AT PENPOINT
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry may have used the dawning of a New Year to wish for a dialogue with the Opposition, but it cannot escape notice that the request has come at a time when the government was struggling to get through a mini-budget through the National Assembly. The IMF had demanded the withdrawal of sales tax exemptions, mainly so as to raise Rs 535 billion. Also to go through was the State Bank amendment, also an IMF demand, where the government stood in greater need of opposition goodwill, because it was not a money bill, and thus had to be passed by the Senate too, failing which it would have to a joint sitting.
One of the problems the current government is facing is that of managing its majority. There is more than a whiff of backbench rebellion about the postponements of the voting, which centres on the sales tax exemptions withdrawal.
A Money Bill, it only needs to pass the National Assembly to go to the President for assent. That is supposed to be the reason why the party with a majority in the National Assembly gets to control the government. It controls the purse-strings, and calls the tune. It can pass the budget, which allows the government to make expenditures, including paying salaries to its employees. A Money Bill is considered a confidence issue, and a member who does not support his party on this is liable to disqualification.
That backbench rebelliousness may be what caused Cabinet to baulk at giving its approval, and it was only on the third attempt that Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin was able to carry the Cabinet. It is virtually unprecedented for the Finance Minister, with the backing of the Prime Minister, to bring anything before the Cabinet and fail to win approval. That was even more astounding in that there was no other minister acting as a focus for this objection, which might reflect an intra-Cabinet conflict. With the Finance Minister, it might have reflected some minister trying to get funds for a pet departmental project.
The disapproval was broad-based, and too numerous for the PM to use the ultimate weapon of removing dissenters from the Cabinet. Apart from the fact that no PM likes to do such a thing, for sacked ministers remain in Parliament to potentially act as sources of dissent, the PM is supposed to create consensuses and at least smooth over differences. In the present PM’s case, there is also the desire to maintain a slim parliamentary majority.
The government seems stuck, but the opposition is not being opted for not because the establishment is coy about switching support, as because it does not provide an alternative to the economy. Previously, all accepted that the economy was primary, and the argument used to be that the opposition would do a better job of managing the economy. The opposition is not making such a claim, except the rather vague one of trusting it, even though neither of the major parties have a particularly glorious track record.
Cabinet reluctance can be ascribed to members’ very real fear of losing their seats. For Cabinet members, as for sane politician, winning at the next election is the primary goal of any action, and the lens through which the action of his or her own government is viewed. Loss of one’s own seat means that, even if one’s party wins, one is omitted from the Cabinet. Therefore, it seems that members of the Cabinet saw the mini-budget as likely to lead to defeat at election time. Even if the National Assembly goes to full term, elections have to be held by mid-November 2023, which means the polls are not more than 22 months away, while the government’s tenure is not more than 20 months to its end. Even the stalwarts who are in the Cabinet realize that the mini-budget will not deliver the economic progress needed to result in an election victory.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s reaction has been petulant, with one of complete denial that there is any inflation. Inflation is an objective reality, and no amount of opposition claims will make ordinary people believe them if they claim there is inflation, if people can afford what they want. It is because ordinary consumers find that things cost more than before, that opposition claims of inflation resonate with them. As Imran will find, when his spokesmen try and convince the common man that prices have risen, he will see that they have no takers.
Inflation is an objective reality measured by the government’s own institutions, like the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Denial is eerily like the science denial that US President Donald Trump made familiar, when he said that there was no coronavirus, with the additional claims that vaccinations were to be avoided.
One of the many distinctions between the Created and Creator is that the former had to live with, and in, the reality that the latter has created. The former may affect reality by actions, but no replays are allowed. That would mean keeping quiet about inflation, not claiming that it doesn’t exist. However, this instruction is perhaps an acknowledgement that inflation cannot be spinned. Even the most eager PR master would not be able to portray the current inflation in a favourable light.
It is perhaps the nature of governance that it has to tackle the economic problem. Imran argued against corruption primarily on economic grounds. His argument was that the rulers were thieves, and the people were victims. Given an honest government, people’s economic problems would be solved. It was not just the electorate that was convinced.
The PTI may be associated in the public mind with combatting corruption, but that campaign is not in the abstract. It must translate into economic prosperity. If no one goes to jail, but the economy improves dramatically, that would be unacceptable outcome. If corruption is unearthed and punished, but the economy continues as it is, that too will be unacceptable. The present outcome, where corruption is not being punished, and the economy falls victim to rising prices, is unacceptable to the electorate, and to the PTI base within it.
It should not be forgotten that Fawad Chaudhry is one of those politicians whose ties to the establishment antedate his association with Imran Khan. He is the nephew of Ch Altaf Hussain, the onetime Punjab governor, who played such a crucial role in the 1993 political crisis, when he played a key role in reconciling the establishment with the PPP. The desire Chaudhry expressed for some sort of agreement may reflect an opinion in certain circles that enough is enough.
However, the PTI is full of those who feel that enough is not enough, that the purpose of governing is not to carry the country to a better future, but to do down Mian Nawaz Sharif. Chaudhry himself reflects this by his latest salvos against Mian Shahbaz Sharif, not for corruption, but for having given a guarantee that Mian Nawaz would return.
The government seems stuck, but the opposition is not being opted for not because the establishment is coy about switching support, as because it does not provide an alternative to the economy. Previously, all accepted that the economy was primary, and the argument used to be that the opposition would do a better job of managing the economy. The opposition is not making such a claim, except the rather vague one of trusting it, even though neither of the major parties have a particularly glorious track record.
