It seems the stars are finally aligned and we can expect a resumption of the IMF bailout program very soon because the government and the lender have been able to iron out their differences regarding the budget for the new fiscal year, even though the long-awaited staff-level agreement hasn’t yet taken place. And the fact that nobody has signed on the dotted line yet made the rupee turn course very quickly after finally rising for a bit in early trading on Wednesday. The money market, at least, will trade on the news rather than the rumour. Now that the worst is behind us and everybody is looking ahead–rightly so–perhaps, it wouldn’t be amiss to ponder over how and why we got into such a tight spot over a loan that was agreed upon and signed years ago. The need to revive it arose because it was suspended in the first place, of course, and it wouldn’t have been suspended if political opportunism hadn’t got the best of former prime minister Imran Khan in his last days in power. Not only did the ill-timed and inopportune fuel and power subsidy stall the bailout program, which his own government had agreed with the IMF, but it also sent the economy into a tailspin and blew a giant black hole in reserves. That’s why the Fund attached harsher ‘prior conditions’ with the program’s resumption. If only it hadn’t been derailed, we’d have been getting the money we signed for on tough terms but not quite as tough as the government has had to agree to now. And even now that we are within striking distance of getting the money that we need for our very survival, the opposition is still bent upon portraying it as some sort of a sell-out. It seems our politics and the machinations of our politicians hold our progress back more than anything else. Regardless, even if the bailout program isn’t quite in the bag just yet, it won’t be long before it is. *