A dramatic drop scene indeed! Was that a dream or was it streaming live on our LCD screens? The PTI chairperson’s decision to call off the sit-in in Islamabad D Chowk, until his early elections demands met, came as a bolt from blue for friends, admirers and foes alike. After so much build-up during the month of Ramadan and May, pumping efforts into the same in all formats and then showing contentment over the so-called six-day period for announcement of the awaited date; smacks strongly of a weaker position or developments beyond control. It also points at a delusional level of narrative, where freedom seems compromised by a modern variant of the East India Company; the IMF. More worrying, the captain somewhat easily imagined that people will again be on the street after six days!
Having been booted out of the corridors of power by the deep state, which supported him in 2018, Imran has been lucky; unlike the other booted out leaders he still has a sizeable support base, especially amongst the middle-income groups of the country.
There is a dire need to have a fresh look at what the PTI leaders plan to do next. A buildup of emotions to be thrown away at a moment’s notice reflects badly on the loyal electorate. Expecting these innocent people to be again on the streets with the delusional leadership is being insensitive. For a party claiming to be a party of change, a lot of homework is needed; more than rhetoric; otherwise history is a cruel judge
That support base; besides his inflated self-respect, created a false hope that this time the usual musical chair of power orchestrated from behind the scenes, will stop. It was thought the major managers of the nation state would sit down to allow the civilian rule to chart its own way. The biggest assurance in this context was his support base and the hope that his stubbornness would help transform his profile from a politician to a political leader who can lead a change. His narrative was attracting the public and being an exceptional type of a political personality, it was hoped his public support base would do the unimaginable for Pakistan; a line-up of civil and military power sharing with the former calling the shots; an arrangement earned through sheer hard work by the Turkish political trend loyal to Tayyab Erdogan.
However; a probe into the background mechanics and in the backdrop of the issues discussed before on these pages reveals that an empty treasury was a reality, which was staring starkly at the established order, and the politicians whose lives were altered in the aftermath of April 10 shake up; for good or for bad.
Whether the PTI, PPP or PML(N) are able to win early elections in 2022 or scheduled ones in 2023; economic recovery was to remain the major headache for all the major political players; one way or another.
It may be mentioned here that faced with the dire situation, the incumbent political government is in discussion with the IMF over the resumption of the programme. The incumbents; too a political force with three times access to corridors of power, would not like to terminate their political life; yet they have been put in the centre stage to take difficult decisions. Quite interestingly, the major IMF conditionality for the resumption of the programme has been the removal of fuel subsidy; a commitment on hold since March 2022, with both the outgoing PTI and the incomingPDM coalition avoiding implementation for the fear of great public backlash; until it finally did the unavoidable; removing subsidy of Rs 30 from various POL categories.
Taking note of the political currents on the move; as things stand, the situation resembles what it was in 1993; when high-voltage political drama fueled by the restoration of the PML(N) government by the Supreme Court and the inability of the incumbent president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, to adjust to that reality forced the emergence of the “Kakar” formula. Here the players might have been different; but the situation was not so different either.
The middle of July 1993 was the period when BB PPP was planning a long March to Islamabad to dislodge the PML(N) government. The president was at odds with the PML(N) government and it was a high-degree political deadlock situation, which was to be altered in the backdrop of the IMF arrangement, the standby arrangement needed by Pakistan, which was to start in September 1993 and end in 1994. The situation was not so dire at that moment of time, but the successive dependence upon the SDRs was telling that corrective measures were needed back. The same corrective measures have now taken the shape of necessary “surgical intervention”, to say the least.
As people close to the corridors of power might know than that when the caretaker administration for the formal 18 July 1993 takeover was being finalized, the person to head the set up too was an economist; the late Moeen Qureshi. Likewise, the outgoing finance minister of the PML government too was asked about a suitable person to head the finance ministry in the caretaker capacity.
It needs to be seen that both 1993 and 2022 were the years when the Pakistani economy was settling towards an ‘on its own’ mode; and was not engaged in any Pentagon assignment. Before 1993, Pakistan had just gotten out of the Afghan quagmire. Here in 2022, it was again Afghanistan’s end of operations, which brought Pakistan back to the routine mode.
The situation is much grimmer now than it was in 1993, as the data available with the IMF might reflect upon for anyone interested in further probe. The talk of reform of the system by three major political groups in their own defined paradigms and definitions might well trigger the imaginations of the respective vote banks, but the facts of economics are too much to make out anything else.
In 1993, the situation was a routine one with no chance as such of a default; however, even then the IMF intervention to cut down on domestic debt, and increased resource mobilization in the form of a better tax collection system, were the major prescriptions to note. Here it would not be wrong to say that the civil or military governments were alive to the issues faced by the economy. The current situation also reflects badly on the political decision making capacity of the different economic players.
The Azadi March organizing leadership’s sudden volte-face after building up for months; a propped-up narrative asking for freedom or Azadi from foreign interference raises may pertinent queries. It gave no justification to the diehard followers; why the party accepted the absence of a decision and settled for assurance; is going to be a big question mark; which has the potential to dent the support base of the party.
While no political party in Pakistan can afford to look like a foreign stooge; The Azadi March leadership; without mincing words needs to soul-search; why the economic recovery, which was trumpeted after the 2018 takeover by the party, was not realized. As said before, the stakes to go to the IMF and in the meantime doing whatever is needed to correct the situation is a much greater task than imagined.
There is a dire need to have a fresh look at what the PTI leaders plan to do next. A buildup of emotions to be thrown away at a moment’s notice reflects badly on the loyal electorate. Expecting these innocent people to be again on the streets with the delusional leadership is being insensitive. For a party claiming to be a party of change, a lot of homework is needed; more than rhetoric; otherwise history is a cruel judge.
