Political instability
Amna Shahzaib
Political stability is one of the crucial factors of a state. It is very important because economic growth will be achieved by political stability. Lack of economic growth and political stability can create negative impacts on a state before the international community. Since its independence, Pakistan has been losing its economic value due to political instability. Despite its good agricultural products and natural resources, the country has been facing an economic crisis due to political instability.
Pakistan was established on the belief that it will be one of the best economic countries and no doubt it was known as a well economic country till 1990. After that due to the negative role of political parties the country faced the darkest chapter of its history, a civil war was held causing a huge economic crisis and resultantly Pakistan was divided into two parts.
After that PPP came into power in 1973, during this period the unemployment rate increased and the poverty level reached 35 per cent, of the country, faced many political hurdles resultantly martial law was imposed in 1969.
After the martial law the regime, in 1990 the general elections were held and Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif played musical chairs because of their negative attitude. They were fighting for the seat, not for the reform of the country but they fought for their negative attitudes toward power, due to that in 1999, again martial was imposed during this period the economic growth rate was a little bit increased but after a new civilian government PPP came again into power in 2008, the economic growth rate decreased to 1.48 per cent due to political ability.
The political stability index showed that the political stability’s rate in 2008 was -2.4% as compared to -1.1% in 2000. Moreover in the PPP government from 2008 to 2013, due to political instability, the rate of unemployment and corruption increased rapidly.
Moving towards the regime of PML-N from 2013 to 2018, the rate of international debts increased resultantly Pakistan faced many economical crises. Moreover, rallies by the opposition party affected economic growth. Due to Imran Khan’s sitting in Islamabad for 126 days the country witnessed very economic growth because trade routes were blocked and business was frozen which resulted in a 600-700 million loss.
Similarly, in Imran Khan’s tenure of 3.5 years Pakistan has also faced economic crises due to political instability. From the very first day, the opposition parties started rallies to discourage the government. For that, the PDM was formed which created the hurdles for PTI to run the system with huge foreign debts, a high unemployment rate and hyperinflation. After the huge struggles of opposition parties, they succeed to remove Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion.
The PML-N again came into government and within 3 weeks the inflation reached from 16.8% to 20.3% due to political instability. Recently, due to the government’s planning failures, the heavy flood destroys crops Pakistan was compelled to import the food necessities from Iran and Afghanistan.
From the above, it is concluded that political stability develops economic growth and Pakistan has been failing to develop economic growth from the beginning due to political instability. Pakistan could be well economic country by taking some measures like proper use of sources, making a proper check and balance to diminish the corruption, making long term policies, proper and regular elections.