Anjum Ibrahim
Jalsa’s English translation is fun, so notes Wikipedia, and gives a reference of a 2008 Telugu action comedy. In an Urdu-English dictionary four English words were noted for jalsa: fete, jamboree, rout or sitting. Rout it was certainly not, but Imran Khan’s jalsa conformed to three out of the four jalsa definitions.
The mood of the crowd, as always during Imran Khan’s jalsas, was one of celebration - fete or jamboree. It was also a sitting, albeit limited to the delivery of the speeches by the leadership; and to be more precise it was a demonstration of strength, of anger at the Indian Prime Minister for his recent belligerent remarks and actions as well as the Sharif administration’s resistance to allowing the Panama papers to be investigated in a fair, free and impartial manner by the institutions that are under its control. And while the Khan warned if the Prime Minister fails to present himself for accountability and the institutions fail to take any action within a month he will shut down Islamabad; yet there would be no takers for the prime minister heeding Khan’s repeated calls. So the question is what did Imran Khan achieve?
As has almost become standard normal practice in this country there is a disparity between the numbers attending the jalsa as estimated by the government or those institutions supporting the government and the organizers of the jalsa. The reason: the numbers are used as a yardstick to measure the success or otherwise of a jalsa. For the 30 September jalsa the disparity became a yawning gap with Rana Sanaullah, the Punjab Home Minister estimating around 30,000 while the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf gave the figure of 980,000. Independent analysts many of who relied on television coverage to estimate the numbers attending, aware no doubt of camera manipulation, are agreed that the numbers were significant – maybe not as many as for the historic Minar-i-Pakistan jalsa but certainly not to be scoffed at. But these numbers, even if they were closer to what the PTI claimed, would not be sufficient to compel the Sharif administration to allow a non partisan investigation into the Panama papers or indeed set the stage for toppling the Sharif administration – legitimately elected or not.
This is in spite of the fact that civilian governments have been toppled repeatedly in the past and it is relevant to note that only two civilian governments completed their full five-year term to-date – Z A Bhutto (1972-1977) and his son in law Asif Ali Zardari (2008-13) though, according to analysts, the two men were as different as the disparity between the government versus the PTI’s crowd number claims. So what accounted for these frequent falls of civilian governments? The answer lies in terms commonplace in our politics – hidden hand, third force, and establishment to name a few.
Did the Khan have the ear of the third force in his 2014 dharna? If he did then that ear did not lend any helping hand which explains why the Nawaz Sharif government remains in power today or so argue analysts. Did the PPP’s support for the Sharif administration in parliament stave off the likelihood of the third force intervening in politics or was it the professional (translated in our political terminology as pro-democratic) stance of the incumbent Chief of Army Staff remains the subject matter of many a debate around the country. Be that as it may, the obvious question today is does the Khan have the ear of the third force today? And if so what has changed since 2014?
There is ample evidence that government institutions’ performance has declined during the tenure of the Sharif administration. The World Economic Forum’s recently released Global Competitiveness Report 2016-17 must be a source of concern. The following is the ranking of Pakistan’s institutions that should have investigated the names of all those that appeared in the Panama papers particularly the family of the Prime Minister who surely due to his position must exhibit higher standards than the rest of us: Securities and Exchange Commission ranked 106 in 2016-17 – a decline from 93 in 2015-16 which in turn is a significant decline from 51 in 2014-15; Auditor General of Pakistan’s ranking declined from 117 in 2015-16 to 121 in 2016-17; National Accountability Bureau’s ranking was 117 last year, very low by any standards, but its ranking was not available for the current year though one would be hard pressed to argue that it has improved; and State Bank of Pakistan’s ranking declined from 99 in 2015-16 to 101 in 2016-17. Unfortunately, ranking for the Federal Board of Revenue was not available in the report however the personal attacks by the FBR Chairman, a bureaucrat, against Imran Khan were inappropriate in spite of the latter’s serious accusations against the Chairman; one would hope that the Chairman as a government servant not make derogatory remarks against a political leader but instead files a defamation suit in the court. Judicial independence according to the ranking declined from 57 in 2012-13 to 67 in 2013-14 to 82 in 2015-16 to 88 in the current year.
The parliament, the forum that has been used by other countries leaders whose names appeared in the Panama papers, has a PML-N majority and in Pakistan’s case, as perhaps in most Subcontinent politics, the majority party stands united in protecting the leader of the House irrespective of the veracity or otherwise of any charges. In other words the leader can simply deny the charges and does not have to present irrefutable evidence to either the parliament or to those vociferously defending him. His word alone is deemed sufficient which is what the Prime Minister did with respect to the Panama papers but this approach needs a revision given a vibrant media today.
However, what is deteriorating at lightening speed in this country – and has certainly changed from August 2014 – is the reliance of the government on borrowed money. The Finance Ministry is at pains to refute claims that 73 billion dollars is the public external debt maintaining correctly that it is not liable to pay for private sector and bank borrowings. However foreign exchange reserves that cover both external public and private sector debt are required by a country. And while the Dar-led Finance Ministry adds on the private sector foreign exchange reserves held in commercial banks as part of the country’s foreign exchange reserves - against international practice - yet he refuses to accept the private sector’s foreign liabilities as foreign debt. Be that as it may, a word of caution is advised: the foreign exchange reserves are largely debt enhancing, so stated the International Monetary Fund’s mission leader; and the Dar-led Pakistan Bureau of Statistics changed data from over two years before it took over power and at present gives provisional data for two years ago for even external debt which simply fuels concerns over the extent of data manipulation.
Domestic borrowing was 7638.1 billion rupees in 2012, the last full year of the PPP-led coalition government which rose to 9521.9 billion rupees in 2013 (and it is relevant to note that Dar procured 400 billion rupee loan on the second last day of that fiscal year to retire the circular debt); by 2016 total government domestic borrowing rose to a whopping 14020.4 billion rupees or a rise of nearly 84 percent from 2012 – a rise that must be a source of serious concern especially as all we can show for it is higher current expenditure.
Once the international price of oil begins to rise, and with the recent agreement by OPEC countries to limit production this is highly likely, the government would have no fiscal space left. In addition with remittances flattening out, part of a global trend, and exports declining continuously due to Dar’s overvalued rupee as a means to understate the external indebtedness, and given Dar’s penchant for procuring foreign loans/issuing bonds at well above the global rate, the country’s indebtedness is fast rising. At present road shows to issue another 750 million to one billion sukuk are ongoing and if the rate is around 6.5 percent as before then the debt repayments would further rise in the current year putting further pressure on our reserves. If borrowings either directly from bilaterals/multilaterals or through issuance of high interest bearing bonds continue at the current pace the country could well land itself in a debt trap.
To conclude, evidence that the economy is much worse off today than it was during the 2014 dharna and that is where the Prime Minister is most vulnerable though that is where, sadly, he allows himself to be the most misled.
