More attention is being paid to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s strictures on the PTI than on his remarks on the need for an ‘agricultural emergency’, during his speech to the National Assembly on the President’s address, which is perhaps unfortunate but understandable. There is much eagerness to know in which direction are things moving, for Mr Bhutto Zardari’s chances of becoming PM in this Parliament depend on the PTI independents turned Sunni Ittehad Council votaries. His accusing them of courting the very powers they criticised may have been accurate or provocative, but his calling for an agriculture compact’ among the parties opens up a new approach to the vexed question of an ‘economic compact’, whereby all parties agree to a common economic policy, so that all economic players, whether foreign or local, knew that whatever might happen politically, the policy would remain the same. This is opposed to the current uncertainty, a symbol of which is that the PTI government tried to oil out of its commitments to the IMF.
With parties offering pie-in-the-sky if elected, this would a useful corrective, and would ensure the continuity of economic policy which is attributed to one-party rule, whether approved at intervals by the electorate, as in the long period of LDP rule after World War II in Japan, or through an iron fist, as in the hold of the Communist Party on China since it took power in the 1949 Revolution. However, for competing parties to come together to hammer out and then agree to a ‘Charter of the Economy’ has so far proved impossible. Perhaps Mr Bhutto Zardari’s suggestion that agriculture be dealt with first could be extended to other sectors of the economy, with parties agreeing to follow consistent policies in one sector about which none held any strong views. True, there would be problems where one policy depended on something on which there was no agreement (agriculture would need a consistent power and fuel policy, for example), but the way out is dialogue.
There is a problem illustrated both by Mr Bhutto Zardari’s address and the PTI reaction: there must be an agreement on dialogue first. Unfortunately, so much distrust has built up that both sides will have to climb down from their stated positions before such an exercise is possible. How is the ice to be broken? Who will have to begin? These are political questions, showing only too clearly that just because politicians are dealing with essentially apolitical issues, politics will not go away.
