Tuesday, November 16, 2021
#Pakistan - A scary future?
OUR progress in 75 years ranks poorly even regionally. How will it be in our next 25 years’ run-up to 100 years of freedom? Futures studies review current trends to predict the future. Social scientists often fail to even review the past well. Their forays into the future are even more iffy. But by giving multiple scenarios and not one outcome, futures studies give useful insights. I review six key trends.
Demographic: Our numbers may hit 340 million by 2050 against more than 210m now. Some say demographics cause all the crises but they are actually caused by elite politics that exploits the poor, leading to big families. We’ve quadrupled since 1971. Absolute poverty though fell to one-fourth from near 50 per cent to 10-15pc despite slow growth and misrule. Apt policies make demographics a dividend, bad ones a misery. Already, we have the second most illiterate kids globally.
Ecological: By 2050, climate change will destroy fertile soil, cause water wars and increase disasters. As one of its key victims, we may face more mega emergencies, epidemics, migration and conflict as more people chase fewer goods.
Economic: We suffer from long-run slow GDP and job growth, high twin deficits, huge debt and low innovation and competitiveness. Our brief growth eras came via ties with big powers that gave more pain than gain. Ties with the US seem cut beyond repair. China is now our big freebies hope. The US at least aided many states to grow even if it hurt others but China has harmed many states. Our free trade and CPEC pacts upped our external deficit. Ties with China incur US ire. CPEC and Central Asia links via China look like hype. It is also stricter than US with freebies. As these shrink, we still lack Bangladesh’s art of growing steadily without them. A global move away from oil may cut Saudi inflows. So the economy shows few good trends and may fail to tackle the threats mentioned.
A review of six key areas shows negative trends.
Social: ‘Religiosity’ and ‘patriotism’ as well as extremism goad hordes to sacrifice key national interests. The TLP reflects this trend. It could cause huge harm, more than the TTP, as it expands its faith agenda, street power and electoral clout in key Punjab and Karachi areas. A state can’t be both an economic and extremism hub.
External: Extremist trends resemble those seen in other religions and belief systems in the region — all oppose yet feed each other, making this area the most unstable in terms of extremism. India-Pakistan enmity is the main global nuclear risk in future.
Political: Politics is society’s avenue to adopt apt policies against all threats. But for us, it poses threats itself. Political legitimacy via free polls gives political stability, then good policies and finally progress. We are yet to attain even the first step. Our establishment is accused of rigging 13 of 15 national polls by unleashing extremism while leashing liberal and even centrist parties. The 2008-2018 era had political legitimacy which is why it was our best era despite much misrule. But it was nixed and a hybrid regime imposed whose outcomes are worse.
The best governance our society can produce naturally in the near term is the weak elitist one offered by parties like the PPP and PML-N, with liberal forces, being too small to rule, pushing them to make good policies. Even this best level governance will struggle to tackle the threats we face. However, attempts to replace and improve it artificially will only result in worse misrule, like today’s hybrid or even extremist politics. Ethnic gripes abound too from Punjab’s growing sway. All five elected prime ministers and three army chiefs since 2008 belong to the province.
So a review of six key realms shows positive trends in not even one, mainly due to autocracy. Hardly any other state faces this grim mix of demographic and 11 ‘Es’ — ecological, external, enmity, economic, extremism, emergencies, education, epidemics, establishment, ethnic and elitism issues.
These may cause huge future crises that eclipse our many past ones. The worst scenarios are all under autocracy: nuclear calamity, Libya type fate, or more likely a Myanmar one. Political legitimacy promises the best one. We may catch up with Bangladesh and India, but partially as even our best governance levels will be so-so and threats will remain high. An Asian Tiger future, the wild hope of our woolly middle class, is a mirage. But so it is for our neighbours if that calms hurt national egos. By 2050, being much worse is possible, but not being much better.
Progress lies in political legitimacy, the first step. The worst ‘E’ is establishment as it blocks this. Society and external powers must push it on this, for a nuclear nation of over 200m hit by many huge threats may create a global calamity.
Pakistan: Rampant inflation piles on the pressure
Pakistan is witnessing an unprecedented economic turmoil, with the inflation rate rising exponentially. DW spoke to some locals who say it has become impossible for them to make ends meet.
Abid Hussain, 40, a factory worker in Faisalabad city, says he is planning to send his two children to an Islamic madrassa as he cannot afford to pay their fee for a private school. The madrassa offers free education, boarding and meals, he said.
"My wife is not in favor of the children's madrassa education," he told DW. "But I earn around rupees 28,000 (€139) per month, and my income is not sufficient to make ends meet. I pay around 3,000 rupees only for the electricity bill," he added.
Hussain lives in a small house that he shares with his brother and his family. The nine family members are crammed in two rooms, as they cannot afford to rent a bigger house.
Lower-and middle-income classes are struggling to buy basic food items as inflation skyrockets in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Imran Khan's government has come under heavy criticism for not reining in the price hike. The petrol price is over 145 rupees per liter, and the rupee value is rapidly depreciating.
Khan, who came to power in 2018, vowed to fix the country's economy and improve governance, but experts say that after three years at the helm, he has not been able to deliver on his promises. His popularity, therefore, has been waning, and political experts suggest it would be difficult for him to secure a second term in the 2023 general election.
Impossible to make ends meet
According to Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, in the past three years, the vegetable oil price has risen 27% on average. Retail prices for cooking oil, sugar and pulses have also increased manifold since October 2018.
Dr Azra Talat Saeed, a prominent economist, says the gasoline price has seen a hike of 49% in just one year.
An official at Pakistan's Poverty Alleviation Fund told DW on condition of anonymity that they have been flooded with phone calls and applications for financial assistance, adding that even sections of middle-class Pakistanis are applying for educational funds as they want to save money for food items.
Laborer Hussain says he cannot afford to buy fish and mutton anymore. "We can only eat meat on special occasions," he said. "The last three years have economically been the worst in my life because of the high inflation," he added.
Hussain is not the only one who is facing financial hardship. Laal Khan, a 50-year-old cab driver in Islamabad, told DW that his children were recently expelled from school because he could not pay their fee. "Then I contacted the Poverty Alleviation Fund, which paid the fee, but I don't know how I am going to pay the fee for the next month."
Khan said the economic situation was much better in 2018. "I could at least make ends meet, but I don't know how we are going to survive now."
The inflation rate in Pakistan under former Premier Nawaz Sharif in 2015 was 4.5%, which has almost doubled to 8.9% in 2021.
A dire economic situation
Economist Saeed says that Pakistan's 2019 economic deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is responsible for the price hike. "Finance and revenue advisors to PM Khan have acknowledged that the IMF wanted Islamabad to increase electricity and gas prices, as well as taxes," she told DW.
Pakistani finance officials are trying to close a deal with the IMF to release a suspended $1 billion (€0.87 billion) tranche from a bailout package, which Islamabad says is desperately needed to stabilize the country's struggling economy.
In May 2019, Khan's government reached an agreement with the IMF after months of difficult negotiations on a $6-billion bailout package.
The 39-month bailout program is subject to regular IMF reviews of Pakistan's economic policy and growth.
In January 2020, the program was put on hold after Prime Minister Khan did not follow IMF recommendations to increase electricity prices and impose additional taxes.
In March 2021, the IMF released a $500 million tranche, but talks in June to release further funds were inconclusive.
Pakistan's economy contracted by 0.47% in 2019-20 during the coronavirus pandemic, which hobbled the already weak economy.
Prime Minister Khan's top finance adviser, Shaukat Tarin, said last month he was optimistic that the latest round of negotiations on economic reforms with the IMF would result in the disbursement of the $1 billion tranche. In total, Pakistan has so far received $2 billion out of the $6-billion package via the IMF.
Fluctuation in the global market
Opposition parties are blaming Khan's government for the economic mismanagement, but authorities say the instability in the global market due to the COVID pandemic is the main reason behind rising inflation in Pakistan.
"We are not responsible for this inflation," Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, a former advisor to PM Khan on food security, told DW.
"Prices have increased in the global market, and this has had an impact on Pakistan as well," he said, adding that the government has offered subsidies to mitigate the financial hardship for citizens.
Amid the economic turmoil, the poor are relying on charity organizations to avail basic food items. An official at the Saylani Welfare Trust non-governmental organization told DW on condition of anonymity that more people are seeking food items and financial assistance than ever before.
https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-rampant-inflation-piles-on-the-pressure/a-59823980