PAKISTAN UNDER IMRAN KHAN: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES

In 2018 Imran Khan Niazi became the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan after defeating the deep-rooted political groups that had been exchanging their turns in power for decades. His Political Party (PTI, Pakistan Tehreek-I-Insaf) had never been a strong power at the national level but promised a change naming ‘tsunami’ to create a ‘New Pakistan’. And this current government of PTI is struggling really hard to achieve their goal by fulfilling their promise to bring a positive change.

                                                                              

As soon as Imran Khan enters the 2nd half of his 5year tenure as Prime Minister, the circumstance doesn't seem well firstly because of his own government’s weaknesses t of the inherent shortcomings of his own administration, and secondly due to the external factors and forces harming the economy. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf holds a majority in the Lower House i.e, National Assembly, however, doesn't control the Upper House i.e., hindering Khan's capacity to completely establish his administrative plan. Despite the fact that he faces a discredited and fractured opposition, yet turmoil in Afghanistan and an uncertain economy will influence his capacity to cope the conditions prevailing in Pakistan.

The PTI got to work with an alliance of partners from different groups. Some had supposedly been convinced by the military's influential Inter-Services Intelligence to drop their association with PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) and either join Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or run as independents. Others were those opportunists who have hopped from one group to another just for the sake of their power and career. This broken government of PTI found it difficult to work with such people for the development of Pakistan. However, it waded through, supported by a similarly broken opposition that botched to mount a bounded challenge to the current government.

A genuine economic crisis aggravated emergency by the COVID-19 pandemic forced Imran Khan to look for external aid, including from the IMF, an organization he had been criticizing as a hegemon throughout his political career, and from both Saudi Arabia and China. In 2019–20, the economic growth rate of Pakistan dropped to 0.4%. It is presently mounting at 2–4%, yet this is still well beneath the 7% or more is required to stay ahead of Pakistan’s population growth.

International Monitory Fund’s Pakistan program is in hold with its sixth and seventh surveys being creased into one. A significant element will be the proceeding of Pakistan with poor Fiscal circumstances and failure to expand incomes to support its development arranged financial plan. Many consider the expansive financial plan as a break with the grimness of the past and a first bang in the endeavor to win the following elections expanding the spending. It is likewise developed on some sketchy suppositions about expanding incomes on the rear of a drop in worldwide energy costs. If the expanded development rates can be kept up and noticeable spending on improvement projects encourages expected voters there is a probability of early elections.

Global specialists don't have a particularly certain perspective on the country's financial possibilities in spite of certain hints of hope. Pakistan hopes to get some transient space to breathe from an allocation of some 2.8 billion US Dollars Special Drawing Rights with the increment in the International Monetary Fund's capital base.

Foreign Exchange Reserves of Pakistan likewise rose up, supported by a flood in remittances. The restrictions on air travel are easing back the progression of illegal money, driving individuals to utilize the official frameworks of the State Bank. It is expected that the remittances in the coming year of 2022 would be around 31 billion US Dollars. Foreign Exchange Reserves are approximately 20 billion US Dollars, albeit the greater part of them is accessible as needs be. Coronavirus additionally didn't have a similar destroying impact as it did in India.

But Direct Foreign investment dropped and Pakistan stays in the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list which monitors the illegal money traveling along with financing the terrorists in spite of having tended to 26 out of 27 concerns that placed it on that grade. Pakistan had effectively fallen off that rundown in the year 2015 and presumably could rehash it, however, it fears that political issues might be the reason to keep Pakistan on the grey list.

Relations with America will be vital here, particularly as Afghanistan has effectively gone under the control of Taliban the America climbed to the exit. This makes home-grown issues for the American government, and it might keep on faulting Pakistan for supporting the Taliban. If the Western Powers along with America withhold economic aid and diplomatic recognition from a Taliban-led Afghanistan, Pakistan will confront an extreme choice

Should Khan Government recognize the Taliban-led Afghanistan and risk turning into a worldwide pariah once again? Russia, Arab States, and China may yet offer it political cover for acknowledgment of Taliban-led Afghanistan. The first trial of tacit American provision for Pakistan will come in the last week of September or in the start of October with the completion of the review by IMF. If the IMF report supports the continuation of all its programs in Pakistan we ought to expect that America offered weight to the assistance of Pakistan in dealing with the Taliban and American exit from Afghanistan.

In the month of November 2022, Imran Khan should choose a replacement to his benefactor and patron in running Pakistan, Qamar Javed Bajwa, the Army Chief. He seems to have constructed a cozy relationship with and reliance on a competitor for the post, Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, the current DG of Inter-Services Intelligence, There is also a possibility of a shorter extension for Qamar Javed Bajwa. Assuming that occurs, Hameed along with other senior competitors will retire before the 3rd term of Bajwa expires.

But fickle politics of Pakistan might modify that landscape, particularly if the economy travels south. General Bajwa will likewise be rearranging the deck of the military's VIP this October as few officers retire. What occurs in the following half-year might decide the future authority of the military and the possibilities for the re-election of PTI and Imran Khan