www.electionin.org

Party : All Pakistan Muslim League
Symbol : Tiger
Name of Party Leader : Muhammad Ali Saif

Home Page : http://apmlpak.com/

APMLPAK Official Website

Pervez Musharraf – A Profile
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf held, what the Time magazine described as“the world’s most dangerous job’ playing a crucial role in the global war on terror. Musharraf held the office of the Chief Executive of Pakistan from October 1999 to November 2002. Thereafter, he was President of Pakistan till August 2008.

Related : All Pakistan Muslim League Make a Contribution : www.electionin.org/11.html

President Musharraf survived several assassination attempts; a few were close encounters with death. Undeterred, Musharraf continued his fight against terrorism and extremism to rid his country of this twin menace, which had taken roots in Pakistan in the post- Afghan war era of the 80’s.

President Musharraf’s vision for Pakistan as a progressive, modern Islamic State draws its inspiration from the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. As a young four-year boy Musharraf and his family left their generations old family home in the Mughal part of Delhi in August 1947, following a dream so assiduously realized by this great leader Jinnah.

The saga of independence and separate homeland for the Muslims of the sub-continent were deeply etched in young Pervez Musharraf who only remembers a few glimpses of the journey of his family in pursuit of the dream of independence and freedom. It was a journey of blood and tears, the only hope was the dawn that would allow people to breathe in freedom and shape their own destiny. These were indeed the defining years in Musharraf’s life.

The seeds for struggle for independence were sown with Sir Syed setting up a center of excellence to impart modern education to the Muslim youth, was deeply embedded in the Musharraf family, so was the ideology for a separate homeland for Muslims so movingly articulated by our great national poet and philosopher Allama Iqbal in his lectures, prose and above all electrifying verse.

Constituencies

** Azad Kashmir
** Balouchistan Province
** FATA
** Federal Capital Islamabad
** Gilgit Baltistan
** KPK (NWFP)
** Punjab Province
** Sindh Province

Achievements

Pakistan’s Performance / Achievements 1999-2008 :
A government or a leader’s responsibility/performance must be gauged through a simple definition of “Ensure the security, progress and development of the state and welfare/ well being and its people.” I would like to base my achievements in the crucible of this definition.

Progress & Development of State

Economy :
No development in any country is possible unless its economy is healthy and growing. I turned Pakistan’s economy around from a defaulted state in 1999 to one of the N11 (next eleven) economically vibrant countries of the world in 2006-7. The following data substantiates this land mark achievement.
** Pakistan’s GDP grew from $63 billion to $170 billion at an average rate of 7% per annum
** Our foreign debt was reduced from $39 billion to $37 billion. Through our international clout and prestige we managed to reschedule our debt reducing our debt service liability from $5 billion annually to $2 billion per annum. Thus our critical debt to GDP ratio was reduced from an unhealthy 101% to an envious 52%.
** Our fiscal deficit was brought down from 8% to 3%. This was done by cutting on expenses through freezing defense budget for 3 years, reducing establishment’s cost of running the government and also drastically reducing subsidies to mis performing government corporations. On the earning side we miraculously increased revenue collection from Rs 308 billion to over Rs 1 trillion in 2007. Such spectacular increase in revenues allowed the public sector development projects (PSDP) funding to increase from Rs 90 billion annual average in the whole decade of 90’s to Rs 520 billion in 2006-7.
** Foreign Direct Investment was increased from partly $400 million in 1999 to $8.4 billion in 2007.
** Remittances were increased from $1 billion to $6.4 billion.
** Exports rose from $7.8 billion in 1999 to a record of $18.5 billion in 2007.
** Per capita income of Pakistanis rose from $430 to over $1000.
** Karachi Stock Exchange Index soared from 1000 to over 16000.
Communication Infrastructure was our next area of focus. The vision developed was to connect Pakistan regionally with Iran, Central Asian Republics, Afghanistan and China. Within Pakistan to develop good inter provincial connectivity and within provinces, inter district connectivity and finally at the lowest level within districts have an elaborate network of farm to market roads. The road infrastructure was substantially enhanced.

GDP :
** GDP growth, which was 3.9% in 1999-00, grew at an average rate of 6% per annum during the period from 2000-07.
** Total GDP, which ranged between Rs 769.7 billion (1988-89) and Rs 2,938.4 billion (1998-99), registered an enormous growth during the last 8 years and ranged between Rs 3,826 billion (1999-00) and Rs 9,970 billion (2006-07).

FDI :
** Total FDI during 11 years from 1988-99 amounted to US$ 4.87 billion. The same during the subsequent 8 years registered enormous growth and amounted to US$ 13.195 billion.

Stock Market :
** Growth of stock market ranged between (–) 44.7% (in 1997-98) and 219.1% during 1988-99.
** As against KSE index of 1,257 points on 12th October 1999,
** it was 13,772 in 2006-07.
** As against market capitalization of Rs 334 billion on 12th October 1999, it was Rs 3,980 billion at the close of financial year 2006-07.

Remittances :
** As against US$ 1.06 billion received during 1998-99, US$ 5.5 billion were received during 2006-07.

Roads :
** M1 (Peshawar-Islamabad), M3 (Pindi Bhattian-Faisalabad) and M4 (Faisalabad-Multan) were made. Sialkot-Lahore Motorway was initiated.
** N5 (The National Highway or the GT road) was dualised from Peshawar to Karachi.
** A beautiful 750 KM Coastal Highway from Karachi to Gwadar was started and completed in record time.
** A major 950 KM highway linking Gwadar to Ratto Dero in Sindh was initiated to be completed in 2009. This would have linked Gwadar to RCD Highway, Indus Highway and the National Highway N5.
** The mountainous Northern Areas were interlinked with each other. Chitral was linked with Gilgit through a metalled road over Shandur pass. Gilgit was linked with Skardu through an alternative picturesque road via Bunji-Astor-Chilum-Deosai Plains. Abbotabad and Kaghan were linked with KKH over Babusar pass meeting at Chilas.
** The age old yearning of Chitral to be linked with KPK through an all weather road was realized through construction of the Lowari tunnel.
** Kohat tunnel was also made to ease traffic from Peshawar to southern districts of KPK.
** Baluchistan was linked with Punjab through the Quetta-Loralai-DG Khan-Multan Road and with KPK through the Quetta-Zhob-DI Khan Road.
** Lahore-Faisalabad and Lahore-Sialkot expressways were built.
** In lieu of M10, the Karachi Northern Bypass was constructed easing heavy vehicles traffic within the city.
** Roads within Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Sialkot, Multan and several cities/towns were substantially improved.
** Innumerable inter district/intra provincial roads under provincial government and intra district farm to market roads were made under the district government.

Railway :
It was decided to gradually shift to Railways as the main mean of transportation for goods and people thus, taking off the load on roads. To this end, complete dualisation project of the railway line from Karachi to Peshawar was launched. We also initiated conversion of old meter gauge lines into broad gauge railway lines. Innumerable locomotives, passenger coaches and goods bogies were inducted into the railway enabling new trains to be started and ensuring faster move of cargo/goods. Pakistan Railway was substantially improved in service and efficiency.

Port – Gawadar :
The vision of Gwadar as an alternate seaport for Pakistan was achieved. Actions were initiated to convert Gwadar into a regional container terminal and a major ship repair facility. Town/infrastructure development plans were initiated for Gwadar to handle all commercial/trade activity and also development as a virgin tourist resort. A five star Pearl Continental hotel was inaugurated at the most picturesque Hammerhead location.

Airport :
The stalled Lahore Airport plan was restarted and completed as a beautiful Allama Iqbal Airport. A new Islamabad Airport project was also launched and a new airport at Sambrial(Sialkot) was built. Besides these the Multan airport was expanded considerably.

Agriculture :
Pakistan is an agrarian country with 60% of its population living in rural area and depending on agriculture, livestock and dairy. Therefore agriculture development forms the backbone of both human development and economy. Our focus on agriculture remained high. Optimizing water management remained high on our agenda. Following major development plans were undertaken.

Water Courses :
Project for brick lining of all 86000 water courses of Pakistan was undertaken at a cost of Rs 66 billion to ensure availability of water at tail ends and preserving the existing water resource of Pakistan against seepage/waste.

Dairy & Cattle Farming :
Pakistan is the fifth largest milk producing country in the world. But we have not optimized our output. We therefore initiated a “White Revolution”. We introduced a milk collection and storage system through the private sector. Nestle opened its biggest Milk storage plant in the world in Kabirwala, Punjab. We also introduced artificial insemination and embryo transfer technology for improved breeding of cows and increasing their yield.

Agricultural Loans through Commercial Banking System :
Private Banks were facilitated to extend loans to farmers. This increased agricultural loans from Rs 35 billion being given only by Zarai Traqaiti Bank Limited to Rs 170 billion being extended by all banks. Banks were also restricted to a maximum loan ceiling of Rs 5 lacs so that the small farmers benefit the most. An ingenious idea of giving revolving credit to small farmers was introduced which allowed them a loan ceiling within which they could borrow piece meal as they required. This took them out of the strong behold of “aartees” (middle man).

Industrial Strategy :
An export oriented and import substitution industrial strategy was formulated which also involved diversification of products and markets. SMEs were especially encouraged, Sunder and M3 industrial estates under public-private administrative arrangements were initiated in the Textile city at Landhi (Karachi) and Marble city at Hub, Baluchistan (off Karachi). Value addition in marble and gem stones was introduced through special mining, cutting and polishing arrangements. Manufacturing industry was encouraged in a big way enhancing our exports.

IT (Information Technology) :
Information technology was another area of our focus. In the year 2000, internet and fiber optics connectivity was restricted to merely 40 cities of Pakistan. In 6 years we increase this to 2000 cities/towns. This brought about an IT boom with again hundreds of thousands of jobs created for the educated youth of Pakistan.