It is interesting to note that PML-N chief and prime minister-in-waiting Nawaz Sharif is inheriting relatively low policy discount rate and inflation numbers but a very high fiscal deficit. Five years ago, not only was the country still reeling from increased political instability caused by detention of judges, rising inflation and exogenous shocks such as sky-rocketing oil and food prices of 2007, the newly-elected PPP-PML coalition government that came into existence as a result of the February 18, 2008 vote had begun its journey in an environment vitiated by economic slowdown, a growing fiscal deficit, deepening trade and current account deficits and dangerously rising inflation. The policy response articulated by the then caretaker set-up headed by Mohammadmian Soomro as an interim successor of PML-Q government only added to the country's economic woes.