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AS the PTI government has gone past its first year in office, it is abundantly clear that some of its main electoral promises will remain unfulfilled. Agreed that political parties often make a large number of unrealistic pledges during election campaigns to win over votes, but once in office start trimming this list to reflect the ground reality and focus on the deliverables.
Take, for example, PTI’s pledges before last year’s election that on coming to power it will embark on a massive employment generation programme that would yield 10 million jobs, and a house building exercise which would deliver five million low-cost homes to the homeless.
The PTI may have inherited a huge current account deficit and an overvalued rupee, and needed to address both these critical areas, but surely its economic task force earlier must have known this as most of the statistics were in the public domain.
It must have taken note that the deficit may also have had something to do with the huge foreign exchange outlay for a one-off spend to enhance power generation capacity because power cuts were taking a heavy toll on manufacturing and causing misery to the domestic consumer.
In fact, PTI’s predecessor, the PML-N, was largely elected to office on the pledge of ending load-shedding which peaked during the previous PPP government whose mismanagement, coupled with a judiciary which was scuttling each of the latter’s quick fix projects, created a crisis-like situation.
On coming to power, rather than show maturity and self-confidence, the PTI started to resemble a nervous wreck, a rudderless ship.
Then of course there were also the outflows related to certain CPEC projects, including power. I suspect what the PTI’s inexperience and its own and its backers’ over-exuberance for the so-called process of accountability was one of the main factors that undermined the party’s own agenda.
Its inexperience came into play when it went a bit too far in criticising its predecessors, which may have been a legitimate strategy while it was in the opposition. The PTI almost created the impression that the PML-N’s ‘corruption’ had damaged the economy beyond repair. This led to panic.
Most economists will tell you how significant a role psychology plays in hard-core economy-related issues. On coming to power, rather than show maturity and self-confidence, the PTI started to resemble a nervous wreck, a rudderless ship.
The situation was not helped by the man in charge who saw his over two-decade-long struggle in the opposition finally reaching fruition. The prime minister publicly claimed ignorance on key economic decisions such as devaluation — “I first heard of it on TV”. This did not help.
It eroded business confidence. Of course, at some point it is widely believed that the army chief offered help and the prime minister readily accepted the offer. A new finance team was inducted which followed the IMF diktats in letter and spirit. The result: a contraction of the economy to curtail demand.
The knock-on effect on the growth rate has been dramatic and it has nosedived. Even official stats are currently suggesting that economic growth is now almost being nullified by the population expansion and not outpacing it as it should to remain in positive territory.
Like the economy and foreign and internal security policies, the PTI has abdicated its responsibility in some key areas and deferred to the wisdom of its ‘on the same page’ partner. Such a policy won’t be without consequences.
Nobody is suggesting that the PTI’s job creation and affordable housing projects were going to be delivered in its first year in office but even the most dispassionate, neutral of observers are expressing doubts that the party can deliver even a third of its targets during its entire term in office.
Rather than dither between looking in charge and looking people in the eye, via a PTV camera, and making tall claims and then taking the plea ‘I did not know’ or ‘heard it on TV news’, the PTI leadership needs to work hard to expend its energies in areas where it can make a difference.
The path to power in Islamabad lies via the most populous Punjab province. With a contracting economy, jobs will be lost, and the dramatic bouts of devaluation have created such inflationary pressures on the (nearly non-existent) budgets of the shirtless that public anger is rising.
In such an environment, for the PTI government to add insult to injury to the masses by not reining in a police force whose culture of violence is frankly now one of its most recognisable defining features seems not only callous but suicidal.
When jobs, food and shelter cannot be delivered and yet the Salahuddins of this world have their lives beaten out of their bodies; when the whole truth about the Punjab CTD’s encounter with ‘Daesh’ terrorists, in which a couple and their 14-year-old daughter were also shot dead in cold blood, becomes public; and yet there is not one step towards PTI’s planned police reforms, the situation can’t portend well for the party.
It cannot be stressed enough that accountability of the corrupt must continue unabated to the point at which it starts to look like a one-sided witch-hunt, a hounding of political opponents, where justice is not seen to be done. At this point it must stop, or the exercise becomes counterproductive.
With powerful backers, the PTI is confident on weathering any storm. It seems to have reinforced itself by the recent extension given to the army chief. However, all one need do is cast a cursory glance at history to know how fickle some of these props are.
The PTI may not be capable of delivering on mega projects. What it can do, and this will go a long way in re-establishing its credibility, is to ensure that those with very little to eat are at least treated with a little dignity by law-enforcement officials and bring to an end the culture of impunity.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2019
