Let the games begin

Politics is a game of not-so-glorious uncertainties. The end of PML (N)'s innings today marks the beginning of 55 days of uncertainty. Marinated with a richer than normal sauce of acrimony? Hopefully, and it is a faint hope, the tone has not already been set by Naeem ul Haq's backhanded slap.
In our chequered past, marked by 'alien intervention' at least once a decade, no political party (ZAB's aborted second term excepted) has formed two governments in a row. Will PML (N) manage what has never been done before? Both Pundits and punters are posturing like Rodin's 'The Thinker'.
Some see the coming days as a clash of powers: power of the Establishment and the counter- power of the people. At least Nawaz does. But in so doing he loads the dice against himself. Voters like to back the perceived winner.
The near full house, Kaptaan in tow, for the passage of the 25th amendment (FATA reforms), when only days before quorum for the budget was an issue, is a stark and timely reminder.
The extra terrestrial threat may be real or not but the incumbency factor is. People remember the out-going government for its failures, not its achievements. Power outages matter, not additions to generation capacity - especially when the height of summers and voting time coincide. Even the fun and convenience of metro buses takes a back seat.
Gallup puts Nawaz comfortably ahead, and Gallup has mostly called it right. But let's not rush to judgment. Between now and the Umpires taking the bails off a lot can happen. For one, it remains to be seen if Nawaz ducks or hooks the bouncers from behind prison walls, a prospect that many think is only toss of a coin away.
Nawaz wants the people to tell the courts they were either biased or transgressed, possibly both. He wants the people to tell the Establishment "enough is enough". He wants the people to judge him on his 'performance'. Sympathy will help but it is performance he is betting on.
Except performance is what people experience, not 'His Majesty's Voice' blared out by a supine officialdom. Some might even argue, perhaps unkindly, that for Nawaz it is a blessing in disguise that the Elections code of conduct forbids parties from projecting their government's achievements.
Promise is always a good starting point to take a crack at performance. Let's have a quick look at the party's 2013 manifesto to see how promise matched performance.
The January 2013 manifesto makes an enticing reading, the kind of wish list that none can disown. Above all, it is a primer on good governance. Governance screams through all its110 pages. Is it poetic justice, then, that poor governance is the major charge against the outgoing government?
The four Es - Economy, Energy, Extremism, and Education - headline the promise-laden manifesto. The last one, Education made all the right noises but was least heard. No 'educational emergency' was declared, nor the national literacy movement launched. 100% enrollment and 80% literacy rate remain a distant dream. Motorways 'ran out' Education.
There was clearly progress on the Extremism front. Like all successes it has many fathers but credit has to go to the government, which also had to bear the costs of its adamance. It may still be an unfinished agenda but the Rubicon has been crossed. Turning back will now be at one's own peril.
The labour put into Energy had something Sisyphean about it - rolling a huge rock up a long and steep slope only to watch it roll back. Generation capacity has been rolled up (from 15,000 to 25,000MW) but power to industry and homes keeps rolling back! Distribution remains the errant child, with transmission now the class bully.
Still, the situation is better than five years ago. Now the issue is of affordability. All kinds of numbers are being trotted out to show how much more expensive electricity is and how it makes industry even less competitive and how big a hole it is creating in the consumption basket of ordinary folks.
It is the fourth E, the economy, which lights the biggest fire. All the gains - GDP growth, higher tax and investment ratios, low inflation, credit availability - come with caveats of cost, sustainability, inequity, and direction. Most, however, concede that the economy is in better shape than five years ago, even if all the manifesto targets were missed and luck (oil and commodity prices, friends with deep pockets) helped.
That said, how do we deal with the assessment of Exotic Capital, the emerging markets specialists, who fear Pakistan could be joining Argentina as a worrying investment destination? Of the six criteria they use for screening purposes (External debt/GDP >25%; Current Account and Fiscal deficits >3%; FX overvalued >20%; Inflation >6%; Equity index at a 10% premium to price/book)Pakistan has gone over the line in at least four.
Our economic Es, where the government apologists have their task cut out, are employment, exports, enterprises (state-owned), and exclusivity. GDP growth is pointless if it doesn't mean more employment and less exclusivity (i.e. inequality). The idea of growth is lost if it cannot ensure a decent standard of living for most. The government refuses to, or is unable to, give us employment generation and poverty reduction numbers that meet the test of scrutiny.
It is a pathetic comment on performance when the Prime Minister gloats over our exports crawling back to 2013 levels! Government's priorities look perverse. It can spend billions on expansion of Expo centre (which does little for exports) and costly extravaganzas like EXPOs (all-expense-paid junkets for participants and organizers), but doesn't have the money to pay back long held up refunds!
Government neglected Exports, thinking borrowing was the cheaper option. Now that the current account deficit has read out the Riot Act the problem has been passed on.
On state enterprises looks like no one on the team read the manifesto. They were neither revived nor privatised, in the delusional hope that the problem will somehow go away. It didn't, like the circular debt didn't. Dar's vice was not heroic victory laps. He mistook fire fighting for the reforms the party manifesto promised.
As the games get under way one question to the ECP: is lota an approved election symbol? It seems to be in great demand.
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