Pakistan's ruling elite currently has a minority government led by the Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister. This follows weeks of political unrest following February elections that were manipulated and rigged on orders from the military high command to prevent jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party from winning. It is.
The new government of the world's fifth most populous country will be asked to impose vicious austerity measures at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is dominated by US imperialism and global capital.
There's a reason why it's widely considered “weak,'' “unstable,'' and “unpopular.''
Sharif's 19-member cabinet was sworn in last Monday, but his government's main agenda is predetermined. The austerity policies and capitalist restructuring (privatization, deregulation, etc.) dictated by the IMF will continue and expand. The plan is the same as that implemented by the previous coalition government led by Shehbaz Sharif during its 16-month term from April 2022 to August 2023, with an appointed caretaker government to “oversee” the general elections. It has been strengthened below.
The entire system is committed to IMF policy. But deep divisions exist over how best to implement politically explosive reforms. The government is also expected to maintain a servile relationship with the US-backed military, particularly regarding the country's foreign and security policy. Pakistan has been ruled by the military for nearly half of its existence, but in recent years Pakistan has faced a series of economic, political and geopolitical crises that have increasingly bullied and dominated the civilian government. .
Under pressure from Washington, the military has deemed Imran Khan and his Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party unfit to assume the presidency as early as 2022, prompting a vote of no confidence in parliament. organized the collapse of the government through
However, the February 8 vote involved blatant and widespread interference by government agencies and the military aimed at preventing the PTI from returning to power. This included denying the right of candidates to run in their own names, which backfired badly. The PML-N and Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the two traditional parties of Pakistan's establishment and the main components of the coalition that succeeded Imran Khan, won 73 and 54 seats, respectively. Meanwhile, PTI-backed “independent” candidates emerged as the most powerful group, winning 93 out of 266 parliamentary constituencies.
Despite this rebuke, the military continued to demand the government eliminate the PTI. Army Chief Syed Asim Munir rejected the popular vote and took the military's own demands to Islamabad's political elite. “The nation needs stable human resources and a healing touch to move forward from the politics of anarchy and polarization,” Munir said in a statement, adding that any form of PTI participation in the government would be acceptable to the military. He effectively declared that he couldn't do it.
In his statement, Munir referred to nationwide protests by PTI supporters against Khan's detention by paramilitary forces during a court appearance last year. The protests included attacks on several military installations and the residence of at least one senior officer.
Both generals played key roles in Khan's own rise to power in 2018. But conflict arose over the reversal of some of the IMF-mandated energy subsidy cuts in the face of widespread popular protests and, most importantly, Mr. Khan's defiance of Washington. At the outbreak of the Ukraine war.
Underscoring the involvement of the United States in the behind-the-scenes struggle to form a new government, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was summoned to Islamabad and met with US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Brohm. As Islamabad's elites struggle to withstand a “shock election,” a special envoy from Washington is collaborating with a former foreign minister from the previous government led by Shehbaz Sharif to “form a federal government,” according to a Feb. 12 report. They were talking about it. dawn report.
However, those most involved in integrating the new government ultimately wanted to distance themselves from it. Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister and dynastic leader of the big business PML-N, arrived in Pakistan in October after four years in self-imposed exile in London and became the party's much-touted prime minister. I ran as a candidate. Despite passing verdict after verdict against Khan and the PTI, Pakistan's top court judges have removed all his previous convictions in various corruption cases to qualify him for office. Shelved it. But after the election, the elder Sharif appointed his younger brother Shehbaz as prime minister in a potentially short-lived government.
The PPP has refused to join Shehbaz Sharif's cabinet because the government cannot survive without its support. It also reserves the right to assist governments on a case-by-case basis. This is an obvious attempt to separate the name from the socially destructive and politically disastrous policies that the government will inevitably implement. However, in exchange for support for the coalition government, Asif Ali Zardari, the PPP boss notorious for being a corrupt political conspirator, became president.
A powerful section of Islamabad's elite recognizes that the new government installed by the military is viewed as illegitimate by the majority of the population. The sweeping anti-democratic measures deployed against the PTI sparked widespread public anger and mass protests.
The latest of these measures would give the PTI any of the approximately 70 parliamentary seats “reserved” for women and “religious minorities” and distributed to it based on each party's seat share. The election commission's rejection weakened its position. Conversely. PTI-elected independents are part of another political party, the Sunni Muslim Ittihad Council (SIC), which, according to precedent, allows PTI supporters to be nominated under the SIC banner. It was supposed to be done. However, the Election Commission ruled 4-1 that the SIC should not approve this, as it had not submitted a list of candidates for the designated seats before the election.
Ruling elites are concerned that the PTI, which has cultivated an image as an “outsider” party, will show opposition to IMF austerity. This is even though it served as a flexible vehicle for the IMF during its tenure, and the front benches of Imran Khan's government were filled with spearheads of General Pervez Musharraf's US-backed dictatorship.
There is no question that Khan and his PTI benefited electorally from widespread public sympathy due to arbitrary persecution by the military and courts.
But the February 8 vote was above all an expression of anger and opposition to the military's enormous power and reach, and to the traditional establishment as a whole. This enabled Khan, a former cricket star, to attract support far beyond his traditional base of urban professional middle classes.
With an eclectic mix of messages, Mr. Khan has spoken out against austerity and U.S. imperialism, and the attacks that have devastated neighboring Afghanistan and exposed millions of people in Pakistan's tribal areas to years of drone surveillance and attacks. He seditiously presented himself as an opponent of the war. But he has repeatedly shown a willingness to mend relations with Washington and, above all, accept a dominant role for the military in Pakistan's politics and government. His government implemented two rounds of IMF austerity, the harshest in the country's history, resulting in a significant decline in public support before he left office.
The new government took office amid an unprecedented and protracted social crisis created by years of austerity, privatization, and economic reforms, resulting in dire economic conditions. This crisis is exacerbated by natural disasters caused by climate change and the catastrophic mishandling of the global coronavirus pandemic. The Conservative World Bank estimates that 40 percent of Pakistan's population is below the poverty line. The prolonged period of high inflation over the past two years has led to soaring prices for daily necessities. Prices continue to rise at an annual rate of 34%.
Sharif appointed political outsider Muhammad Aurangzeb as finance minister. He resigned as CEO of Habib Bank, Pakistan's largest private bank, to take up the position. Aurangzeb, who is also the former CEO of JPMorgan Asia, led a four-day review with the IMF that began on Thursday to secure the release of the last tranche of the $3 billion emergency loan program. are doing.
Aurangzeb was selected for the finance post because of his close ties to global capital, but the IMF accused him of submitting a document claiming that Pakistan “meets all structural benchmarks, qualitative performance criteria and indicator targets.” He received severe punishment from the authorities. The IMF review was successfully completed. ”
President Aurangzeb announced on Tuesday that Pakistan would use the review to begin negotiations for more than $6 billion in additional loans from the IMF. He indicated what conditions would be attached in a statement conveying the IMF Board's decision to release the previous tranche of the loan. He called for “wide-ranging reforms to improve the fiscal framework” that would cut social spending and increase tax revenues, as well as “cost-oriented electricity sector reforms”. The latter is a euphemism for eliminating subsidies and other measures that make the sector “lucrative.”
It also advocates for a “market-determined exchange rate” to ensure that the entire depreciation of the Pakistani rupee is borne immediately by the impoverished masses. Pakistan's currency was Asia's worst performer last year. New financing will necessarily include tough reforms related to these measures that will lead to further impoverishment of the population.
In response to questions from dawnOn March 8, the U.S. State Department reported that it urged Pakistan to “continue to work with the IMF and other international financial institutions to implement long-overdue macroeconomic reforms.” Given Washington's dominant position in the IMF, its support is essential to ensure Pakistan's security. Another financing system.
The revival of Pakistan-US relations, which deteriorated badly after the ouster of Imran Khan in 2022, is almost certainly linked to Islamabad supplying weapons to Ukraine through back channels. But as the United States prepares for war with Iran to strengthen its dominance in the Middle East, Islamabad has also become increasingly confrontational with Iran on issues ranging from trade to cross-border security. There will be pressure to take a stand.
Islamabad's capitalist elites believe that there is overwhelming opposition among the population to the imperialist-supported genocide in Gaza, and that this crime was possible because of the active role of American imperialism. I am well aware that it is widely recognized that This will add fuel to the flames of long-standing anti-imperialist sentiments among the people. The complex crisis facing Pakistan shows no signs of letting up. Rather, a weak government is on the verge of conflict with the masses, whose aspirations for true democracy and egalitarianism make them irreconcilably opposed to the coalition's obedience to the IMF. Governments will adopt ever more authoritarian forms of governance as they seek to impose further austerity measures, while ceding more say and power to the military to ensure continued support. .
