Daily Times

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was elected to power on a wave of populism. Its victory was grounded in the political expedience to galvanise the electorate through anti-corruption signifiers and other simplistic populist appeals.

Most of the rhetoric was devoid of substance since it did not delve deep enough into the intricacies and complexities of transformative politics. Since the relationship with voters is premised on generating emotive impulses through lofty claims, it has compelled the party to strike a populist posture long after the campaign has ended.  Given the simplistic solutions suggested for complicated riddles and the regular use of anecdotes as facts, it was always dodgy to try and turn rhetoric into action. After 16 months at the helm, the mythology built around the rhetoric has not so far translated into a discernible policy trajectory for Tabdeeli.

Foremost, the facile nature of the rhetoric has led to an incorrect diagnosis of what ails Pakistan. “The man at the top makes all the difference” proposition has formed the kernel of the narrative constructed by PTI over the past two decades.

The naive claim is that an honest leader with the requisite amount of charisma can stem the rot. There, however, is a prism of structural compulsions that lies beyond the conscious goodwill of an individual. For instance, PTI’s wildly optimistic declaration to create ten million new jobs and to achieve the grandiose goals of five million housing units requires not only resources but also a high degree of professionalism and expertise which is not just about the PM staying in charge, overseeing, supervising and monitoring.  Even a visionary leader has to work through the cabinet, party cadres, the bureaucracy and grassroots representatives. Hence radically changing the embedded institutional incentives and accountability mechanisms, for instance through civil service reform, is a sine qua non to realise the elusive goal of good governance.

Second, the incorrect diagnosis has encouraged eye-catching yet inconsequential measures and Voodoo economics to tackle chronic problems. For instance, the government has been on the prowl to cut down on public spending, without acknowledging that attempts at fiscal prudence are bound to be a drop in the ocean of the budgetary resources. Austerity is easier to sell, however than explaining miserly growth, high defence spending, growing unemployment, skyrocketing inflation and stagnant export earnings. After all the rhetoric of belt-tightening, it is shocking to learn that federal government’s expenditures (minus debt servicing, defense, law&order and development) ballooned by nearly 50% to PKR 320 billion during the first year of PTI. Clearly, despite the romanticism, the idea of austerity as our governments practice it is rarely worthwhile. Similarly, after the flip-flop on going to the IMF, we have ended up with an “overkill” – agreeing to clearly impossible tax revenue and damaging PKR devaluation targets with the IMF.

Third, PTI has been under the delusion that out-of-the-box rhetoric implies a constructive outlook to build the Naya Pakistan. “To innovate is not to reform,” said Edmund Burke. Through its “Recover-the-looted-wealth” slogan, for instance, PTI sold a highly misleading cocktail of assertions regarding the amounts stashed abroad, as well as the ease with which they can be brought back to fill all our economic deficits painlessly. So far, the government has disposed of just 19 cases and recovered a paltry sum of PKR 883 million. The reason is simple. Even after procuring information about foreign assets, actual repatriation is labyrinthine. Not all offshore wealth is illegally acquired or deposited and separating out that which is legal is not easy, to say the least. Hence the rhetoric to find ways to repatriate black money stashed abroad by Pakistanis is akin to a madcap dash for fool’s gold.

Fourth, PTI’s consistent feed of fiery rhetoric premised on character assassination has been intensely polarising.  To “take the political opponents to task on corruption”, PTI has refused to engage with the opposition leaders and threatened to criminalise legitimate opposition. Given PTI’s wafer-thin majority in the National Assembly and minority in the Senate, this has stalled legislation and marginalised the Parliament, leaving it with no option but to excessively use ordinances. PTI leaders have been happy to address public meetings – a poor substitute for serious legislation or consensus policy-making. The government has put its entire focus on fighting real or imaginary corruption of political rivals, notwithstanding the fact that some of the most tainted people are now part of its political and bureaucratic teams.

Fifth, Pakistan’s outdated political, economic and administrative structures have for long stifled national talent and PTI has only worsened the major dilemma of mediocrity by its ineptitude to comprehend the whole spectrum. The mediocre and the incompetent are happy to impress the boss by taking his rhetoric forward. Mediocrity, devoid by definition of the necessary understanding of issues, has, for instance, conjured up concoctions like the Indemnity Bond prescription to enable Nawaz Sharif to go abroad. After all, without a symbolic fight, the PM’s finger-waving reminders to his opponents about never giving an NRO would be falsified and the support base would perceive this decision negatively unless there was at least a notional price tag attached to it. More recently, despite the Army Chief’s service extension saga, no heads have rolled and the Law ministry has instead received congratulatory public messaging from the PM, outlining that the regime favours incapable mandarins to those with even flashes of genius.

Last but not least, rhetoric breeds rhetoric. Service delivery failures are being compensated for with more bravado noting that “it takes decades to transform a nation”. The standard response to any criticism is that the new political leadership is still in its honeymoon period, any critique is, therefore, mala fide, and that PTI should be given adequate time to show its performance.  PTI may argue with some justification that it faces more serious challenges than the preceding governments. However, with structural problems too glaring to ignore, hopes of good outcomes under PTI, however grandiloquently communicated, are likely misplaced. This is especially so because a fixation with personal ethics has replaced debates on ideological orientation.

Without even venturing to evaluate PTI’s performance against its grand vision (sans administrative/legal specifics) of converting Pakistan into a Riaysat-e-Medina, it is fathomable that a change at the top hasn’t made, and isn’t likely to make, a difference. Pakistan’s reform is inextricably linked with a turnaround in political, economic and civic governance from the federal level to the grassroots to improve legislation, policies, institutions and service delivery. PTI has to cut through the maze of generic Tabdeeli and carve out a prioritized agenda of governance reforms. Not vague concepts or sweeping ideas, but clear and specific areas of paramount priority with a detailed implementation road map.

However, PTI has enmeshed itself in its pre-election rhetoric by preferring populism to statesmanship. Pakistan is currently ranked at 152 (out of 189 countries) – and last in South Asia – by the Human Development Index premised on life expectancy, years of schooling and income per capita reflecting multiple institutional crises. PTI, however, has consistently buckled in the face of opposition from ruthless elite mafias who have captured state institutions and are seriously limited in capacity and intent to narrow the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots. Continuing being hostage to flawed rhetoric as well as fanciful illusions and excessive moralizing will only strengthen demagogy. After all, “nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

The writer is a political economy analyst and a former civil servant who can be reached at goldenstar2005@hotmail.com