PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif proudly announced on Tuesday that completion of the one-year coalition government marked a successful tenure that resulted in Pakistan’s restored credibility, and overcoming of the country’s financial and energy challenges. Turning to Twitter on completion of one year in office, he pointed out that his government largely succeeded in establishing Pakistan’s credibility as a partner and friend. He said that despite the economic landmines laid by Imran and the disruptions in global fuel and food supply lines, Pakistan’s economy continued to stay afloat. The Prime Minister also stated that reconciliation and cooperation, instead of confrontation and vendetta marked the new politics post-April 22.
Shehbaz Sharif is known for his administrative skills and as a deliverer as far as concept visualization and speedy implementation of projects and programmes is concerned and performance of his government over the last one year puts a seal of confirmation on his reputation as he succeeded on many fronts despite various odds and challenges. While commenting on the overall performance of the coalition government, one must take into account the enormous pressure that strained working of the government. There was constant political instability, the opposition remained on roads almost throughout the year, the largest province of the country was managed by the opposition and a flurry of hostile judicial verdicts. In spite of all this, the government adopted policies that helped avoid a widely-feared default. The commitment and sincerity of the coalition government can be gauged by the fact that it sacrificed its political capital for the sake of restoration of the national economy. It introduced a number of measures that were considered as bitter pills for the people who expressed their annoyance during all the by-elections held in different parts of the country during the last one year. However, it is because of those very policies that today the country is confident to move ahead even without clutches of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which has been changing goal-posts frequently for the release of the suspended tranches under the agreed programme. This is despite the fact that the government had to divert huge resources for massive floods and incessant rains that caused havoc in South Punjab and Sindh and the country paid back over $10 billion of its loans. No doubt, donors made worthwhile commitments but they are taking time to materialize, forcing the Government to allocate additional financial resources to help mitigate sufferings of the affected people and initiation of programmes for revival of the damaged infrastructure. The government has fared well on the external front as the shattered confidence of some of the close friends has been restored and they are now more than willing to extend cooperation to Pakistan to bridge over its difficulties. This is evident from the constant flow of aid from China and commitments made by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Apart from challenges on political and judicial fronts, the Government also faced increased onslaught of terrorism, forcing it to arrive at a decision to re-launch counter-terrorism operation. As for national reconciliation, the Prime Minister repeatedly offered talks to the opposition to sort out differences and evolve an understanding on the economic direction of the country but all this fell on the deaf ears of the opposition. It is because of multi-pronged challenges and difficulties that experts highlight completing one year amid political, economic and judicial impasse is nothing short of an “achievement” in itself. The government, however, could not deliver on its pledges of checking the upsurge in inflation and stability of the exchange rate. If the PTI government was unpopular, it was mainly because of its inability to put a halt to the rising prices but the coalition government too contributed to this phenomenon. Different mafias are as active as they were during the tenure of PTI and this is evident from exploitative tactics being employed by the sugar and wheat mafia to jack up prices of these essential commodities. The massive devaluation also owes its existence to rampant smuggling of dollars to a neighbouring country and controversial conduct of the commercial banks but the government so far has not been able to respond to the situation in an effective manner. The Government surely deserves credit for measures like free distribution of wheat flour to provide substantial relief to the poorest of the poor but the scale and magnitude of the price-hike makes it an urgency to compensate the fixed income groups.
