An Unending Turmoil

As the PTI pushes for early polls, the govt is exploring options to postpone the inevitable until economy gets back on track

Islamabad: As the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan continues to mount pressure on the coalition government for early elections, the national economy plunges deeper into a downspin, adding to the troubles of the rulers as well as the proverbial man on the street.

Riding a popular wave, Imran Khan has threatened to wrap up the two provincial assemblies where his party is in power. He is also gearing up efforts to get the resignations of some 123 PTI members of the National Assembly accepted by the speaker. The resignations have been pending since April, when the PTI was ousted from power in a no-trust move by the then opposition. They have not yet been accepted because the concerned parliamentarians have so far failed to appear before the National Assembly Speaker to confirm their exit, as required under the law.

The PTI vice-chairman, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, has now written to the Speaker, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, requesting him to fix a date when these parliamentarians can appear before him to confirm their resignations.

“No doubt, since his ouster from power earlier this year, Imran Khan has kept the government under constant pressure by building a very strong narrative that the ruling elite are corrupt, but the government’s popularity has also been dented by its failure to deliver both on the economic and administrative fronts,” says political analyst and professor at Islamabad’s Capital University of Science and Technology (CUST), Naeemullah Khan.

Imran Khan’s government apparently lost support of some allied factions, leading to its ouster in a no-confidence vote, because of what its critics say failure to deliver on the economic front by controlling inflation and a hike in the prices of essential commodities.

But under the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led coalition government, the economy has only gone from bad to worse. Inflation continues to hover at 20 percent-plus for the past seven months and counting. In fact, it smashed the past 50-year record. The economy has slumped and the country does not have enough dollars to fund its imports and fulfill its promises to the multinational companies that they would be allowed to repatriate their profits. The scarcity of dollars in the official interbank and open market has created an active black market of foreign currency which is seen as responsible for the falling remittances sent by Pakistanis working abroad.

As a result, Imran Khan, whose popularity graph had been on the decline when he was in power, has bounced back with his powerful narrative that the present rulers are incompetent and the most corrupt.

According to Naeemullah Khan, had the government shown some good governance by keeping inflation under control and bringing down the prices of essential commodities, things would have been different. The myth of the PML-N’s expertise in handling the economy as well as governance has been shattered, and this has added to Imran Khan’s popularity, he says.

As things stand, the coalition government is making a last-ditch effort to broker some kind of a deal with the PTI on electoral reforms and the next general elections, sources say.

Sources in the ruling coalition informed Bol News that by insisting on completing their Constitutional term in office before announcing elections, the government wants to buy time in the hope that it will be able to deliver some economic relief to the masses before they go out to vote in elections. But economists say that under the current macroeconomic conditions, the Shehbaz Sharif government won’t be able to deliver on the economic front and with each passing day, it will become more and more unpopular.

On his part, Imran Khan is building a narrative that the present rulers are corrupt, and that they have been given what he calls an NRO-2 (a reference to military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf’s 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance which granted amnesty to his political opponents in all their corruption cases, ostensibly by the establishment which he recently accused of going “neutral”.

On its spart, the ruling coalition has implicated Imran Khan in a case of misappropriating the Toshakhana gifts, thereby seeking to dismantle the myth of his being honest and righteous (Sadiq and Ameen). However, despite the propaganda of the government and its allied media, these allegations have failed to dent Imran Khan’s image as the Mr. Clean of Pakistani politics.

According to political analysts, the government’s strategy appears to be that of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Some of its leaders are out to malign Imran Khan by continuing a mudslinging campaign against him, while others are engaged in backdoor negotiations with the PTI to arrive at a negotiated settlement.

A central leader of the PML-N, Syed Asif Kirmani said that they had no issue if Imran Khan dissolved the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa. “We will hold elections in these two provinces, but general elections will be held on the completion of the government’s mandated term in office,” he said.

Apparently, the dissolution of the parliaments of Pakistan’s two PTI-ruled provinces, one of which is home to nearly half of the country’s population, will create pressures on the federal government to dissolve all the remaining parliaments and go for fresh elections. And that is the reason why the PML-N is engaging the PTI’s central leadership in talks by using, according to sources, the offices of President Arif Alvi.

A series of meetings held between the Finance Minister, Senator Ishaq Dar, and President Arif Alvi, failed to make any headway on this score, according to sources. However, some fresh proposals have been floated during a recent meeting with the president by   federal ministers Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Azam Nazir Tarar, the PML-N sources said, adding that they were optimistic about a breakthrough.

In a related development, Chief Minister Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, had a meeting with Punjab Governor, Baleeghur Rehman, in which matters pertaining to the functioning of the Punjab Government came under discussion. Sources describe this as a significant development, given the fact that the governor is considered as a close ally of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Commenting on the prevailing situation, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Senator, Maula Bux Chandio, said: “I don’t know whose agenda he (Imran Khan) is toeing, because all his moves are aimed at destabilizing the country. Political people are always open to dialogue, but Imran Khan refuses to be engaged in parleys because he just wants to come back in power, by hook or by crook.”

There is a general perception in the ranks of the ruling coalition that PTI will not dissolve the provincial parliaments, and that is the reason why some senior coalition leaders, like Rana Sanaullah and Javid Latif, tauntingly ask the PTI to go ahead and dissolve the parliaments, adding that in such an event elections to the two provincial parliaments would be held without going for general elections.

Constitutional experts say that there is no bar on holding separate elections to the national and provincial parliaments. But this will definitely have political implications. In case the elections of Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa and Punjab assemblies are held ahead of the scheduled general elections, then the next general elections in the said provinces will be held during the tenure of the incumbent government that could influence the elections results.

Official sources claimed that a disqualification of Imran Khan in the Toshakhana reference is “a writing on the wall”, and it will result in the disintegration of his party. So, there is a strong perception in the official circles that Imran Khan won’t take the risk of dissolving provincial assemblies.

Secondly, in case the PTI ends up going for early elections, it will have to contest under the supervision of the incumbent Election Commission of Pakistan, which it has termed as a stooge in the hands of the ruling coalition.

Under the Constitution, in case a provincial Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the relevant assembly fail to arrive at a consensus candidate for the caretaker chief minister of that province, then they will send two names each to a six-member committee to be constituted by the Speaker of the respective provincial assembly with equal representation of the government and the opposition. In case the committee also fails to evolve a consensus on a single name, the names would then be forwarded to the Chief Election Commissioner, who can then announce any one of the names forwarded to him as the caretaker.