Our economic and heart ailments

The character of our political leaders determines the character of our democracy. There is no shame in accepting that the type of political leadership we get is the type of political leadership we deserve. We are a nation that still charms itself with the possibility of return of the wicked to rule us. Those that reached the political summit — our ex-PMs and military dictator Presidents — had their political as well as personal ambitions. But their personal ambitions drove them to the political corners that are now well known by the people. The worst thing some of them have done to this country is corrupt the very machinery of the government which functions and enables any leader to deliver on his ambition. Today the machinery of the government rots and the chief executive’s decisions, no matter how noble, either hardly turn to action or even if they do the action is grudgingly reluctant and slow. At least that is the general impression because the change that was promised by the current government is painstakingly slow.

There is no deficit of power at the political summit — there never has been. However, what is different today is the nature of the government machinery. Investments by the previous governments in the hands that pull the levers of the government machinery has made the whole machinery sick and in need of transformation and reform. The tragedy is not that the response of the government machinery to the current government has been sluggish, the real tragedy would be if the reason to this sluggishness is not clearly understood by the government and measures not taken to reverse the trend.

Frustrated with the limits of his ability to get things done and give impetus to his reform programmes, PM Imran Khan must rebuild and reform the government machinery — the systems and the procedures and those that lead them to get things done for the government. In the previous times, when the system and the procedures didn’t work, those sitting at the political summit blamed many conspiracies at work which prevented them and their ambitions to take the shape of the reality. In the end, it was the deep state that was always blamed for those failures. The good news with the current government is that it is good friend with the state to which it hardly addresses as deep. Interestingly, in the last three years the government has pulled many power levers in the government machinery to know which power lever functions and which doesn’t. The across-the-board accountability within the political structure and the removal of some of these dysfunctional levers in the government machinery is indicative of this crucial political awareness of the current government. I do hope that the government continues pulling these levers to know which of these levers work and which don’t because there is no other way but to rebuild and reform the government machinery.

When you occupy the highest office at the political summit there is no shade and it is very difficult to hide behind any political mask. The entire nation is waiting for some judicial verdicts to clearly determine the morality of politics and the personal character of some of our leaders who were the occupants of the political summit in this country in black and white. Yet, it is not as if the people don’t know the type of leadership they are dealing with. The big mistake by those who occupied the highest office at the political summit was to imagine that exercising power was like operating a machine — pulling the right levers to get the things done. Yes, it was as long as they enjoyed the power of the office they assumed. Once out of that office it is the pull and push of the people and their hopes and their fears which will determine whether some of them will ever return to the office and occupy the political summit again. The residents of the political summit and the occupiers of highest political office may have employed military, economic or diplomatic means as instruments of power to deal with any crisis, but once out of office it is the people — the most important instrument of politics — who decide whether they return or don’t return to office. Whose side are the people and what are they thinking?

In the last few days two of our ex-occupants of highest political summit in this country made headlines that were not well received by the politics’ greatest instrument — the people. A senior PPP leader, who has served as PM and is currently the opposition leader in the Senate, chose to stay away from the House on the day the government moved the key SBP bill. Despite having majority in the Senate, the opposition failed to prevent the government from getting the bill passed. The second case is of another ex-PM, Nawaz Sharif, who submitted his latest medical report to the Lahore High Court in which interventional cardiologist Dr Fayyaz Shawl has advised him against travelling as “travelling could worsen his condition”. But the ex-PM made a mockery of this report when he was seen in a video travelling hundreds of miles away from his residence and visiting and inspecting a factory — visibly looking extremely fit and very healthy.

We have a situation where the medical reports of our ex-PM say that he has an unhealthy heart yet his actions depict that he is very fit. We have another situation where the world economy is having a heart attack but our present PM is determined not to allow his country to fall sick. Two important questions are faced by our nation today. One — are we happy with the return of the wicked to the political summit with a risk of staying as we are, with nothing changing? Two — are we prepared to face the risk of a period of difficulty for the need of change?

An indispensable quality of a good leader is stamina — resilience to get things done with sheer force of political will. With also the right compassion for the oppressed and dispossessed and no personal greed for money or power, the current occupier of the highest political summit in this country poses an existential challenge to all his competitors, most of whom are ageing, sick and seem more determined in their words than actions to have the will to once again climb the highest political summit.

What Pakistan deserves is not the return of the wicked to the highest political summit but the continuity of any righteous, virtuous and honourable to occupy that space. In any case, there is very less room at the top for everyone — not much so for any of the corrupt and dishonest.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2022.

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