Policy debates

The first thing needed to grow up politically

The good thing is that PTI has announced its key policy areas of concern and key policy interventions in the public and well in advance of the elections. They have triggered a lot of debate across newspapers and electronic media. All sorts of people, those backing PTI and those in disagreement with them, are discussing what PTI has proposed and giving their views on policies. This is exactly what was needed.

We hope the other parties will take notice of this and not just limit themselves to critiquing what PTI has put forth, but come up with their own policy priorities and policy agendas. The debate that is generated will, we hope, have light and not just heat, and will give all of the parties issues to think about and ideas that would improve their initial offerings.

So far PTI office holders have been willing to discuss what they have offered to the public. Prominent office holders have been interacting with the public through press conferences, programs on various channels and by writing in newspapers. I am sure they have been reading and hearing what non-PTI supporters and/or experts/other stakeholders or citizens have also been saying about their policies. Listening to people, with due consideration, can only make their policies better and/or win them more support even if they do not agree with a lot of what has been said.

There have been all sorts of reactions to PTI’s proposed economic agenda and policies. Where most people have agreed that the sectors and areas that PTI has highlighted in their agenda are ones that need urgent attention, there has been skepticism about the actual policy initiatives that PTI wants to introduce and implement. Will extension of the tax net and recovery of ‘looted’ money be enough to generate the extra funds that PTI is promising to invest in health, education, social protection and governance reforms? Given that PTI policy agenda has not identified detailed mechanisms through which tax net is going to be extended and/or the ‘looted’ money is going to be brought back, it is hard to estimate what the increase in the overall pie is going to be. Skeptics are right to point out their skepticism. They are also right to ask, given the absence of specific details, what makes PTI think that it can succeed in doing this where other governments in the past, civilian and military alike, have failed.

It is true that sitting out of government and without having the benefit of trying to implement policies and then learning from doing that, PTI cannot offer a lot of detail on how they could implement policies. They can only point out their priorities and detailed implementation plans to a degree. But a lot of things cannot be foreseen and can only be worked out and dealt with when they are in the process of implementation. But the feedback that PTI is getting right now will help them in making their plans better and in realizing the kind of problems they are likely to face when the time for implementation arrives.

Some analysts, especially from the PTI, have defended the lack of policy details by saying that it has never been lack of implementable plans that have let priorities die or plans remain unimplemented. The priorities that PTI has given point out their intentions. And as long as the party and its leadership have the ‘political will’ to tackle these issues and take on the entrenched interests that oppose work in the priority areas, the lack of detailed plans does not matter. This position, I think, is a bit hard to defend and not totally kosher as well.

While the details on policies are missing the analysts are saying that PTI leadership, a lot of them seasoned and known politicians with years of active service with other parties, is willing to take on some of the most entrenched issues in Pakistani politics and has the ‘political will’ to take on the interests that are lined up against reforms in specific areas. This seems a bit hard to believe. Will the Legharis, Tareens, Hotis and Qureshis be supporting agriculture income tax and land reform? Will the Kasuris be supporting regulation of private sector education? And more importantly, will they be safeguarding their own interests and making sure they are not shafted or will they be championing the cause of the people at large? If the latter, it will be quite a transformation from what they have been standing for in their political careers before they joined PTI. If the larger public as well as some analysts is skeptical of these claims of PTI that their leaders have the political will to go against their narrower self-interest and be motivated by interests of the public at large, given the history of politics in the country, or anywhere else for that matter, the skepticism seems well warranted.

A more credible alternative might be to start spelling out some of the policy implications of the priorities that are being set. If education sector is to be reformed and public sector expenditure has to go up to 5 percent of GDP, as announced, which is more than a 100 percent increase, we need to figure out how PTI is going to do that. Given that education has been made a provincial subject by the 18th Amendment, how is public expenditure on education going to go up: what portion will come from the federation and what will be the contribution of the provinces? And given the inclusion of 25A, the right to education, in the Constitution, is an increase to 5 percent of GDP enough? And so on for other areas as well.

PTI has started the conversation. We hope the other parties will follow suit and bring their ideas to the public table as well. And, even more importantly, we hope there will be lots of debate, partisan and non-partisan, on the ideas that are put forward. PTI has taken a very healthy approach to debate so far. We hope they will go even further with that and will blaze this trail for others. Debate is the heart of a democratic process. There will be lots of disagreements through the process, but that is what will, eventually, make policies better and democratic institutions and attitudes more entrenched.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]