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.

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.

Beyond these setbacks and the PDM government’s underperformance, what did this period mean for the country’s politics? An overarching aspect of these months of political crisis, natural disaster and upheaval was the deepening polarisation in the country.

When calamities strike, they usually unite nations. But the worst floods in the country’s history did not persuade political rivals to temporarily cease their squabbles and offer a unified response to the catastrophe. Politics was back to business as usual save for a few days after the deadly monsoon began to wreak unprecedented devastation across the country. With opposition leader Imran Khan on the warpath, no effort was made by either side to ease tensions then, or later.

The intensifying confrontation between the government and opposition kept the country in an unsettled state of uncertainty, with deleterious consequences for an economy in the critical ward.

The PDM government seemed directionless and its dithering exacerbated the economic crisis.

Another aspect of the post-April 2022 period was the absence of any serious or sober debate among political parties on the multiple challenges facing the country. In fact, a ‘new normal’ took hold in the political culture. Argument was replaced by invective, and civility by toxic rhetoric as the political discourse plunged to an unprecedented low.

Political rivals daily exchanged inflammatory statements as if engaged in a terminal conflict. This obviated any meaningful discussion of policy issues, much less generated solutions to the country’s problems.

Another unfortunate trend in this period was that state institutions became the target of partisan attacks in the raging political battle. Criticism of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by Khan and his party was frequent and virulent with the chief election commissioner being constantly asked to resign. PML-N leaders for their part, often taunted President Arif Alvi for compromising his office’s neutrality.

The senior judiciary was criticised at different times by all the major parties. This was an inevitable consequence of party leaders taking their political disputes to the court and then assailing courts when decisions didn’t go their way. The military establishment too came under unprecedented pressure and faced mounting criticism from political leaders for either intervening in the political game or not intervening on their side.

Whether it was the establishment, judiciary or ECP, if their decisions or actions were seen as favourable for a political party, they were applauded. When the opposite happened, they were accused of being biased.

The most consequential development in this period was the deteriorating state of the economy and the inability of the PDM government to manage the situation competently. While the economic crisis was the cumulative result of years of dysfunctional economic policies, mismanagement of public finances and political instability, the government’s dithering and indecision exacerbated the crisis.

Foreign exchange reserves dwindled to a precarious level, inflation soared to a 50-year high, the rupee lost record value against the dollar, exports fell and remittances from overseas workers declined. With foreign debt at a record high and the external financing gap unbridgeable in the absence of new inflows, the risk grew of a sovereign default. International rating agencies downgraded Pakistan’s credit rating to junk status, highlighting the high level of default risk.

Assurances by the finance minister of having the situation under control were increasingly discounted by the market and business community. His frequent public references to the Fund for being “unfair”, “unreasonable” and acting “abnormally” hardly had a calming impact on nervous markets. Meanwhile, procrastination over prior actions needed to conclude the agreement with the IMF came at an increasing cost to the economy.

This was reflected in depleting reserves, falling exports and the precipitous erosion of market confidence. The Fund’s insistence on undertaking all reforms as prior actions had much to do with the lack of confidence in the government’s economic managers.

One year of PDM rule has been a lost opportunity in many ways, but also in the lack of effort made to forge a consensus on an agreed date for simultaneous provincial and national elections.

Notwithstanding Khan’s inflexibility, it was the government’s responsibility to try to evolve such an agreement to calm down the situation and end the uncertainty. In the absence of this, the country’s political and economic future appears more troubled than ever.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK & UN.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023