The election campaign of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal {MMA} resonated with slogans to reverse the tide of the IMF and the World Bank funding in addition to comparable slogans against foreign domination in the field of politics.

The liberals who have remained engaged in advocacy against foreign economic domination and have at times linked it with the loss of economic sovereignty remained smug when their cause was picked up and popularized further by the clergy. They now find themselves in a bind to see that, as interpreted by some, while their economic logic may have found popular support in many quarters, it is tied with a social and political prescription that tastes conservative.

This is notwithstanding the requirement for a scientific study of the voting behaviour and the determinants of voting pattern that propelled some into the national and provincial assemblies. It will be only then that we will be able to know for sure about the factors behind the success of some. Until then, however, it is believed by many that the slogans to set us free economically and politically from foreign influence made a difference in the electoral outcome. The question, therefore, is that even if for the sake of economic independence, a conservative socio-political prescription is adopted, will it enable us to shed the dependency syndrome we breast-beat about so much?

According to the dependency school, there are cores in the West which extract surplus from the peripheries through an alliance with the cores in the peripheries with the result that the prosperity of the Western cores grows simultaneously with the impoverishment of the peripheries in the third world. It is, therefore, the core-core alliance of the world that needs to be re-configured if the dependency syndrome is to be addressed at all even in its most rudimentary form. Are the MMAs’ in a position to challenge this core-core nexus that remains at the centre of third world’s dependency syndrome in general and Pakistan’s in particular?

The fact of the matter is that the newly-elected opponents of foreign economic domination are busy forging political alliances with those very segments that provided anchors to foreign lending agencies in the not-too-distant past. They have also been quick to nominate members for the top slots in the government. Grabbing power positions appears to be as important to them as it has been to the sinful mortals always in the country.

Hypothetically speaking, even if they are able to get some of these top slots, they will then be more consumed in trying to keep the coalition intact that will have propelled them into these positions than on focusing on their election slogans, for example, “throwing out” the foreign lending agencies. Assuming that the power coalition remains intact, they will then focus more upon staying afloat economically as well as politically.

Economically, it would mean demand for more external funds and cosmetizing the economic outlook instead of providing teeth to the economy as the latter would require bold radical reform that goes off the agenda no sooner than a party or group assumes office. For, the goal of all governments thus far has been economic survival to underpin political survival. It is little wonder then that the conservative contenders for the highest office are already adopting a diplomatic tone and outlook towards the Western nations. It is not that we want to be at loggerheads with them. However, the shift in the tilt of the right indicates that even the diehard conservatives succumb to some compulsions of the office even before they get anywhere near it.

Against the above backdrop, will it be possible for the right to get anywhere near the attainment of their election slogan vis-a-vis economic life in the country? Assuming that the rise of the right is a vote against the dependency syndrome, we are nowhere near getting rid of it if power positions and the pursuit of the same result in greater capture than freedom to execute the will of the people in the sphere of economics.

Above all, the economic agenda of the new government has been pretty much pre-determined and cast in a firm mould as is repeatedly pointed out by the current finance minister who is not expected to be going out anytime soon. He further speaks with confidence about the continuity of a certain economic ‘reform’ whose benefits, if at all, are expected to reach the people only trickle by trickle at an unspecified future date. How does that jibe with the claims of the recently emerged right in sizable numbers in the assembly to roll back the IMF’s/World Bank’s agendas and end deprivation directly as a matter of priority? Given the fact that the donor-driven policy is well-positioned on Pakistan’s economic turf, one is unclear how the right will unseat this incumbent agenda.

Also, what remained unclear throughout the election campaign was the MMA’s strategy that would serve as an alternative to the IMF’s/World Bank’s free market, liberalization, and privatization strategy. With such big question marks and the MMA too busy seeking power positions, does reversal of the dependency situation appear possible? While the answer can be anybody’s guess, suffice it to say that true dedication to election manifestoes beyond the slogans would have made them go for benches in the opposition from where they could have raised an anti-dependence platform more effectively while fleshing out their own approach more surely as events would unfold.

Further, the right’s foreign policy and security outlook will only require higher and not lesser defence outlays. Their current desire to be accommodative of all those nations they have remained hostile towards until the recent past can only be viewed as posturing for domestic political gain. However, once positioned in the office, they are likely to maintain a view on Kashmir and neighbouring India that is not likely to reduce the defence outlay as a percentage of total expenditures or even revenues especially when a revenue-augmenting and/or an economic growth policy is conspicuous by its absence.

For those who believe that defence expenditures have a high opportunity cost in terms of socio-economic development (even though flourishing economies provide for defence, development, and entitlements) can be rest assured that foreign economic dependence is then likely to increase and not decrease as high deficits imply more borrowing and not less. The slogan to roll back IMF’s and World Bank’s influence may have won some votes, if at all, but cannot be executed unless backed by alternative strategy.

Alternate strategy espoused by the advocates of indigenous policies has agriculture at the centre-fold. It’s tractive effort on other sectors of the economy is then spelled out clearly. The biggest roadblocks towards meaningful steps in the above direction revolve around domestic and international political economy.

Domestic power structures pose hurdles as indigenous alternatives require a reorientation of economic and thereby political power structures which, according to the traditional or trickle-by-trickle approach, tend to appropriate most national economic gain which, in turn, enhances their political power. Their economic and political gains thus feed into each other and these exploitative structures stand reinforced. Soft third world governments—civilian and military alike—have been unable to rupture this mutually reinforcing cycle as political survival remains of supreme importance for soft third world governments irrespective of their source of power.

Since such soft governments are unable to make a dent in the socio-economic life of the country and thereby in the political spectrum too, they remain overly dependent on foreign sources of funding which they accept with conditions to keep their weak economies afloat. Foreign economic agendas thus make inroads whereby foreign economic interests are promoted mostly at the expense of domestic manufacturing or other sectoral interests. A time then comes when foreign lenders have acquired a definite stake in the debtor country, other political and strategic reasons notwithstanding. International political economy would then make it that much more difficult to emerge from the dependency syndrome. This would be especially so at a time when the developed world has additional reasons for keeping some more dependent on them for reasons of their own security too this time around. And, when deep sentiments have been stirred and surfaced in a global security environment for which they themselves may have been responsible in contemporary history but we are no less so, for our choice of the type of response given. Their stake in keeping the more threatening part of the third world dependent is, therefore, higher than before in recent times.

Getting rid of the dependency syndrome in this day and age would require a combination of not only bold domestic socio-economic policies but also an astute foreign policy with a fresh look at traditionally thorny external affairs issues. While the former is conspicuous by its absence with the rising ultra-right in the country, the latter set of policies is too conventional to help us see beyond our traditionally pet approach which sets off alarms in the world. We tend to invite more of their attention when we require less of it so as to have space within which we can then think and act independently and freely. This prerequisite towards shedding the dependency syndrome is likely to recede further with the rise of the ultra-right in the country.