30 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 13, 2018

OVER STORY

PAKISTAN

sad Umar, expected to be

Pakistan’s next finance min-

ister, is a tall but reticent

man. Known for his sardonic

tweets, the bespectacled for-

mer chief executive of Pakistan’s larg-

est corporation and the chief econom-

ic advisor in Khan’s inner circle, came

up with a widely shared one-liner on

Election Day last week, hours before

polls had even closed.

“Pakistanis have won the toss and

elected to bat...”

Umar’s confident cricket refer-

ence, which went viral, was clearly to

his own Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s

election symbol, the ubiquitous bal-

la [cricket bat], and its most famous

bearer in the history of the country.

But while prime minister-in-wait-

ing Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi had

taken the same decision—to go to

bat, and very successfully—exactly

26 years and four months ago at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground in the 1992

World Cup final against England, his

historic win in Pakistan’s 10th general

election last week—clearly up there as

one of the more exciting instances in the

charged history of this raucous repub-

lic—is also a moment of reckoning.

Simply put, Pakistan is not doing

too well, and Khan’s got his tasks cut

out for him. According to Bloomberg,

its tanking economy, slowing to 5.2 per

cent growth—with surging imports

and debt, a balance of payments crisis

thanks to a current account deficit of al-

most 50 per cent, the worst performing

stock market globally last year, the fastest

dropping reserves in Asia (which have

hit a three-and-a-half year low) consis-

tent devaluations (four since December),

foreign direct investment barely moving

(0.8% to $2.77 billion for FY18, hardly an

increase), a water and power crisis that

cannot be solved by less than an infra-

structural miracle, and rampant unem-

ployment in an increasingly young and

uneducated country.

The numbers only compound the

deficit of confidence with the US,

dysfunctio nal ties with almost every

neighbour, a ske wed West Asia policy,

lack of financial transparency and bal-

ance with old friend and new financier

China, sporadic terro rism and sectari-

anism in its western provinces, ISIS

build-up on the western border, waning

A