Daily Times

A strong narrative has prevailed that alleges there was pre-poll rigging and post-poll manipulation in the July 25 general elections. As such, all stakeholders must work with the Parliament to ensure that all future elections are free and fair. All clamps on media freedom must also be removed. However, the elections are over and done, and we must now look to the immediate future. The new government is in place and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has already made his first speech to the nation as Prime Minister (PM). Some of his critics have even praised his focus on human development and governance reforms in his first address.

His compassion for the poor and passion to create a welfare state that cares for its most vulnerable citizens is certainly laudable. Someone lightly remarked on social media after Imran’s speech that it was like listening to a “NGOs workshop”. He raised many issues that civil society in Pakistan has been raising for a long time. However, his emphasis on education, health, environment and better service-delivery for the common citizen is a breath of fresh air in the pravalent political discourse. One obvious criticism is that delivery of social services like education and health are provincial or local government subjects and as PM, Imran Khan has treaded on territory that has already been devolved. Yet, the Federal Government does set the tone of the country’s overall development agenda. Still, if Imran Khan is truly committed to social and human development, it is likely to be more effectively implemented by the provincial or local governments in the three provinces where PTI is in power or an alliance partner.

In terms of women’s rights, the PM mainly talked about helping widows with their property cases, but one wishes there was emphasis on a broader range of gender-related issues

Imran’s mention of the need to curb the high maternal mortality and child stunting also needs to be appreciated. In terms of other women’s rights, he mainly talked about helping the widows with their property cases, but one wishes there was emphasis on a broader range of gender issues.

The PM also did well by bringing up the pendency issue in our justice system. He has stated that he will be working with the higher judiciary on this matter. However, he must be mindful that efforts to implement the judicial reforms have not always delivered the desired results in the past. The new government needs to spell out its policy actions about provision of much-needed justice to people in a timely manner. It might be worth emulating the examples of successful case studies from other developing countries who have been able to reform their justice systems in structural contexts similar to Pakistan.

Imran Khan’s focus on civil service, police and institutional reforms is also the need of the hour. PTI claims to have successfully depoliticised the police in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) over the past five years. Similar political will is needed to implement civil service reforms and broaden the nature of police reforms in other provinces. Shahbaz Sharif’s government has also done good work on police and governance reforms by introducing technology through collaboration with the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). The PTI government must build on the PML-N government’s successes rather than pushing the reset button.

Imran Khan’s government has appointed an advisor on institutional reforms. They must be aware that brining in institutional reforms has not been easy in Pakistan in the past. As the social science literature points out, a “one step forward, two steps backward” approach has been taken for most of our history. This is not a bottleneck that cannot be overcome. Surely, there are more effective ways to institute and sustain institutional reforms.

Those at the helm of PTI’s institutional reforms agenda need to analyse why such reforms have been resisted in the past and build-in mechanisms in their design to overcome such resistance in the future.

In terms of Imran Khan’s economic agenda, it was more rhetoric than any concrete policy proposals. However, these are early days for the government and one hopes that they will be able to add concrete policy actions to their overall vision. However, Imran Khan’s emphasis on economic self-reliance and not going around to the developed countries of the world with a begging bowl is laudable. It is about time that Pakistan decides to stand on its own two feet given its large domestic market. Dependence on external borrowing has not only ballooned the debt for Pakistan; it has at the same time tremendously increased non-development expenditure in the country in terms of servicing the debt. Given the ambitious social and human development agenda that Imran Khan has outlined, non-development expenditure needs to be cut to finance social development. Economic self-reliance and not borrowing from the developed countries is a progressive policy, even if it takes some time to fully implement it.

Imran Khan has only briefly touched on foreign policy and the National Action Plan. Given the civilian-military equation in the past, he might have felt that these areas are not effectively in civilian control. However, if Imran Khan is even able to deliver partially on his ambitious social and human development plans and institutional reforms agenda for Pakistan, it would take Pakistan as a country and its citizens in the right direction.

The writer has a social science | background and can be reached on Twitter @FoqiaKhan

Published in Daily Times, August 22^nd 2018.