Pakistan’s recurrent balance of payments constraints is an outcome of the perennial political economy crisis facing the country ever since its inception. The turbulent developments of the last several months conclusively — as if we needed more evidence for that — underscore that political success is dependent upon the support of the country’s military establishment that controls the powers to make or reject crucial decisions affecting the present and future of the 220 million people.

Even though the six-week-old Shehbaz Sharif government has come into power by forcing out Imran Khan through a constitutionally-mandated vote of no-confidence, nobody believes that the coalition did not have the tacit support of the establishment. That’s not the end of the story.

The recent events and statements of those who are part of the coalition have spawned the impression that the new government was brought in with the ‘limited mandate’ of taking the difficult unpopular decisions for cleaning up the economic mess and clear the way for a caretaker setup to hold — or not — early elections.

Any infringement of that mandate would draw a reaction and be prevented immediately by those who remotely control political parties. If the Supreme Court’s ruling, barring the (political) authorities from transferring and making new appointments in high-profile cases related to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as well as those heard by special courts in a suo motu case last week, is not a corroboration of that, what is?

Can a government risk its political capital by taking hard decisions when it is not even certain if its rule would last a month or 15 months?

The coalition government had last week said it intends to complete the remaining term of the assemblies and will not go to early elections, as well as pledged to take the difficult, unpopular steps needed to put the economy back on the rails. Initially, the government’s dithering on crucial decisions was attributed, and rightly so, to the lack of homework done by the coalition partners as they were too busy toppling Imran Khan. On top of that, the PML-N, which is leading the coalition, had — and probably still has — two divergent opinions on how it wanted to tackle the economic slide.

But now that it’s understood to have tackled its differences, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his party find their hands tied behind their back, with the PTI on the roads to force early elections and the establishment rumoured to be putting together a ‘caretaker set up to replace the coalition’ once it has taken the crucial decisions, including reversal of fiscally unsustainable subsidies on petroleum and electricity.

Little wonder then that the coalition government is looking for ‘guarantees’ from the powerful establishment that the current setup will be allowed to complete the remaining 15 months of term before it makes any unpopular decisions.

This feeling was voiced by the former prime minister and senior PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during his appearance on a TV show last week when he said ‘his party should quit the government if other stakeholders (read military establishment) did not own the difficult decisions that must be made to save the economy’.

Likewise, Rana Sanaullah, the interior minister, said the government was ready to revive the economy but warned that “if our hands were tied, the responsibility (for the consequences) will rest with those who had imposed Imran Khan on the country”. Who would not agree with them given the enormity of the economic and other multiple challenges facing the country?

That Pakistan is fast running out of time for stopping the economic slide amid the ongoing fight for power and soaring political tensions demands an end to the uncertainty around the future of the coalition.

The band-aid measures like the curbs on the import of certain items considered non-essential, which would have a negligible impact on the nation’s burgeoning import bill and its balance of payment troubles, will not help.

Pakistan needs to make bold decisions to boost its struggling economy. For the success of ongoing negotiations for the restoration of the Inter­national Monetary Fund progr­amme, the government must lift the cap on energy prices as a first prior action. But can a government risk its political capital by taking such hard decisions when it is not even certain if its rule would last a month or 15 months?

Pakistan is no stranger to political instability. Nor are politicians unfamiliar with uncertain, truncated tenures in power. Nonetheless, the current instability has come at a time when the nation needs a strong government to take politically costly decisions to tackle the unprecedented economic challenges, which, if delayed further, will only add to the sufferings of the average Pakistanis hit hard by hyperinflation of the last three and a half years.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 23rd, 2022