Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The financial condition in a broke Pakistan is so grim that it cannot even hold elections, Defense Minister Khwaja Asif said on Friday.
His statement came amid the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressing unhappiness over Islamabad keeping it in the dark about raising fuel prices.
Before him, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had also regretted that Pakistan had no choice but to seek bailout aid from everywhere: “Beggars cannot be choosers.”
Addressing the media, Asif, who had recently revealed that Pakistan was already bankrupt, said its finance ministry has no funds at all for elections, the media reported.
In Pakistan, parliamentary elections are due in October 2023.
For months, the cash-strapped country has been facing a Sri Lanka-type unprecedented economic crisis, grappling with high external debt, a weak local currency, and dwindling foreign exchange reserves. Amid food riots and political battles, Islamabad is also facing Taliban attacks on Pakistan’s army and police.
At a joint press conference he addressed with Information Minister Marrium Aurangzeb, Asif junked as “lies” former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s claims that attempts were being made to assassinate him.
He said that, as Pakistan’s PM until April 2022, Khan first extended the tenure of then Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and now he is now blaming him. Before that, he blamed the US for his ouster.
Asif said that Khan, who is Chairman of his political outfit Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), unconstitutionally dissolved the provincial assemblies his party ruled, but he was ousted constitutionally by a no-confidence vote. Now, he doesn’t want to appear before the courts.
The minister also blamed Khan for imprisoning the PML-N leaders during his tenure. He said he was himself jailed during Khan’s three-year tenure as PM.
The former PM spread a false narrative of a US ‘conspiracy’ but the Supreme Court interfered and saved the country from a constitutional crisis, he said.
Recently, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the government would charge affluent consumers more for fuel. The money thus raised would be used to subsidize prices of commodities for the poor, who are the worst hit by inflation.
Reacting to it, the IMF’s resident representative Esther Perez Ruiz said the global lender was not consulted before this announcement and sought an explanation before signing the agreement.
The subsidy plan envisaged that the rich would pay Pakistani rupees 100 per liter of fuel more than the poor. Those with larger cars will pay more than owners of smaller cars, which are more fuel efficient.
Pakistan has just USD 4.6 billion foreign exchange reserves in its central bank. It is desperate for an IMF agreement to disperse a USD 1.1 billion tranche from a USD 6.5 billion bailout agreed upon in 2019.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan demanded judges take notice of the constitutional violations taking place due to the postponement of general elections.
Addressing PTI workers and supporters via a video link, he said that “the ruling mafia” attacked the Constitution, and questioned who will guarantee the general elections due by October 8, 2023.