ABSTRACT
Pakistan remains a land of missed opportunities. A fl edgling democratic system is emerging from relatively free and fair elections. Yet, old-style party politics is still struggling to protect incumbents even as some 190 brand-new members of the National Assembly, who came on board in May 2013, have begun the process of carving a new system from the country’s benighted politics. The surprisingly large majority for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) group of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif defi ed all predictions, even within his own party. Pakistan faces an uncertain future as it searches for stability and growth. The list of challenges facing the country, which has leveraged its geostrategic location ever since its painful birth in 1947 from the partition of British India, is long and growing. A burgeoning population, a huge energy crisis, declining environmental conditions, water stress, poor governance arising from a fractured system of governance, and external and internal threats have led to a pall of fear and suspicion. Pakistan fears hegemony from a growing India to the east and faces a potential disaster in the wake of the end of the coalition-led war in Afghanistan if that country descends into chaotic civil war. Pakistan also faces a massive internal insurgency in its western border region and growing militancy in the hinterlands.
