Grand dialogue: non-starter

Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif wants a ‘grand dialogue’ among all stakeholders to somehow keep sectors such as education, health and industries ‘above petty politics’.

In fact, the PM, like many other well meaning commentators in Pakistan, want the economy as a whole to be taken out of the sphere of politics, implying that there is some irrefutable wisdom about how to go about development without allowing politics (meaning critical thought) to intrude.

Such ideas have found traction since the decline of the Left worldwide and the wholesale embrace of a capitalist economy, disguised in such rubrics as a ‘Charter of Economy’. The fact is, however, that peeling politics away from economics is impossible.

In a class society attended by ethnic and sub-national deprivation of rights, exploitation by the federal state of smaller federating units and repression, asking for the economy to be ‘sanitised’ from politics is asking for the moon.

Economics as a science has long ago deviated from its origins as ‘political economy’, since the pioneers being intellectually honest, could not deny that political considerations and interests dictated the form of the economy and how its benefits are distributed.

In any case, given the state of political polarisation in our country since the (perfectly legitimate) ouster of the Imran Khan government, any call for a grand dialogue that rises above partisan considerations in the interests of the country (whatever one’s reservations on the logic of the idea) predictably made shipwreck on the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s (PTI’s) outright rejection of the idea.

The PTI went further in saying the only dialogue it wished to hold with the government was on fresh elections. In fact the entire thrust of Imran Khan and the PTI’s campaign since their government’s departure has been to put pressure on the government, establishment and judiciary to bring Imran Khan back into power. Unfortunately, Imran Khan’s increasing desperation, especially after the failed long march on Islamabad, has produced some outlandish statements from him.

One such was the interview in which he, Cassandra-like, predicted an economic meltdown (without of course mentioning his contribution to an economy in free fall) that would not only cripple the armed forces and roll back our nuclear deterrent, but lead to the splintering of the country into three pieces (unless of course he was reinstalled in power). One cannot help but be intrigued how Imran Khan arrived at this ‘three pieces’ scenario, given that he did not enlighten us what shape or form such a division would take or why.

Not unnaturally, such a ‘doomsday’ prediction evoked universal condemnation, with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the lead. The former has mounted a campaign of protest rallies on the issue.

Even this kind of exaggerated alarmist prognosis is unlikely (even more so) to improve Imran Khan’s increasingly thin chances of re-entering the corridors of power, particularly since neither the government (which intends to stay in office until August 2023), nor the establishment or judiciary seem to be amenable to his pleas.

The Supreme Court (SC), to whom Imran Khan appealed for safety from the government’s resolve not to let him repeat his long march, has asked for a detailed report on the previous march, Imran Khan’s actions and instructions to his followers on May 25, 2022. If the facts come out, the appeal to the SC may turn out to be a self-inflicted judicial noose around Imran Khan’s neck.

That neck is in trouble already from Federal Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah’s ‘reminder’ that the security provided to Imran Khan would ultimately be the weapon used for his arrest once his pre-emptive bail against arrest by the Peshawar High Court is vacated.

The mere mention of the possibility of Imran Khan’s arrest so incensed his PTI followers that a torrent of statements emanated from the party’s leadership warning of the reaction to any such action. One emotional PTI supporter from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) went so far as to threaten he would conduct a suicide bombing in the event his leader was arrested.

Imran Khan having returned to Bani Gala from his ‘safe haven’ in KP, the PTI reiterated they had instituted their own security for their increasingly embattled leader. This portends a possible clash between the forces of law and order of the state and the PTI’s private security for Imran Khan.

Imran Khan’s anti-corruption mantra is also not doing so well these days. Scandals are emerging regarding the alleged triumvirate of Imran Khan, his wife, and her friend Farah Khan. The government seems bent on following up this line of inquiry as well as seeking other evidence to let the air out of the morally indignant anti-corruption mantra of the PTI.

Ironically, having ‘resigned’ from the National Assembly (NA) before the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan, the PTI now intends to contest the Punjab Assembly seats of their 25 dissidents unseated by the Election Commission of Pakistan for voting against the party whip. Obviously provincial politics and the numbers game in the Punjab Assembly are the considerations on this score. But it stands in sharp contrast with the PTI ‘quitting’ the NA and arguably denying itself a feasible platform from which to pursue its campaign.

Imran Khan and the PTI increasingly seem to be reduced to ranting ineffectually, while the government is struggling to manage the economic crisis. Fifty days is too short a period to deliver final judgement on the PML-N-led coalition government’s economic performance given the mess the PTI left behind, but this government’s credibility and legitimacy will rise or fall in the weeks and months ahead on its handling of inflation and the energy crisis (particularly load shedding).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022