Pakistan collapsing at Shehbaz speed

Shehbaz speed was the ultimate fetish for the boys, who never really had much patience to begin with. That magical unicorn in Pakistani politics who shows up with boots on the ground when Lahore floods with rainwater and doesn’t make
any pesky asks around turf or staying within constitutional limits. Shehbaz was the perfect antidote — the boys thought — to Imran Khan’s charisma and stubbornness (because beggars can’t be choosers and all that jazz). And Shehbaz could keep eleven political parties onboard — including his brother — preventing them from asking questions the boys didn’t want asked. Ten months later, Shehbaz Sharif delivered at a spectacular speed. It’s just not the kind of delivery anybody wanted or expected. Even his own son and brother would rather stay in London than come back to Pakistan to own or fix this mess.

At this point in the misgovernance journey, we’ve run out of cliches to communicate the sheer scale of the disaster unfolding in front of our eyes. Is this a plane crash with 230 million people onboard and the pilot being too busy addressing the passengers about air traffic control or the previous pilot versus actually taking charge of the situation? The economy is nose-diving with factories shutting down. Raw materials for exports and life-saving medicines are unavailable because the country doesn’t have dollars and inflation is spiralling out of control. Regardless of whether we have technically defaulted or not, this is an economic disaster. And unfortunately, the party’s just started. Maryam Nawaz, on her grand return to Pakistan, asked us to repose our trust in Ishaq Dar, the very pilot driving our economic engine to the ground.

It’s one thing to have an economy running on fumes. It’s another to replace a finance minister who was at least trying to do the right things and replace him with someone who accelerated this economic disaster just because your brother and his daughter in London asked you to do so. Are you the Prime Minister of a country or a puppet for your brother and the boys? Do you have no point of view or do you have no ability to enforce your point of view? We’re seeing disastrous policy outcomes on the economy, terrorism and political stability. There’s no leadership on any vector. It feels like everything is collapsing at once.

If you’re the head of a family or the Prime Minister of a country, it’s fair for you to blame external factors for why you might be struggling. Things happen. Life is tough and the boys are rough. We get it. You’re not wrong. But where you are wrong is that after assigning blame, you don’t make any attempt to make things better. You deflect all responsibility versus taking responsibility. You don’t try to get even the things in your control right. And you don’t struggle to expand your sphere of influence over external factors. And it’s okay if you genuinely don’t have the spine to do it. But then get out of the way and let others lead. Don’t hold a country of 230 million people hostage to your cowardice, fear and decision-making paralysis.

What have you done over the last 10 months that is worthy, notable or improved the lives of the Pakistani people? An economist friend of mine was lamenting how he got trolled on Twitter when he wrote a critical article about Imran Khan but not when he wrote a critical article about Shehbaz Sharif. I told him that while abusive trolling is condemnable, I challenge you to find a single supporter of Shehbaz Sharif on Twitter and I’ll find you the troll. They simply don’t exist. Who in the world supports Shehbaz Sharif as PM, apart from the boys and the motley crew of political alliances they’ve cooked up to keep Imran Khan at bay? Even members of his own political party are hosting conferences on re-imagining Pakistan outside of the ambit of their political party. The Prime Minister of Pakistan’s own son and brother are refusing to come back to Pakistan!