An uneasy lull

Published August 10, 2016
The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist.
The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist.

IN stark contrast to the days surrounding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s almost two-month-long absence from Pakistan for his cardiac surgery in London, a relative calm has seemingly returned to the corridors of political power in Islamabad. And yet, is there a lull before another storm waiting to happen? That compelling question continues to make the rounds without a convincing answer just yet.

Unlike the recent past when Islamabad’s usually chattering classes took it upon themselves to gossip about the ‘coming regime change’, some now even dare to ponder over a Sharif-led Pakistan till the 2018 elections.

And the PML-N’s seemingly vulnerable position not too long ago has received a recent lift with a PML-N victory to form the government in Azad Kashmir.


The noise from complex challenges has continued unabated.


But for the long haul, savvy students of Pakistan’s history and politics know well that it is still inadvisable for the ruling elite to become complacent about the future. Welcome to the real world of Pakistan’s politics where a recurring disquiet and fear of the unknown remain daily features.

Even after the victory bugle has been sounded from Muzaffarabad, the noise from a complex set of challenges and a spate of issues in Islamabad has continued unabated.

For the moment, it is impossible to exactly predict where the next storm will come from. What is, however, certain is that another storm is set to emerge given the inherent contradictions surrounding the prime minister’s three-year rule and the pitfalls surrounding his regime.

Notwithstanding the PML-N’s comfortable majority in parliament, there is a palpable sense of a fundamental disconnect between Pakistan’s rulers and the set of broad realities across the grass roots. The latest case on a widely publicised policy issue was indeed the haphazard manner in which the PML-N first enforced a steep rise in the tax to be charged on transactions of properties, only to retreat partially in a clumsy manner.

Economic policy, once the hallmark of Nawaz Sharif’s political rise, has been taken over by recurring ad hocism. His all too widely publicised credentials as the scion of a leading industrial-business family appear confined to the dustbin of history. Meanwhile, on a related crucial front, last years’ deadline for the annual filing of income tax returns was delayed at least five times, on each occasion for a month. The fault, as officially explained came from a bug in the IT system. But the disconnect between an area in need of critical reform and the overall management has been widely discussed as the main trigger.

Sharif has entered his fourth year in office, receiving a fillip from globally falling international oil prices which helped narrow Pakistan’s chronically out-of-control budget deficit. Meeting the targets of an IMF loan programme only became easier. But his rule has also witnessed one of the worst downturns in Pakistan’s agriculture for more than two decades, triggered initially by a global crisis surrounding commodity prices and exacerbated by the government’s failure to step in with corrective policy measures.

The contradictions between Sharif’s selective focus on urban Pakistan in areas dedicated to fancy projects like metro buses, versus the calamity-stricken farmers who constitute between 50pc to 60pc of the population, has never been more profound.

In this all-too-confused pursuit of prosperity have come recent questions over the risks to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC, worth a staggering $46 billion. Recent reports have pointed towards China’s increasing preference for the Pakistan Army to take charge of this initiative, guaranteeing its successful conclusion in the decades to come. Unfortunately, pointers from the government suggest yet another conspiracy being in the pipeline to bring in the army in a lead role, rather than conceding the government’s failure and taking subsequent corrective action.

And while the rising political temperature across Pakistan with upcoming events like the PTI’s protests may not necessarily yield immediate results, the government succumbing under the weight of its own contradictions certainly will. Not too long ago, the Panama leaks looked certain to pull down the ruling structure unless Prime Minister Sharif could negotiate a settlement with the opposition on a high-powered parliamentary investigation.

So far, neither is there a government-opposition agreement on the best way forward to resolve what has come to be popularly seen as one of the ugliest corruption scandals in Pakistan’s history, nor has the ruling structure put forward a convincing path to clean up its reputation.

Against this backdrop, Pakistanis have a right to ask if the government has any business to clamp down on undesirable behaviour such as widespread tax evasion unless the ruling class cleans up its own act first. Sadly, at the end of the day, the writing on the wall is clear — a radical change to Pakistan is long overdue but the country’s leaders are just not willing to rock an increasingly rudderless boat.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist.

farhanbokhari@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2016

Opinion

Editorial

Judiciary’s SOS
Updated 28 Mar, 2024

Judiciary’s SOS

The ball is now in CJP Isa’s court, and he will feel pressure to take action.
Data protection
28 Mar, 2024

Data protection

WHAT do we want? Data protection laws. When do we want them? Immediately. Without delay, if we are to prevent ...
Selling humans
28 Mar, 2024

Selling humans

HUMAN traders feed off economic distress; they peddle promises of a better life to the impoverished who, mired in...
New terror wave
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

New terror wave

The time has come for decisive government action against militancy.
Development costs
27 Mar, 2024

Development costs

A HEFTY escalation of 30pc in the cost of ongoing federal development schemes is one of the many decisions where the...
Aitchison controversy
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

Aitchison controversy

It is hoped that higher authorities realise that politics and nepotism have no place in schools.