General elections of 2018 were one of the historical elections Pakistan had ever witnessed mainly because for the first time ever a third political party ousted the two party’s system out of the power corridor. PML N and PPP were replaced by the PTI and it emerged as the largest seat grabber in the polls. It was quite astonishing, for his critics, in many ways that Imran Khan after his struggle of 22 years was now going to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
From the day of this Government’s advent it was quite evident that the crown of Prime minister ship is going to be very exigent and taxing for Imran Khan. And it was quite vivid in the initial few months of the Government that it is going to be very difficult for them to fulfill the sky-high expectations that were pined upon them since the day of this Governments inception. The two humungous challenges that this incumbent Government of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) had to face were; economy and bad governance. They were welcomed with the crumbling economy that was at the verge of default with foreign reserves of two weeks in national exchequer and the extensive trail of bad governance.
PTI very persistently used the election rhetoric of not going to IMF but owing to the hanging sword of national default it was forced to do so and hence the first U-turn of the Government emerged on the national spectrum. This Government had to take this economy’s bull by horns and in order to do that certain decision had to be taken that became the cause of intense inflation in the country. It can be said that the Government peddled its reforms agenda in FBR, state bank and economic divisions and after that it had to face the resistance from the trader’s community. The results of these reforms are becoming fruitful for Government in the last few weeks of 2019 as World Bank appreciated our ease of doing business and furthermore the rating agency Moody increased Pakistan’s rating from negative to Stable. This is an achievement for the economic team, but real success would be to transform this stabilization into trickle down affect that would reach the common masses because they are yet to cherish the economic stability in their lives.
Apart from the economy another concern for the Imran Khan’s Government was good governance and this topic entails every department within in the jurisdiction of the executive and provinces. In these past 14 months, most of the criticism on the Government came due to lack of the governance model which Imran Khan promised before elections. The selection of Punjab’s Chief Minister was hugely contested within the party and mainstream media that how on Earth Imran Khan could hand over such an important province to the man who joined PTI two months before elections and clearly lacks the administrative capabilities that are required to run the biggest province of the country. Unfortunately, in the first year of its 5-year tenure, the performance of PTI in Punjab is below average. The agenda of Police reforms has been pushed under the carpet. There has been constant reshuffling in the bureaucracy of the Punjab but according o the critics there is the need of only one reshuffle on the post of CM but despite of all this Imran Khan is still standing firm behind Usman Buzdar and I think is the only one who still thinks that he is going to become Wasim Akram Plus.
PTI’s stance on the accountability was the driving force of its political struggle over 22 years and now when Imran Khan is in the Government people want to see that looted money back that have been allegedly money laundered outside ofPakistan. Government has established an asset recovery unit and on 3rd December 2019, its first victory was witnessed when with the co operation of UK’s National Crime Agency Pakistan was able to get the 190 million pounds worth of the property in the Hyde Park. But opposition parties are continuously raising their reservations against National Accountability Beaurea and they say that Government is using state institutions against its opposition parties as according to them, Imran Khan holds political vendetta against them. Last month when Nawaz Sharifflew abroad on health grounds, many heads were rolled that Government is doing reconciliatory deal with the opposition by giving safe exit to NawazSharif. But Imran Khan has unequivocally stated that he would not enter in any kind of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) with any opposition party as according to him if he does so he would become the biggest traitorof his nation. On the contrary the slogan of accountability is the only binding force for the PTI voters who have been standing by the Government despite the governance issues and economic recession. The compromise on accountability would change the political fate of this government and till now we can say that the rigid stance of Imran Khan on across the board accountability is evident of this fact that Prime Minister has fair realization of this scenario.
Another big challenge this government had to face was Azadi March of Maulana Fazal ur Rehman that created quite a stir in the Capital for over a week when thousands of madrassah kids under the leadership of Maulana and other opposition parties demanded the resignation of Prime Minister on the grounds of rigged election but ironically for over a year these parties have been unable to produce one proof in election commission to substantiate their claims. The sit in was called off after few days but it gave rise to many conspiracy theories regarding “Maulana Araha Hai “and“Maulana Jaa Raha Hai”. This expeditionfurther aggravated the gap between Prime minister and the opposition that would eventually affect the legislative process in Parliament where bothare supposed to form laws and regulations.
On one front, Imran Khan emerged as the brightest and strongest and that was the foreign policy front of the Government. In the last 14 months Pakistan has emerged as one of the significant international players. In this period Pakistan has hosted high level foreign dignitaries and head of state. One day Imran khan is driving Muhammad Bin Salman from Noor Khan Airbase to PM house, receiving Malaysian, Emirati and Qatari head of state and on another day, he is hosting Duke and Duchess of Cambridge then flying to Iran to mediate between them and KSA. The international stature of the Prime minister pushed Pakistan into limelight. The role of Pakistan in Afghan peace process has increased its importance for United States of America as it was quite evident when Imran Khan visited USA earlier his year. After the revocation of Article 370, Pakistan has been very vocal about the Indian atrocious in Kashmir and Prime minister’s speech in UN General Assembly was a big hit where he single handedly exposed the RSS-Nazi nexus and forced the world to not forget Kashmir due to the unfortunate economic compulsions of the international politics. Overall Pakistan is also ahead in the domain of the Public diplomacy in the region after the opening of the Kartarpur corridor to the Sikhs pilgrims.
But despite of these achievements in foreign policy, the real challenges lieat home where there is the dire need to put our house in order first. There are still very big question marks over the competence of the cabinet ministers and lethargy of the beauracracy. At the end of the day it isthe general public that needs to be satisfied and till now PTI is still struggling with that. It can be said that it would be unfair to compare the performance of the three-timeruling parties with that of the Government that is one year old. The pragmatism would require to give this government time as still for many the current prime minister is the only hope for the nation but on the other hand he also needs to realize that running a country is different from running a cricket team as there is the need of more patience in former. Imran khan still had to cross a long road ahead for which he needs to pull up his sleeves and buckle his shoes up to give the people of Pakistan what they deserve the most; A strong, prosperous and welfare state.
