Pakistan’s fate up in the air as it heads for elections

PAKISTAN seems to be having a respite from turmoil following an injection of funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, even after last week’s jailing of former prime minister Imran Khan. The cash infusion late last month served to tide over the prospect of a debt default as the country’s foreign reserves ran down and threatened a balance-of-payments crisis. Inflation has also eased somewhat, but the country is by no means out of the woods.

As the IMF noted, the country’s problems remain both “complex and multi-faceted”. At one stage, the situation was so dire that street lights across the country had to be switched off, and shopping malls and restaurants were ordered to close at 10pm to conserve foreign exchange needed to import energy supplies.

The country’s economic woes have grown for some years now both because of economic mismanagement and from natural calamities such as the devastating floods last year that resulted in an estimated US$30 billion in damage. Ironically, Pakistan is responsible for 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, yet it is the eighth most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis. And things may get worse as natural stores of water in the Himalayan glaciers melt down as the planet warms. Nevertheless, those are the cards that Islamabad has been dealt and it will have to cope as best as it can.