Pakistan's year of lost opportunities

The Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition will complete a year in government next month. What has this period meant for the country? How has it shaped politics and affected governance? For a start, the ruling coalition has little to show by way of improved governance.

- MALEEHA LODHI

It has instead been defined by its bloated cabinet — the largest in the country’s history. The appointment of a legion of ministers and special assistants — that too for a short-duration government and many without portfolio — had little to do with the needs of governance but everything to do with rewarding friends and allies for their political support.

The ruling coalition has lacked any policy aim or direction. It has been a rudderless affair for much of the past year, with Sharif unable to make the transition from a provincial to a national leader adept at running federal affairs.

His modest communication skills also laid bare his limitations while his previous reputation as a ‘doer’ has not been in evidence during his premiership. Instead, decision-making has been marked by vacillation and dithering, most consequentially on the economic front.

The change of finance ministers a few months into the government’s tenure came at a heavy price — delay in the IMF’s loan programme. This compounded the economic crisis and drove the economy to the brink.

Meanwhile, PML-N’s main alliance partner in government, the PPP, purposively showed no interest in economic policy in an obvious effort to distance itself from the tough, unpopular economic measures the PDM government was obliged to take for a Fund bailout.

For PML-N, its failure, despite several efforts, to gain control of the Punjab government (until the provincial assembly’s dissolution in January) was one of its biggest political setbacks. Its poor performance in a series of by-elections in Punjab demonstrated that its position in its traditional and only provincial stronghold had dramatically weakened.