The Prime Minister’s Candour

Pakistan to prioritise its relationship with Saudi Arabia, despite allegations of the unfortunate incidents

Right before Prime Minister Imran Khan’s departure for Riyadh, media reports quoted the Prime Minister as allegedly saying Pakistan was “desperate” for Saudi aid. The reports claimed that Khan had conceded that Pakistan had to prioritise its relationship with Saudi Arabia, despite allegations surrounding recent unfortunate incidents.

The unfortunate incident the PM allegedly referred to was the killing of Saudi citizen, American resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a former insider of the Saudi royal establishment, had recently fallen out with the House of Saud, after dissenting against the agenda of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman. Khashoggi regularly wrote columns in The Washington Post criticising the policies of the young, but immensely powerful Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman and raised an often-lonely voice of dissent against what he referred to as the curbing of social and media freedoms in the Kingdom. He wasn’t the only one to dissent in the face of the all-powerful Saudi royal establishment, but he was peculiar in the way that he had been a close ally of the establishment formerly. Don’t act surprised when your friend with an ear, turns into an enemy with a mouth.

A few weeks ago, Khashoggi disappeared into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and never resurfaced. The Kingdom confirmed that Khashoggi had been murdered and the saga has continued to unravel since. In response to the murder, many leaders of industry, politics and technology cancelled or deferred trips to Saudi Arabia as they refused to attend the glitzy economic forum, a brainchild of the Crown Prince, also known as “Davos in the Desert.”

Amongst all the hundreds of people to be affected by the murder, from Riyadh to Istanbul to Washington, the Prime Minister also found himself in a peculiar position. The PM was scheduled to visit Riyadh for the conference in what would be his second visit to the Kingdom in just five weeks as he sought aid from friendly countries to counter or at least minimise what would surely be excruciatingly stringent conditions placed by the IMF on Pakistan as part of their bail-out, potentially strangling economic growth in Pakistan. The bigger the bail-out from the IMF the greater the strangling of Pakistan’s economy. Days before the conference however, with rumours of a Saudi bailout abound, the Khashoggi bombshell dropped.

The Prime Minister through his aides has vehemently denied the above-mentioned reports as being out of context and false. Yet, with or without the report, two things are clear; there is no denying that the Prime Minister is aware of the murder in Istanbul and the alleged connotations it holds; however, there is also no denying that a country of 210 million people may be facing the worst debt crisis in its history and that the Saudis are a much kinder form of bail-out than the IMF.

While many significant personalities declined to attend the conference in Riyadh, there were still many of the same who did show up. Oil industry leaders such as Patrick Pouyanné of the French oil company Total and Paal Kibsgaard of Texas-based Schlumberger, the world’s largest oil-field-services company, showed up and were part of a standing ovation as Muhammad Bin Salman surprised the conference with his appearance. Zero points for recognising why it was important for these leaders of the oil industry, to show up at the Crown Prince’s conference despite allegations surrounding Khashoggi’s killing. As the Crown Prince watched his conference, sitting beside him was King Abdullah II of Jordan who also maintains crucially good relations with the Kingdom.

Amongst all this, the PM made a lightning quick trip to Riyadh, stopping to make a token appearance at the conference and quickly moving on to the raison d’être. Six billion US dollars, that is half of Pakistan’s financing needs of twelve billion dollars and is an infinitely crucial amount, especially at the moment for Pakistan. Few countries in the world today are willing to provide this much to a country that has reserves worth just around twice that amount. From a financing point of view, it’s a no-go for any lender, unless it comes with excruciating terms and conditions, ie, the IMF. Yet, the Prime Minister was able to secure the bailout deal for Islamabad when it needed it most perhaps, and at a time, when few of its friends, if any, were willing to provide such help.

But then there are the allegations surrounding the murder, the international suspicion and the desertions. Do the optics of the situation look bad? Possibly. Is the deal a bad one for Pakistan? Absolutely not.

This is where the Prime Minister’s candour comes into play. The PM admits that the murder was tragic, and there was need for accountability to make sure this does not happen to anyone else in the future. Yet, he proceeded to power through his trip to Riyadh as the international community turned its back to the Kingdom. He knew his trip put him against the international run of play, so to say, as international leaders cited principles that are dear to any country, freedom of expression, the right to life, as the basis for dropping out of their respective visits to the Kingdom. The trip also in no small part potentially exposed him to questions being raised about his visit from within Pakistan. This took candour and gravitas. Imran Khan knows that his deal with the Saudis could possibly result in greater exposure for him personally in terms of moral liability, even potential condemnation; questions are already being asked as to what we had to give to the Saudis to get the deal; but he made a tough decision and went ahead with the deal because he recognised Pakistan’s need on a realpolitik basis and prioritised it perhaps even before his own political soundness. It was a difficult call, it was unsavoury and it could potentially be personally damaging, but it was good, nay, necessary for the people of Pakistan. That is the Prime Minister’s job, and Imran Khan did it. It may have been an awkward innings but ultimately, it’s a century for Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.