomacy at the regional level.
Author(s): Tahir Amin
Source: Asian Survey , Feb., 1994, Vol. 34, No. 2, A Survey of Asia in 1993: Part II (Feb.,
1994), pp. 191-199
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645122