A seemingly beleaguered Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has now done something that it ought to have done days ago in order to forestall unnecessary speculations about how it looks at country’s relationship with lender of the last resort, International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It may be mentioned here that the PTI government is often accused of reneging on an IMF programme during its tenure that ended prematurely following the then prime minister Imran Khan’s failure to survive a vote of no-confidence against him in 2022.
Be that as it may, it was yesterday that one of PTI top leaders, Omar Ayub Khan, made it clear or clarified that his party never did nor would ever create hurdles in the way of any IMF programme for the country, alluding, perhaps, to the letter that his party’s incarcerated Quaid Imran Khan wrote to the Fund recently through which the latter had been urged not to grant any new loan to Pakistan until a fair and transparent investigation into what he termed ‘vote rigging’ is initiated.
It is true that the country takes loans the burden is equally shared by the general public in the shape of upfront conditionalities that the lender sets for the loan recipient.
Omar’s question that how it is fair that “someone else takes the decisions” and the people continue to suffer, therefore, needs a plausible answer.
In my view, however, writing a letter to the IMF was perhaps a strong reflection of desperation or frustration that had gripped the PTI following what it says massive vote rigging through which it was deprived of as many as 80 National Assembly seats.
The IMF, to its credit, had responded quite soberly, responsibly and prudently to the PTI move amid growing political tensions in the country. In other words, it showed a kind of empathy or praiseworthy understanding of the situation mainly due to the fact that the country’s economy is still far from satisfactory, needing a new bailout as early as possible.
How ironic however it is that political situation is still marred by uncertainties and confusion although two provinces, Punjab and Sindh, are now having new chief ministers following the Feb 8 polls. No one, in my view, knows what more surprises are in store for this country of over 220 million people.
Ehtesham Warraich (Lahore)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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