Daily Times

Pakistan’s political elite, falling all over each other in their naked lust for power, need to do no more than look at the capital markets to see where their antics are taking the country. Day after day, the equity market haemorrhages hundreds of points, and the rupee sets a new historic low, primarily because of the political uncertainty that has gripped the country like a curse.

That latest round of troubles started when Imran Khan, driven by nothing more than political point-scoring, froze petrol and electricity prices, which threw the IMF bailout program off the rails and brought endless trouble to the economy and the people. The new government, too, took its sweet time in reversing the subsidies to revive the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), out of fear of burning political capital, which later turned out to be true during the Punjab by-elections, and once again, the people had to pay for it, quite literally, through their nose.

And now, as PTI pushes the country towards general elections “as soon as possible,” the threat of sovereign default is staring us square in the face like never before. It can only be hoped that the election for Punjab chief minister today will finally end the uncertainty that has hung over the most important province in the federation since early April when the PTI government in the centre was removed by a no-confidence motion.

This game of musical chairs, in which the country’s senior-most politicians have put their hatred for each other on open display, has gone on long enough and cost the public in too many ways already. If today’s election is followed by more blame games, more excuses and more threats, everybody fighting over the right to lead and represent the people should be prepared for burdening them with unending economic and financial misery because financial markets don’t have much more room to fall without tearing the entire economy down. *