Daily Times

Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher once famously cautioned Benazir Bhutto, herself a political colossus, against what is called the mid-cycle dip in electoral cycles. Governments tend to start on a good note with the hangover of the euphoria from the election lingering for a while. Then, their popularity tends to dip somewhere around the mid-point mark. And then, how they deal with the dip and to what extent they are able to appease the masses decides their chances of re-election.

We’re just moving out of the mid-point of the present electoral cycle in Pakistan. And it is very clear to see that the ruling party’s popularity, as well as acceptance in the masses, has been severely dented. Yet it is not very likely that it will be able to bounce back in time for the next election. A number of points are very important to read the writing on the wall.

One, the opposition is getting together again, and there are chances of the People’s Party coming back into the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) now that it realises the folly of leaving it. That is precisely why the ruling party has, out of sheer desperation, decided to hold a few public rallies of its own. But despite the threats hurled during these processions, it is very unlikely that they will be able to forestall the PDM’s planned rallies and an ultimate march on the capital. The PTI has already started reacting instead of acting, which shows that it is running out of options.

Two, the opposition is uniting just when crucial allies are beginning to distance themselves from the government. The decision to first call a joint session of parliament only to cancel it just hours later brought unprecedented embarrassment to the ruling party only because it got to know, at the very last moment, that allies were not on board and it would have risked outright humiliation by going ahead with the session. Therefore, from its point of view, cancelling the whole thing and taking the embarrassment that came with it was the lesser of the two evils.

All people need to do to know about high prices is go to the store to get necessary kitchen items, not wait for some index that comes out at the end of the week or month.

Three, the economy is now completely out of control. The gamble with the expansionary budget failed very badly and the boasts that electricity and gas tariffs would not be increased at least in the ongoing fiscal had to be taken back rather shamelessly. But there’s still no sign of the announcement from the IMF that the finance advisor, Shaukat Tarin, says has been agreed for more than two weeks now. The last desperate bid to get some fiscal elbow room by begging for a loan from the Saudis, which lifted the equity market and breathed some life into the rupee last week, has also not turned up; leaving everybody guessing about what is going on. Meanwhile, the stock market turned and the rupee tanked once again. Now, it is at its lowest level in recorded history, hovering around 175.73 to the dollar when markets closed last week.

Four, since the government has been unable to do anything about inflation, despite making all sorts of promises, people’s patience has now been exhausted. First, it blamed previous governments for high prices in its own time, without bothering to explain just how that might even be economically possible. Then, it blamed mafias for what it called artificial inflation. And now for the last few months, it has been taking cover behind the spike in international commodity prices. But when nothing happened, it just ordered publication of the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), which is announced weekly, to be issued monthly instead; hoping that it would make people angry once every four weeks instead of once every week. Perhaps, they just forgot that all people need to do to know about high prices is go to the store to get necessary kitchen items, not wait for some index that comes out at the end of the week or month. It is the similar desperation that has led the government to delete records of legislation initiated from parliament’s website, precisely because it hasn’t advanced any legislation to speak of and chosen to rule by presidential ordinances instead.

And five, the same-page mantra has finally been rubbished and there is growing daylight between the government and so-called establishment. With its powerful backers no longer backing it, the government is suddenly left to fend for itself, and it’s not feeling very comfortable. It turns out that the army of loudmouth yes-men is only effective when it has some solid backing. Without it, it’s just noise.

So now, just as we in the opposition have been warning for more than three years now, this government has wrecked the economy, and with it, people’s lives, to the point that there’s nobody to cheer for it, except the few that would gladly take night for day and day for night just because the kaptaan said so. Even the coldest analysis, devoid of all emotion, will tell you that this mid-cycle dip is going to extend all the way to the next election.

The writer is a LUMS graduate and currently serves as PMLN MPA. She is a close aide of Maryam Nawaz and tweets at @hinaparvezbutt