Recently, both Miftah Ismail and Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar announced on Twitter that they are going to organise seminars all over the country to form a consensus on their campaign to re-imagine Pakistan. Ismail has listed a number of human development deficiencies in the country as the cause of concern on Twitter. This is after he has been writing high-profile opinion articles since his ouster as the finance minister on problems that the country faces, and offering some of the solutions as well.
In hindsight, it was all part of image and profile building exercise.
https://twitter.com/MiftahIsmail/status/1615292982709600256
The typical methods that the establishment has perfected over the decades to create new political groups and parties are to raise the profile of the main protagonists through direct and indirect facilitation, to arm-twist other political leaders to join such initiatives, and then to launch them.
But what sort of track record does Ismail and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi offer? Other than implementing the IMF instructions of passing the burden of high petroleum and electricity prices to the poor and increasing inflation and devaluing currency, what other achievements can Ismail and Abbasi boast about when they were in power?
This chest-thumping on problems that Pakistan faces and possible solutions might just be soundbites to catch public attention. It is good that Ismail is using top-notch social science and economic research to present his argument. But there is always this possibility that others are feeding him this data. We all know the problems. No one names the elephant in the room – the establishment.
The establishment deeply dislikes the PML-N and PPP because they covertly defy its policies. Nawaz Sharif wanted to normalise ties with India for his personal business interests and Punjabi elite that wants good relations with India to progress economically. The establishment’s bloated defence expenditure is extracted on the basis of threat from India, so it does not want Pakistan's geostrategic significance to give way to its potential geoeconomic potential.
The typical methods that the establishment has perfected over the decades to create new political groups and parties are to raise the profile of the main protagonists through direct and indirect facilitation, to arm-twist other political leaders to join such initiatives, and then to launch them.
Both the PML-N and PPP are against terrorist groups. They perceive terrorism to be holding the country back from developing. The establishment has an ever-changing policy of good versus bad proxies for its internal as well as regional policies. The establishment is at odds with aspirations of the PML-N and PPP. Corruption is not the issue despite the decades-long public posturing regarding it.
The establishment propped up the PTI first and used all of the might of state institutions to make it popular from 2011 onwards and win the 2018 election and form the government.
The establishment in its quest for resources might want to undo the 18th Amendment and the 7th NFC award that gives substantial resources to the provincial governments. Ismail-Khan-Khokhar group might want to do this bidding of the establishment as well as be on the same page with other key policies of state institutions.
https://twitter.com/mustafa_nawazk/status/1614979460654039040
If these likeminded people are serious in bringing any change in the country, they should name the elephant in the room – the establishment – for retarding the country’s progress for many decades and strengthen the old political parties so that some semblance of civilian supremacy is established in the country.
Once civilians are empowered, they would have to focus on improving human development and governance in the country as they do not have the barrel of the gun and the only legitimacy they can earn is based on their ability to please their potential voters. Voters will only be pleased if there is socio-political and economic progress in the country.
The route to salvation is political, not technocratic. Everyone knows the problems and solutions. The process to implement the solutions means making hard choices and it can only materialise by embedding civilian supremacy in the country -- and not with new experiments.