PTI manifesto

The presentation of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s election manifesto yesterday was a much low-key affair than what could have been a grand occasion if its earlier plans of 23rd March were followed.
To summarise, there is nothing too striking in PTI’s election manifesto to differentiate it from those presented by other leading political parties. The ‘Naya Pakistan’ the PTI promises to build revolves around eradicating corruption, imposing reform emergencies, social welfare and getting rid of terrorism.
The ‘National Emergency Declaration’ is the focal point of PTI’s manifesto, promising to take on the issues such as energy crisis, rampant institutional corruption, exuberant government expenditures, inefficient revenue collection and the appalling human development indicators.
PTI’s take on energy crisis is a well-documented one and has received good press. The PTI energy policy mirrors those presented earlier by energy experts and the Pakistan Business Council. The policy talks about slashing circular debt by revamping the distribution and generation companies, shifting to low cost fuels, rationalising energy prices and eliminating blanket subsidies.
All of this makes good sense, although the unknown variable in PTI’s case remains its track record, especially considering that the most essential component in implementing reforms remains the political will.
The manifesto also talks about ‘Institutional Reforms Emergency’ to completely restructure the PSEs and turning them into either private commercial entities or following Malaysia’s footsteps. PTI intends to follow the Malaysian model of Khazanah Nasional, which is the investment holding arm of Malaysian government, mandated to hold and manage the commercial assets of the state and make strategic investments.
Strangely, the handling of ‘Expenditure Emergency’ by the PTI revolves largely around cosmetic measures such as slashing budgets of PM House, smaller cabinet size, no discretionary funds etc.
Since the party, in its earlier presented Economic Reform Agenda, had discussed these matters in detail, as to how it plans to deal with the devil of blanket subsidies and bleeding PSEs, the absence of concrete measures in the election manifesto is a surprise.
Perhaps the manifesto team saw more value in pitching populist arguments and chose to outline avenues which are high on impact, low on value instead of highlighting concrete measures.
On the fiscal side, taxing all income and holding local elections appear high on PTI’s agenda, in line with the PPP and PML-N manifestos.
How serious were PPP and PML-N in implementing these steps is well-known. It will be a test of character for PTI to actually implement tax on agriculture income and hold local elections. Time will tell how PTI sticks to its promised energy sector reforms, which entails taking several not-so-populist decisions.