Q-Mark Over Political Stability In Pak

Pakistan finally saw Imran Khan making way for Shehbaz Sharif, younger brother of former Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, as the Prime Minister. While a new Prime Minister has been elected by a rainbow coalition of Opposition parties in Pakistan, it does not bode well for political stability in the country. Shehbaz Sharif is an experienced political hand. But he would be hobbled by the same disabilities as his predecessor, Imran Khan of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf — better known as the PTI party. The Sharif family is one of the leading political-industrial houses of the country and has a wide global nexus spreading from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh to London. The elder brother of the Prime Minister-elect, Shehbaz, namely, Nawaz Sharif, is said to be talking of returning home from England shortly. While the Sharif family has power and huge financial muscles, it is also hobbled by allegations of money laundering and of handling slush funds.

During its time, the Imran Khan government had lodged several complaints against the family and cases have been fought on allegations of money laundering for a long time now. Nawaz Sharif himself was involved in such cases before he left the country on grounds of medical treatment while serving some sentences on corruption cases. To drive home the allegations of widespread corruption among the newly elevated elites, Imran Khan has resigned from the Pakistani parliament, stating that he refuses to sit with thieves and money launderers. However, the downfall of the Imran Khan government was his own making. Not having prior experience in politics, Imran Khan proved to be incompetent in managing the affairs of the state. The other reason for Khan’s downfall was that as an untested person coming from outside of established political clichés, there were expectations that he would take care of the basic needs of the people. Imran Khan had raised huge expectations of a change in the state of affairs of the country. Ironically enough, the inflated expectations were belied by the achievements of his government. This led to a situation in which the popular support base eroded and led to his downfall.

One measure of the weakness of the economy was the exchange rate of the Pakistani rupee to the US dollar. The rate is a benchmark, which is often cited as a measure of the performance of the economy. The Pakistani elites take this as the single most important benchmark for the economy. Today, the US dollar sells for 200 Pakistani rupees, which is an unprecedented level for the country and its elites. The new government of Shehbaz Sharif would have to reckon with this grim reality of economic mess. The country has little cushion left by way of a foreign exchange reserve to pay for essential imports. The humongous infrastructure projects undertaken with loans from China have depleted all foreign exchanges and yet the country has to look for more resources even for servicing its debts to China. Whatever it is, the new government is expected to have a short life term. As it is, the current parliament has just one year to go. An incumbent government will have major advantages in the elections as has been the case earlier. Even then, to win a clear verdict in a year could be a tough call unless some improvement takes place in the economy in the next year.