Elections 2018: Is The Awaited Change Finally Coming?

Last five years of Pakistan have proven to be historic and evolutionary in nature. It has witnessed the rise of Judiciary as a powerful institution and in these years, we witnessed what appeared to be sincere and firm steps towards addressing the problem of corruption. The maturity of Pakistan’s politics was evident from the fact that despite many instigative measures from culprits within, no corrective actions were taken. All institutions continued to operate within their roles but for a change, some institutions broke free from the political pressure and started doing their real jobs for the benefit of the country. Such measures have raised the hopes of the nation slightly but still there is a long way to go. Pakistan is so far is facing major socio-economic problems and the root cause of almost all of the problems plaguing this country is lack of sincere leadership with a profound vision. The dilemma is that almost all political parties currently operating in Pakistan and competing for seats of power either have no vision, or their vision is myopic in nature. This, however, shouldn’t be surprising as Pakistan has no leadership currently and the nation is governed by celebrated criminals among which people tend to choose the lesser of the evils. By bringing the lesser evil into power for 5 years we realize that somehow this evil has surpassed all existing evils and the cycle continues. All members of governments, despite the oaths they take, are sincerely interested in making themselves wealthy while doing very little for the country. The little that they do, is restricted to their 5 year tenure, they fail to define policies, fail to strengthen institutions and fail to initiate long term developmental projects as the benefit of such projects may be reaped by preceding governments. Due to this insincere approach Pakistan is now faced with a set of problems which have accumulated and become larger than life. Our external debt at the moment is around USD 91.8bn and it is projected to rise to USD 103bn by June 2019. It may seem astonishing as such debt makes no sense when we look at the country’s situation, as there’s nothing which may justify these numbers, which only means that this debt is attributed to corruption only. State of Healthcare and education systems of Pakistan is appalling. Government hospitals are overcrowded and there aren’t enough resources to effectively address concerns of all patients. Private hospitals are solely focused on enhancing their profits rendering them out of reach for the common man and their diagnosis is not for the well being of the patient but rather on increasing the patient’s bill. Public schools are in worst conditions with ghost employees receiving salaries but not showing up for work. Most of the public schools are deserted and their buildings are in questionable condition while many being used as venues for conduction events for the leisure of influential and corrupt individuals. All aid received for the purpose of education and health is being used for increasing wealth of the same corrupt individuals. Pakistan’s current account deficit, signifying the sad state of country’s earnings to its expenditures, has increase by fifty percent in just nine months and it now stands at 5.5 percent of our GDP. Our import bill is alarmingly high and our revenue is not rising, in fact it has declined. Almost 50 percent of our imports are necessities and almost 50 percent items which we can live without. Oil is a major import of Pakistan and an increase in its price will significantly increase our import bill. Furthermore, a major chunk of our budget is attributed to debt financing which restricts the funds available for development. All this is resulting in a sharp decline in PKR’s standing against USD. This rise in USD price coupled with the rise in oil prices has resulted in high rates of inflation. For the common man this means a rise in the price of basic necessities. These problems coupled with unemployment and extreme poverty means a rise in crime rate and if not tackled effectively, may result in a collapse of our society. In the face of all these challenges we have a set of politicians who offer nothing but promise while contesting 2018 elections. They are eager to express the promise that they will solve all problems of Pakistan but they refuse to explain how they intend to do it, clearly reflecting the sincerity of their approach which is evident from the fact that 60 percent of the individuals contesting elections do not pay their taxes. Pakistan’s people are resilient and they eagerly cling on to hope which has been the country’s main strength and this time they are more hopeful as they see that the battle against corruption has finally started. While, there is much hope associated with these elections it needs to be seen whether we have learnt from our mistakes and are willing to take a long term visionary approach towards a better future.