BACK in 2017, around the time that Nawaz Sharif was disqualified and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi took over as prime minister, the PML-N government’s economic policy changed a wee. With a fresh face at the finance ministry, there seemed to be a rethink about the previous policy to keep the rupee-dollar parity stable. The value of the rupee took a hit and the dollar appreciated.

It was not a decision that went down too well, even within the party. Ishaq Dar, the previous finance minister, was vocal in his criticism, which didn’t make it easy for his party colleagues to defend their decision. It was a debate that continued once the elections were over, with a new PTI government in power.

The PTI’s onslaught on PML-N’s handling of the economy was loud and aggressive, especially regarding the latter’s decision to keep the dollar stable. But in this clamour, there were also quiet and introspective voices from within the former ruling party government. Voices that were confident and intelligent enough to concede that the party may have made mistakes — on the economy, or in their ticket selection, or more.

Smooth political transitions tend to allow some level of introspection and course correction.

Then the government turned all its guns on the PML-N. The rhetoric regarding what the party had done to the economy through its obsession with a stable dollar and its impact on the exports and balance of payments was loud. This was followed by corruption cases and the arrests of more or less the entire senior tier including Rana Sanaullah, Khawaja Asif and Ahsan Iqbal.

A besieged PML-N became defensive and tribal and the debate for it turned as black and white as it was for the PTI. The very same people who had been wondering if their government could have done something different began to defend their party on every decision and every policy. Nuance no longer had any place in this debate.

The reaction was understandable. With the kind of onslaught the party faced, why would it bother with any introspection? It was simply trying to survive the inquiries, investigations and cases. Two years after the2018 election, a senior PML-N leader, in a background discussion, went so far as to say that his government did the right thing by keeping the dollar stable for it curbed inflation — he said this in reference to the plight of ordinary people.

Editorial: We are almost back to the point where the previous PML-N set-up had left the economy

The remark was hard to forget — for someone who was aware of the downside of the earlier policy, why would he now argue the exact opposite? But the change in view also revealed the larger problem of our flawed political transition, which does not allow any introspection and course correction within political parties.

One reason for this is obviously the victimisation as described. But the second reason was that Noon no longer had to deal with the consequences of its economic policy. Having been robbed of what it thought was its rightful victory in the election, the battered party watched the PTI deal with the economic mess, smug in the belief that it would have been able to manage the situation much better. Its claim that it would have dealt with it more effectively could not be challenged, for it was impossible to find out. As a result, the party could comfortably turn its guns on the government, blaming it for the harsh IMF conditionalities, the inflation and more. The PTI in turn blamed it all on the PML-N, and did little problem-solving.

The point to this lengthy (and perhaps boring) account of recent history is that the forced exit of political parties via elections prevents the kind of introspection needed for long-term policymaking. Had the PML-N won the 2018 election and struggled with economic challenges partly of its own making, it would have perhaps realised the hazards of short-term feel-good policies. The electorate would also have realised this when the PML-N would have been forced to implement policies similar to the ones the PTI implemented. But this was not to be — never has been. And perhaps this is one reason for the economic abyss we find ourselves in.

A similar scenario may play out now. If Imran Khan loses this vote of no-confidence, he will no longer have to deal with the bad decision he recently made to reduce petrol prices. Chances are the political price will be paid by someone else. And Khan will reap the benefits, by holding forth on the relief he gave and how his opponents took it away.

Smooth political transitions tend to allow some level of introspection and course correction, which then feed into policymaking (and perhaps even consensus-building). But if exits are forced and due to factors other than the election, as we can see, all parties learn is how to manage their relationship with the powerful rather than realise how short-term polices do not eventually stop the electorate from voting them out, once the responsibility for fixing the wrong decision also falls on the same party.

This is also why consensus-building (which we love dreaming of in terms of a charter of economy) is a dream, as well. Such consensus is formed if the economic factors are seen to be critical to coming to power. As we can see, the only consensus among all our warring parties is that in order to come to power, they need to cosy up to you know who. And if they lose power, it has little to do with their performance, which is why all parties now pursue exactly the same policy vis-à-vis the establishment. But on policymaking they have learnt little because political transitions have no inbuilt lessons about economic policies.

This perhaps is also a reason political parties are also so vague about how to deal with economic problems. There is little to offer beyond Econ 101: we need to increase our exports with few concrete ideas. Reducing expenditures, dealing with the SOEs, raising revenues are best avoided, for obvious reasons. The price we pay for our flawed political system is far higher than we realise.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2022