Cover Story

The World Bank and the IMF have played a pivotal role in shaping the global economic landscape and improving the lives of millions in Pakistan and South Asia.

The pros and cons of IMF programmes and World Bank loans have been widely debated across the globe.

As the World Bank and the IMF hold their annual meetings in October, the former would be pressed to move into new activities. The most important change will be to provide funding to the developing world, including Pakistan.

Despite the two major PDM parties believing that ruling the country is their legal inheritance and its people exist to do their bidding, the caretaker government has a sacred duty to fulfil.

The evolving environment may push Pakistan from a hybrid democracy to a praetorian rule. In that case, Pakistan may be prone to either follow the example of the government in Myanmar, or it may become an Egypt of South Asia, obviously with catastrophic consequences.

It is an open secret known across the legislative, judiciary, and executive branches of Pakistan that for every organ of the state, the written law is far different from the ground reality.

The events of the past few months have made it clear even to the most dense that the will of the people has nothing to do with the way their country is governed.

The Caretaker Government must be authentically impartial, not an extension of the post-April 2022 arrangement: ECP should take a lead role in ensuring this neutrality.

Any unconstitutional move by any one of the institutions would have disastrous effects on the security, internal stability, economy and international standing of Pakistan.

There is no indication of the political parties gearing up for the hustings yet. The usual electioneering that should have started by now, with just weeks left for the dissolution of the National Assembly, is all quite inexplicable. So, what is cooking in the corridors of power?

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pakistan’s former prime minister, was recently interviewed by a leading news channel. The following are the excerpts taken from the interview.

The symbiotic Pakistan-U.S. defence relationship created a perfect need-based fix – one partner needed war to achieve its ambitions of hegemony while the other was addicted to weapons and petro-dollars.

For Pakistan, the best way forward would be to earnestly understand U.S. goals in the region and determine what role, if any, it can play to support these goals.

Let’s write a new chapter, one that maximizes Pakistan-U.S. relationships and epitomizes a bond that defies conventional boundaries, intertwining both nations and their people across numerous dimensions.

To sustain and strengthen Pakistan-U.S. relations, the two countries will have to find more ways of reducing differences and expanding areas of mutual cooperation.

The era of blank checks is over. So, should it be for our “transactional” relationship with the U.S. which also needs to be rebuilt as a “new deal.”

The words are taken from the speech delivered by Donald Blome, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan.

This article aims to identify one specific, significant aspect of the process that has led to current conditions: the disrespect for time-limits prescribed in the Constitution.

Elections may not bring immediate calm or reduce the people’s anguishes but it will set the country in the right direction.

The miserable 98 per cent of the 245 million population of Pakistan will remain doomed to multiple demons of elite exploitation, feudalism, poverty, illiteracy and terrorism.

When the Constitution is violated and state institutions refuse to hold elections within the given timeframe as per the constitutional provision, the failure of state and its institutions is always on the cards.

We all are well-aware what is happening and how fast Pakistan is getting mired in an inexorable situation. However, the fundamental question is how are we going to come out of it and develop attributes of a normal nation?