Manage Economy
Manage Economy: In 2025, the government made many big promises. It claimed its actions would help the country progress. In reality, these actions mostly helped the rulers survive. They weakened courts, made risky deals with old autocratic allies, and jailed political opponents. All this happened in the name of national progress.
Power Misused
People still hope for change. Last year caused a lot of suffering. The government also needs visible progress to cover up its weak mandate. So, 2026 must focus on growth. The problem is clear. The government has more autocratic powers than any regime since General Musharraf. Yet it mainly uses them to survive. It cannot turn power into real progress.
Slowed Growth
The government followed strict IMF policies. These policies lowered inflation but slowed growth. A national survey shows that people need strong growth to recover from past inflation. The IMF warns that strong growth may not happen next year.
Crony Capitalism
The country must raise investment and exports to grow. So far, the government’s ideas have failed. Its export plan relied on committees of inexperienced people. Its investment plan focused on trips to Gulf states. Despite many meetings, Saudi Arabia and others provided few funds. The country needs industrialization. But the government chases crypto, corporate farming, mining, and defense exports. These efforts may even harm major industries. What we see is crony capitalism, autocratic excess, and weak ability to deliver sustainable progress.
Neoliberal Limits
The main alternative, free-market neoliberalism promoted by the IMF, also has limits. Crony capitalism cannot provide stability or growth. Neoliberalism fails on fairness and sustainability. Some argue that progress needs tax cuts, a smaller government, and deregulation. No major country has grown using this approach alone. For example, China has grown rapidly for decades but ranks low on the “Economic Freedom” index.
State-Led Growth
Global evidence shows that only an intelligent, state-led plan can deliver progress. The government must guide industrial and export growth, reduce inequalities, ensure sustainability, and lower deficits. To do this, it should not blindly shrink. It must remove inefficiencies and strengthen key capacities.
Tax, tariff, and subsidy reforms should support this plan in sequence, like China has done. Reforms without such a plan will fail. Leaders who could create and implement this plan are missing in our political and economic system. For now, the government continues a strange mix: pretending to follow neoliberalism while practicing crony capitalism.
Export Failure
No government in the past has achieved export-led growth. Most relied on import-led growth. During brief growth spurts, foreign reserves fell because imports rose faster than exports. This increased deficits, drained reserves, and forced dependence on the IMF.
Double Challenge
The government faces a double challenge. It cannot deliver export-led growth, and it cannot support import-led growth with enough reserves. Even with modest growth of 2–3 percent, the external deficit rises. Exports stay stagnant while imports increase, despite high remittances.
Civilian leaders hope to boost growth before elections. They want to reduce dependence on the IMF and other pressures. But their efforts may fail because foreign reserves cannot grow. The government will likely keep relying on IMF support and domestic borrowing.
For ordinary people, real relief remains far away. True progress will come only when democracy and civilian influence grow stronger.
Published in Dawn,20th January 2026
