The Imran Khan story doesn’t have a happy ending.

[KhanBaba2]

Its not nice as of now due to inflation... bit the inflation is due to currency devaluation and to reduce budget deficit which we have already achieved. So we r in problem as of now but we have already taken hard decisions and future will be better IA

Yield of bonds is an indication of what outsiders think your economy will be like in future.

 

[Lincoln]

People need to closely look at history to get a perspective of what happens in pakistan politics : A cycle that repeats every 15-20 years!

The pakistani army , which has done multiple coups and when not in power operates as a shadow govt and yet never held accountable for anything, neither for wars lost nor for the economic mess created. So basically this hybrid form of government has corroded pakistan from within and weakened it.

So what is the cycle? almost any prominent politician in pakistan in the past or today was brought to the fore by their army.

A) Zulfiqar Ali bhutto: Brought by ayub khan and rewarded for showing loyalty to the army in the initial days
B) Nawaz sharif : Propped by pakistani army intelligence as a counter to Benzir bhutto, his steel mills which was nationalized by Zia where returned
C) Imran Khan: Brought in to counter Nawaz sharif

So what happens? there is always a threshold on how much a politician in pakistan can grow , he will inherit the problems of the past which were an outcome of this hybdrid style of governance with zero accountability on particular party(army), so when this problems will continue to grow the current player starts getting the blame, which will further frustrate him and make him feel helpless, powerless, he moves against army, this is when the army strikes back and you see a new player emerge and the vicious cycle repeats!

For those who abuse bhutto and sharif for everything wrong in pakistan, two things that you harp the most about here
1. Relations with china
2. Nuclear bomb

Was a brainchild of bhutto, your army was not in favor of having friendship with china or building a nuclear bomb. And this guy was hanged, lol

Nawaz Sharif's election win was due to ISI, that's what we know. Who knows how many more elections they tried to influence.

 

[third eye]

The problem for Indians and Dawn is that Imran Khan is to stay here.

On the contrary , IK staying suits India & Indians the most.

 

[ejaz007]

This forum has recently turned from Pakistan Defence forum to PTI defence forum. There are reports criticizing PTI and then there are people mostly living outside Pakistan defending what is happening inside Pakistan.

 

[The Accountant]

Yield of bonds is an indication of what outsiders think your economy will be like in future.

Its not like that our domestic interest or inflation is giving a different number.

Our domestic discount rates and inflation are also at same level and it is not a surprise. We opted these corrective measures for reduction in bidget deficit and current account deficit which we achieved. Since the target is achieved corrective measures are no more required and inlation and discount rates are expected to come down in the next quarter.

On the contrary to your claim credit rating agencies has improved our rating outllok from negative to stable

 

[Zibago]

THERE are times you have to feel for Imran Khan: here was this glamorous socialite having fun on the London party circuit, who now has to contend with issues like fiscal reforms, inflation and IMF conditionalities.

When he was manning containers and leading his youthful followers like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, he would never have guessed that being prime minister was such hard work. As it is, many would say that apart from playing cricket and fund-raising, he had not done any actual work to this point.

In fact, it has been one long party thus far: the prime minister says he doesn’t run a kitchen or own a car. So popular is he that his friends provide everything he needs. He did raise some eyebrows when rich pals underwrote his expenses to Davos where in his speech, he informed his audience that without a little help from his friends, he couldn’t have made it. One Dutch minister was reported to have remarked that in his country, senior officials were not allowed to accept expensive gifts.

But here we are, in the midst of a tanking economy, with a leadership that appears incapable of understanding the nature and depth of the economic crises we face. And why should it? If the prime minister has never run a kitchen, can he possibly gauge the pain that inflation is inflicting on ordinary people?

Imran Khan has spent over 20 years plotting to become the prime minister. You might have thought that some of this time would have been devoted to preparing for the job. But I suppose that dharnas and rallies take up a lot of time.

For years, he struggled in the wilderness without much support until out of the blue, he apparently caught the eye of our political managers. His opponents were ruthlessly brushed aside, and against all odds, he was duly installed as the prime minister. The rest is history.

But this story doesn’t have a happy ending: the establishment was convinced they had bought a winner, but their horse continues to stumble at every turn, and appears to be incapable of ever taking the lead. All that this government is good for is making speeches on Kashmir. So now our political engineers are faced with the choice of this dispensation running the economy into the ground, or sending its leadership to the knacker’s yard.

If you think I am exaggerating, here are the facts: revenue targets have been missed by miles; inflation has gone through the roof; the deficit has exploded; and exports are far lower than the IMF had led our negotiators to believe. Without a single silver lining, people are being told to hang in there because somehow, someday, things will get better.

But it appears that Khan continues to believe that once he has thrown all his opponents into the slammer on corruption charges, milk and honey would start flowing across the land. His administration is now learning the hard way that there is more to governing than making speeches, jailing political opponents and strangling the media.

Hard work is needed on a sustained level. When I worked in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat years ago, I found Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to be a workaholic: no matter where he was travelling in the country, a courier would return every day with the current files he had taken along, meticulously annotated with the green ink he used. His daughter had displayed a similar work ethic.

With Imran Khan, I’m told, it is very different: apparently he turns up late at office and returns early.

This would have been fine if he had a decent team he could delegate to. But as it is, the lack of talent available to him has been cruelly exposed time and again. They either don’t brief him properly, or have no clue themselves. Our managers had parachuted in ‘experts’ to help them, but they have proved just as incompetent as the rest.

Without any real answers, the current leaders are left to rave and rant about conspiracies and plots against them.

Inwardly, the prime minister may long for the good old days when he was in the opposition, manning the barricades, and criticising the leadership of the PML-N and PPP. Now, he even has to spend time in the very parliament that he abused. Ah, those were the days…

Fast forward to 2020 when the PTI is having to find an accommodation with the establishment and placate an increasingly restive populace. Apart from those supporters who aren’t bothered about inflation, the government is taking a lot of unaccustomed flak. Nobody told Khan that being prime minister was such hard work. Nevertheless, having the top job (apart from the army chief) has an allure of its own.

As the lines from a musical go: “Nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you try.”

irfan.husain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2020

Yes but no
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/cpne-criticises-proposals-for-advertising-policy.652083/

then there are people mostly living outside Pakistan defending what is happening inside Pakistan.

Nope I live and work in Pakistan

 

[ARMalik]

Street Shi.tters and their Favorite newspaper Dawn ........ match made in Heaven!!

 

[Nowshera]

Why does the Pakistani press produce so much vitriol against Imran Khan? I don't remember the same against Nawaz Sharif despite Pakistan's struggles at the time

 

[The Accountant]

Why does the Pakistani press produce so much vitriol against Imran Khan? I don't remember the same against Nawaz Sharif despite Pakistan's struggles at the time

Because they are getting paid to write this previously they were getting paid not to write

 

[Agnihotra]

Not really he is the best thing that happened to India in a long time.

Niazis have special love for India, one gave us Bangladesh and another one gave us Kashmir.

Pakistan should elect third Niazi and India will gain much more i believe.

 

[airmarshal]

These Dawn writers are such morons. Sometimes it feels they write to appease their foreign masters, whoever they may be.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

May be Khan will win in his Quest may be he will not but one thing is clear to me this nation doesnt deserves a honest leader. Demagoguery has been the way of men from Socrates to now. Cold hard facts are never liked by common citizenry. Ignorance is truly bliss my friends and in our case its the only truth from our Etho-religious conflicts to Economics woes our ignorance is the root cause of all our problems.

History will vindicate Mr. Khan.