A caretaker government is meant to run the routine business of the government while the Election Commission holds elections without fear or favour. However, caretaker governments in the past have been the handiwork of the establishment, working through the president. Under the new Amendment, the role of the president is ceremonial, in that, he administers oath of office to the caretaker prime minister and cabinet. In the interest of the political system, the new institutionalised arrangement will force the outgoing government and the opposition to agree on names that do not have long-term ambitions. In this regard, the notion that technocrats without formal political affiliations are more likely to be neutral and respectful of their mandates, is patently false. This does not exclude my own profession of economics. In fact, it is largely the economists, especially from the IFIs, whose good economic intentions pave the way to political hell. As an extension of the establishment, they tend to believe that ‘good’ economic policies can be quickly enforced in a political vacuum and that the public financial system may be freed of corruption, rent-seeking and patronage without any understanding of the political economy and the institutional foundations of ‘bad’ policies. As the revival of the political process either rolls back ‘good’ policies or soft-pedals them, the ‘good’ economists blame the politicians and the political process for failing to deliver and turn to longer lasting unelected regimes. Regime stability is thus seen as crucial to economic stability, which is deemed to be a necessary condition for growth.
The presidential caretaker government in 1988 left a ready-to-sign agreement with the IMF for an unprepared Benazir government. Her government was dismissed on charges of corruption. At that time, the president appointed a caretaker government under Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, which spent most of its time in instituting accountability proceedings against political foes. Even elected political friends were not tolerated for long. The first Nawaz Sharif government was also dismissed on charges of corruption. Moin Qureshi of the World Bank took over as caretaker prime minister. He set out to launch a reform agenda that would have required more than a decade to see it through. Some fundamental measures — like introducing the agricultural income tax and ensuring the autonomy of the State Bank — were taken. But the succeeding elected government had other priorities. The second Benazir government was again thrown out for corruption. Headed by Meraj Khalid, this caretaker government was effectively run by economists. A large number of task forces were established, the important ones being on tax reform, privatisation, throw forward of the PSDP, circular debt and the State Bank autonomy. Loan defaulters were put on notice and the regime went as far as imposing a new National Finance Commission award. Claims were made that the president would ensure continuity of the economic reform. Elected with a two-thirds majority, Nawaz Sharif showed no interest in continuing with the caretakers’ agenda. Soon the president, who was supposed to have protected the reform, was also sent packing.
The 20th Amendment ensures that overzealous reformers will not waste time and energy on transforming economic governance in 90 days, or through prolonged escapes from electoral politics. Good economists had better join the political parties of their choice and take the long route to create sustained political ownership for economic reform.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 17th, 2012.
COMMENTS (6)
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Mr Meekal Ahmed has a very valid question which could have been elaborated for the ignorant or the intentionally uninformed amongst us. Perhaps Mr Pervez Tahir will care to write separately about the havoc, devastation and misery left behind by the technocrat caretakers for the elected governments to deal with. That no elected government was able to clean up the mess, speaks volumes about the nature of democracy in our country, buts that is another volume waiting to be written.
Great job by the elected parliament. Thanks for making the country more democratic. Please keep the unelected backdoor forces away from power.
@Falcon: Yuo make a good point. The solution is for the elected Prime Minister to bring in competet technocrats in the ministry and then bring them to Parliament via Senate. This has been done very successfully in india on 2 occassions: 1) When the then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao drafted as his Finance Minister a retired career bureacrat that had served as Reserve Bank of India governor. The man was Manmohan singh - India's current PM. 2) When Manmohan Singh drafted Nandan Nilekani (leader of the 5 billion dollars IT giant Infosys) as a cabinet minister in charge of the UID project which is a fundamental infrastructure for our governance processes.
PT,
I don't understand how "good economic intentions pave the way for political hell". Please elaborate.
I do differ in the oft-heard view that those of us who are from the IFI's are no good because we don't have an understanding of "ground realities".
What are Pakistan's "ground realities" that are so mysterious that an intelligent person cannot understand them?
That we don't have a culture of paying taxes?
What is so unique about that?
I wish we had more technocrats specially economists siding with political parties...but from what I have gathered from interviews...most of the economists find it simply over-whelming to deal with the pain of traditional politics...that is why the only time we get to see their active participation is either during interim govt. or military rule